In college I remember going to the computer lab and firing up the message forums and email and having to log in with my username and password, which were provided to me by West Chester University. It wasn’t the beginning of my online connective-ness, but it is a fond memory because that signifies the time that I started checking the internet constantly for content.

To this day, that password, which was randomly generated, with a capital letter, a symbol character, and at least six digits, is my go-to password for low-security websites. I understand the wisdom in not using the same password everywhere, and I don’t, but for websites that I couldn’t care less about, I just use my old college one. It’s not a password based off of my last name or my birthday or any other such nonsense, and so isn’t easily cracked.

It was a solid password to use… for fifteen years.

Goes to show you, that … really now … you really, really do have to manage your passwords.