The Invasion of Boogie’s Clubhouse

It was a late Sunday afternoon, the sky, overcast with dark ominous clouds hanging over our heads. If it hadn’t been my birthday the day before, I may not have felt so lucky. Every Sunday, for the past four weeks we snuck into Boogie’s Clubhouse for the most epic Minecraft challenge of all time. Today was the Finals and the stakes were high: the losers had to do the winner’s math homework and buy him a free bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos every day of the week. Yep, today was my day.

There was only one way to get into the clubhouse and only three of us knew the way. First, you had to come from behind the garage, hop the fence, ring the cowbell hidden under the dog’s water bowl and wait for Boogie to shout “Password!” from inside. Besides Boogie, only two other people knew the secret password to get in, Andy and me. Or so we thought.

Andy got there before I did, because I had to finish helping my mom clean up around the house after last night’s dinner. I told her turning eleven wasn’t that big of a deal, since I’d already been in double digits for a whole year, but she still made us dinner and had some cousins come over. I insisted that if she made a cake I didn’t want any singing, because singing is for babies and I was more grown-up now.

“Finish putting away the dishes and then you can go,” mom said. “I need to run an errand. Lock up before you leave.”

“Okay,” I said.

With the dishes dried, I raced over to Boogie’s.

The driveway was packed with cars, so I tossed my bike over the fence and rang the cow bell.

A high-pitched “Password?” came from inside the clubhouse. The voice threw me off. For a second, I forgot what it was, but luckily it was etched on the dog’s bowl. “Sir Barks-A-Lot!”

The door slowly opened and I went in.

“Surprise!”

Out of nowhere, I was smothered with kisses and pats on the back. Uncle Dan, my teacher Mrs. Olsen, Principal Weathers, Dr. Ahmad, my dentist?! All wearing party hats and sipping punch.

Amidst the balloons and streamers were Andy and Boogie slouched in the corner, while Andy’s grandma challenged the mailman to a war on Xbox. Meanwhile, my older sister was making googly eyes at Boogie’s brother and Boogie’s mom passed out cupcakes. Suddenly, my mom dealt the final blow as she led the chorus to “Happy Birthday.”

Our secret weekly meeting was officially a disaster.

So how did it happen?

Apparently, Andy had scribbled the password on his notebook and Carla, who sat next to him in class saw it and guessed what it was. She blabbed it to her older sister who told her boyfriend who texted it to his best friend who wrote it on the whiteboard in his class. The teacher told the Principal who told my Dad who told my mom who decided to surprise us with cupcakes, and the rest is history.

So much for using your dog’s name as a password. Turns out there are lots of places besides clubhouses where passwords come in handy: gaming websites, emails, our school website, renewing books at the library, signing into Facebook, logging onto our phones and iPads, computers at school, the list goes on and on.

And there are ways to make your top secret passwords super-safe, so even the most unwanted intruder can’t guess what it is, not even big-mouth Carla. Here are some handy tips to keeping your privacy private:

• Two Degrees of Separation - If your favorite food is pepperoni pizza, think one step further. Pepperoni is also called American Salami. Combine the two to make your password “Americalami.”
• Spell it Backwards - If your dog’s name is Cookie, think of a cookie flavor you’d hate, like seaweed, and spell it backwards to create your password: “deewaes.”
• Mix it up - That one was pretty good, but turn some of those letters into numbers and capital letters, and “deewaes” becomes “de3Wae5.” Even better!
• Different Passwords for Different Things - Just as you wouldn’t give your pet hamster the same name as your goldfish, never use the same password for more than one place online. Different apps or sites need different passwords.
• Learn from Andy - Maybe your notebook isn’t the best place to store your passwords. Neither is your diary, or locker, or backpack, or under your bed, or any other place people are likely to find them. That’s why it’s best to come up with a system, like the ones mentioned above and keep it to yourself.

On that note, think of other fun ways you can create secret passwords. Maybe combine a few of those strategies above, into one. The harder they are to crack, the more clever you are and the safer your stuff is. Letting you focus on more important things like getting the high score and beating your friends!

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Client Brief: Cybersecurity is one of the biggest problems we face today. However, the education on this topic is severely limited. Most of what has been written on Cybersecurity is hard to understand and geared toward selling products. The goal of this project is to write various topics on cybersecurity in way a 5th grader can understand it. We are looking for someone who can write technical articles in a simple fashion. Must use great storytelling, be humorous, easy to understand and read like the chapter from a book for 5th graders.

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