• NielsBohron@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    I’m not IT, just a college instructor, but you’d be amazed at how many Gen Z students have told me that they can’t log into their email because they don’t know their own password. Not even forgot; they don’t even know it in the first place because every device remembers everything for them.

    • virku@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      To be fair that is basically what we are trying to get people to do though. Use a good password vault with a single strong password and two factor authentication. All other passwords should be a uniquely generated password for that application.

    • explodicle@local106.com
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      10 months ago

      Caring about that has been beaten out of them by increasingly absurd password requirements over dozens of systems. They won’t memorize it, won’t write it down physically, and use the web browser to save it.

      “But my system is different, I…”

      Nobody cares. The password is just a speed bump in doing the thing they actually want to do.

    • Z3k3@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      I’ll be honest as an IT professional of 25 plus years I don’t know .y passwords either but that’s because I let a password manager deal with it for me.

      I have had people older than me complain the comp forgot the pass in my desktop days.

      There was also it’s cousin. I am definitely meeting the complexity requirements why isn’t it saving

      • Trainguyrom@reddthat.com
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        10 months ago

        My favorite are the services that keep rejecting the randomized passwords so I have to manually think of a password. I ain’t creative enough on the spot for that! Just accept my /dev/urandom output dammit!

      • dingus@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        One of the reasons why I don’t want to use a password manager, actually. If you get locked out of that, you’re fucked.

          • doctordevice@lemm.ee
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            10 months ago

            Ease of syncing across devices has me using an internet-based password manager (Bitwarden), but I keep a second local-only password manager (Keepass) that only stores my Bitwarden password. Just in case.

            • PopShark@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              Hey that’s real smart but what if you forget the Keepass password when trying to retrieve the Bitwarden password you forgot lol?

              I use Bitwarden myself and love them. Great software great organization it seems. They didn’t even send any bullshit marketing “noooo come back YOULL LOSE EVERYTHING” emails companies love to send when you downgrade from paid to free tier and that right away bumps them up in my mind.

              • doctordevice@lemm.ee
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                10 months ago

                My wife and I also keep our Keepass passwords in each other’s Bitwarden vaults.

                So to lose access we’d both have to simultaneously forget our Bitwarden passwords AND be locked out of any biometric login. I consider that sufficiently unlikely.

        • Kairos@lemmy.today
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          10 months ago

          Backups + OSS.

          I use Bitwarden and JSON backups inside a 7zip. I ALWAYS backup after I make a new password that can’t be changed via email.

    • papalonian@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Like others have said they’re probably using Google as a password manager. When you’re making an account for anything while in the Chrome browser it recommends strong passwords for you such as UjafUif&i$ureT6hj9gzq5hvc$tcgo0be3. Would you memorize it?

        • virku@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Why not both then? Make your own human readable passwords, but do a different one each time and store them in a password vault.

          • NielsBohron@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            Definitely. I don’t really do anything that is particularly sensitive, so I only have 3-4 standard passwords (that meet the most common complexity criteria) that I separate by how sensitive the information/service is, but if I truly needed more, I would absolutely be using a 3rd party password vault. I just don’t have the need right now, so I haven’t bothered.

            What gets me is the people that don’t know their own passwords, don’t know how/where to look them up, and don’t even understand how to reset their passwords (because they can’t log into their own email). I don’t even know how they function in modern society.

            • Trainguyrom@reddthat.com
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              10 months ago

              What gets me is the people that don’t know their own passwords, don’t know how/where to look them up, and don’t even understand how to reset their passwords

              I worked support for a phone manufacturer for a while and helped a lot of poor lost souls struggle to get back into their Google accounts on their new and replacement devices. I got a lot of them in, but some may have never gotten out of authentication hell

        • papalonian@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Yeah, I have my own password generation scheme. Not the most secure thing in the world but I’m at least able to log in to my accounts from other people’s computers. One of these days I’ll get around to using a password manager but I just can’t be bothered.

    • Croquette@sh.itjust.works
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      10 months ago

      My girlfriend (millenial) is like that as well and it is infuriating. I tell her time and time again, just use a password manager that isn’t the browser’s password manager and you are golden. You just need to remember one “complicated” password, i.e. something with more than 8 characters and that’s it.

      The many times she doesn’t know her password to important account is mind boggling.

    • Caesium@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      ironically I think tech literacy is going down with future gens thanks to so many functions getting automated. Kids aren’t learning how their computers work because it does all of work for them

      • NielsBohron@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        I hate to be a “kids these days” person, but you’re absolutely right. My Gen Z students don’t even understand how folder/file structure works; they just download everything onto their desktop and use the search function to find what they need later. If they can’t remember what something was called, they’re SOL.

        Don’t get me wrong, I have a lot of faith in Gen Z and Alpha, but their strengths are definitely not the strengths of Millenials or Gen X.

      • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        It’s like that with everything isn’t it? The problems have been off-loaded. In my company for example we used to make our own motors, now we buy them. I doubt there is anyone left who knows how to build one where I work.

    • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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      10 months ago

      I’m GenX and I don’t know my email password…

      Though I’m 99% sure it’s in keepass somewhere.

    • winky88@startrek.website
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      10 months ago

      My kid sister is the same way. Bought her a quest 3 for her bday. Took 3 days to get up and running because a) she had no idea what her meta account passwords were… had always just logged in on her phone… and b) none of the forgot password functions worked because she never cleared her Gmail mailbox so it had filled up and bounced previous facebook emails landing her on their internal do not send list.

      I was livid.

    • SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      I know people who don’t use a password manager so every time they have to type in a pw they have to go through the reset process.