Wannaskan Almanac for Tuesday, December 23, 2025 Four and More Factor

 The Rise of 100-Factor Authentication: Humanity’s Final Boss Battle

Let’s be honest: two-factor authentication (2FA) was clearly invented by someone who hates joy. It’s the digital equivalent of being asked for ID at the entrance of your own house. First, you enter your password—something you created in a moment of caffeine-fueled optimism and now forget weekly. Then, you're asked to retrieve a six-digit code from an app that only opens if you remember the password to that app. By the time you’ve authenticated, your original purpose—checking email, buying socks, logging into your bank—has evaporated. You’re left staring at your screen, wondering if this is what the ancients meant by “the long dark night of the soul.”

But 2FA was just the beginning. The tech overlords, unsatisfied with merely tormenting us twice, have begun whispering sweet nothings about multi-factor authentication. Three factors. Four. Soon, we’ll be asked to verify our identity using a retinal scan, a blood sample, and a haiku about our childhood trauma. By 2030, we’ll be deep into 100-factor authentication. You’ll need to confirm your identity via synchronized dance routine, a notarized letter from your high school gym teacher, and a live interview with a llama named Kevin. Kevin will judge you. Harshly.

You are guilty!

Of course, this will all be for our “security.” Because nothing says safety like spending 45 minutes proving you’re not a Russian bot just to access your Pinterest board of gluten-free lasagna recipes. And let’s not forget the inevitable authentication fatigue. People will start outsourcing their logins to professional verifiers—“Hi, I’m Brenda, your certified login doula. Let’s breathe through this together.” Eventually, we’ll stop trying altogether. Our accounts will remain locked, our data untouched, our digital lives frozen in time like Pompeii, but with more cat memes.

And that, dear reader, is how the world ends. Not with a bang, but with a failed login attempt. We’ll sit in front of our screens, defeated by the 99th authentication factor—“Please upload a video of yourself reciting the quadratic formula while juggling flaming pineapples”—and realize we were never meant to access our own data. The machines will take over, not through violence, but through bureaucracy. And Kevin the llama will reign supreme.