For this week, I really found the information on passwords and security to be quite fascinating. I actually just lost my PlayStation account to a hacker and have to contact Sony (Which is harder than it sounds). I’ve also lost my Skype account to a hacker (Do you know how hard it is to contact them to get this fixed? I gave up.) I also lost my Origin’s account before. They tried to buy a video game, but my card info wasn’t saved. Thankfully, Origin’s was super easy and fast to deal with. What the hell, Microsoft.

I’ve only lost a few account, but it never has seemed to be a direct attacked here I was emailed and phished, because I wouldn’t lose multiple accounts at once, or have anyone actually charge my cards or anything of that sort.

In the article “Why passwords have never been weaker—and crackers have never been stronger” by Dan Goodin, I was struck by the line, “The average Web user maintains 25 separate accounts but uses just 6.5 passwords to protect them” It got me thinking, how many accounts I had?

Let’s see.
Skype
4 different emails
4 Online forums accounts
Steam Account
Origin’s Account
Battle.net
Amazon
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
Snapchat

That’s 16 accounts, and that took me about 15 seconds to come up with the list, so I know there are many more. Thankfully, I use more than 6 passwords, but I have ones a favor, and I tweak my passwords as well. But I’m not surprised to see such few passwords.

So many sites require specific requirements. Then, you have to remember them. Then you have to remember which site corresponds to what password. This is even harder when you can’t remember if the website has specific password requirements. No wonder people don’t have tons of passwords and it’s no wonder people store them in unencrypted files or on post it notes.

This digital age with such great technologic advances is making it harder to really completely protect yourself. Honestly, I’ve just given up to accept the fact it’ll happen, and just know to way to fix it.