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It's not pragmatic, it's dangerous. Sooner or later someone could take control of one of the accounts you don't care about and use in a way you don't expect to

by lwhi 3y ago

It's not pragmatic, it's dangerous. Sooner or later someone could take control of one of the accounts you don't care about and use in a way you don't expect to gain control of things you do care about.

Dalewyn 3y ago
Beyond my accounts related to my important email addresses, Steam, finances and medical which can all be counted on one or two hands, I really couldn't give a damn about the other accounts or their password security. Strong and unique passwords for the important accounts, simple and reused passwords for the rest. You're welcome to hack into my accounts on Hacker News, Reddit, Discord, LINE, various IRC networks, various forums, etc. I don't care; there's nothing important in there besides sentimental value.
- ccooffee 3y ago
  On its own, the information in those private accounts is probably not interesting. I used to use the "few sites get a unique and secret password, but most reuse the same 10 character one" ruleset, but I became worried about how much data could be aggregated about me. By re-using the same password, I felt like I gave a simple test that attackers could use to definitively confirm "user XYZ on site ABC is the same as ccooffee". I'm now firmly in the "everything gets a unique password" camp. There are 4 important passwords I type myself, but everything else is in a password vault.
tppiotrowski 3y ago
> use in a way you don't expect to gain control of things you do care about An example would really drive your point home. Can you provide one that people would deem "dangerous"? Edit: ccooffee just mentioned in the thread that you could be de-anonymized by reusing the same password. Is this what you mean? There's a spectrum of comfort with privacy so maybe that's the source of the disagreement between whether it is important to have unique passwords or not for accounts that don't contain financial/SSN/medical/etc information
- lwhi 3y ago
  Socially engineered hacks are also a danger. You might not care about what's contained in a certain online account, but there could be utility in taking control.

by lwhi 3y ago

Dalewyn 3y ago

Beyond my accounts related to my important email addresses, Steam, finances and medical which can all be counted on one or two hands, I really couldn't give a damn about the other accounts or their password security. Strong and unique passwords for the important accounts, simple and reused passwords for the rest. You're welcome to hack into my accounts on Hacker News, Reddit, Discord, LINE, various IRC networks, various forums, etc. I don't care; there's nothing important in there besides sentimental value.

ccooffee 3y ago
On its own, the information in those private accounts is probably not interesting. I used to use the "few sites get a unique and secret password, but most reuse the same 10 character one" ruleset, but I became worried about how much data could be aggregated about me. By re-using the same password, I felt like I gave a simple test that attackers could use to definitively confirm "user XYZ on site ABC is the same as ccooffee". I'm now firmly in the "everything gets a unique password" camp. There are 4 important passwords I type myself, but everything else is in a password vault.

tppiotrowski 3y ago

> use in a way you don't expect to gain control of things you do care about An example would really drive your point home. Can you provide one that people would deem "dangerous"? Edit: ccooffee just mentioned in the thread that you could be de-anonymized by reusing the same password. Is this what you mean? There's a spectrum of comfort with privacy so maybe that's the source of the disagreement between whether it is important to have unique passwords or not for accounts that don't contain financial/SSN/medical/etc information

lwhi 3y ago
Socially engineered hacks are also a danger. You might not care about what's contained in a certain online account, but there could be utility in taking control.