We share a mortgage, a car, three cats and a surname, and yet what was I unwilling to share with my husband today? My EasyJet password.
In the connected world of the web, what is the last safeguard of personal privacy? The humble password. That single combination of letters (and numbers, CAPS and special characters in some very strict circles) that keeps our secrets safe, and our identities sound. My husband and I may have a joint chequebook, but when it comes to online account, I ain't sharing.
"What have you got to hide?" he asked - as indeed might you, dear reader. If you've been spotting the pattern so far, you'll know the answer to all the questions in this post is the same: my password. But you'll notice this time it's lost any adjective - and that's because I'm not talking about just my EasyJet password. Oh no. For my husband to "discover" that I've a preference for window seats is hardly going to provide a groundbreaking revelation. But were he to soon realise that this particular password forms the basis of the vast majority of my internet account passwords - well then, things might just take off (no flying pun intended).
Yes yes, fool that I am. Every password should be unique, extraordinarily hard to guess (and remember), and thus any damage minimized were that password to be compromised. And it wouldn't matter if it were just my Nectar points balance, favourite Body Shop basket and even (wait for it) the £5 balance I've got left on my Moonpig account that was up for grabs. Nope. It's almost everything.
(I say "almost" with a sigh of relief, knowing there is one thing that has its own, extremely unusual password: my email account. The email address I've had since I was 18; the email address that contains secrets long since forgotten but precious in their memory; the email address that I can use to verify and monitor every other online account I've had since. If I can suggest one smart thing, it's to have a separate password for this.)
But back to the other accounts: do they really matter? Of course not. Yes he could browse my Amazon history, or check up on what I've been buying on my credit card, but in reality, why would he? Why spoil the surprise of his next birthday present? Or faint when he realises just how expensive it is to fill up the car? And if I trust him with my life savings, and not to strangle me in my sleep, why wouldn't I trust him with these trivial matters?
The answer is: it's the wrong question. Of course it's not about trust, or protectiveness - or even paranoia. It's about being able to be have my own online persona that's representative entirely of me, that's under my complete control, and that's truly mine (even if it's not always me - but that's for another post...).
Hmm, I don't know, it seems to me that the people your closest too are unlikely to do anything with this information without telling you even if they do have it, so the persona is still under your control, and it really comes back to a trust issue. I know that I have a similar thing when it comes to passwords, only I have a set, and all my passwords are in that set. There are people in my life that know all those passwords, but am I going to lose my online identity because of it, no. Do I have any less control of my online identity because of it? No - those people wouldn't know those passwords if I didn't trust that they weren't going to abuse them.
ReplyDeleteThat having been said, I think between husband and wife you have a lot of things that you share, and as all human beings are individuals it is important to both parties that each maintain parts of there individuality, and how people go about that is going to vary from person to person...
Nice post, Fiona! Funny how we can be so protective of our passwords to our nearest and dearest, but then give it out to dozens of websites with limited knowledge what their data security is like.
ReplyDeletebtw, on a slight tangent, just say you did want to have a different password for every account.... then here is a way to do it, using a password rule. http://digitallifecoach.org/2011/04/how-to-never-again-forget-any-password/
Of course, that means keeping the rule secret, too :) Another secret...