Heard a guy at the coffee shop bragging about using the same password for everything

I was grabbing a coffee yesterday and the guy next to me was talking loud on his phone. He said, 'Yeah, I just use my dog's name and my birthday for everything, it's so easy.' It made me stop cold. If I could hear it, anyone could. I went home and spent the evening setting up a password manager for my own stuff. How do you guys even start explaining to someone why that's such a bad idea?

2 comments

2 Comments

gavinw531mo ago

That "dog's name and birthday" line is basically giving out a copy of your house key to everyone in the shop. I've found you can't really explain it to people who do that. They have to learn the hard way when something gets cleaned out. A password manager is the only sane move.

schmidt.grace1mo ago

Yeah that "learn the hard way" thing is so true, @gavinw53. My buddy used his kid's name for everything and his whole game account got stolen last year. He finally uses a password manager now, but only after losing a ton of stuff.