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Vent: I used the same password on 11 sites for 4 years and only found out how bad it was from a stranger at a coffee shop
I was sitting at this coffee shop in Boise last month and the guy next to me was on his laptop doing some kind of security work. I peeked over (yes I know, rude) and saw him typing in a bunch of passwords into some checker tool. He noticed me looking and just straight up asked me how many sites I reuse my password on. I laughed and said all of them, obviously. He pulled up a site called Have I Been Pwned and typed in my email right there. Six breaches. My old MySpace password from like 2009 was sitting in some leaked database along with my email and it was the same password I was still using for my bank and my work email. I felt sick to my stomach. I spent that whole night changing passwords on every single account and setting up a password manager, which honestly took me 3 hours because I kept locking myself out. Now I use a different random password for everything and I actually sleep better. Has anyone else had a total stranger point out something that dumb about their security?
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jennifermurphy9d ago
MySpace in 2009 is honestly the funniest possible way to find out your bank password is public knowledge. That stranger did you a huge favor even if it cost you three hours of pure rage at your own past self. Good luck remembering the new ones, at least the password manager does the heavy lifting now.
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