Had a chat with my neighbor about password managers and it gave me pause

My neighbor Jim is a retired IT guy, been in the game since the 80s. We were talking over the fence last week, and he told me he refuses to use any password manager. He said he trusts his own brain more than putting all his keys in one digital basket. I always thought password managers were the gold standard, but his point about a single point of failure hit different. He recalls a breach at his old company that leaked their vault data back in 2014. It made me wonder if we are too quick to trust convenience over security. Has anyone else heard real stories of a password manager causing trouble?

2 comments

2 Comments

reed.eva1mo ago

Oh man, I actually think about this differently lol. Most people focus on whether the vault itself can get hacked, but nobody talks about what happens when YOU get locked out. I had a buddy whose password manager glitched during an update and he couldn't access anything for three days. Couldn't even log into support to complain because his password was stuck in that stupid vault. He ended up resetting like 40 accounts through recovery emails. That backup scenario is way scarier to me than a theoretical breach.

jamies451mo ago

Old school IT guys always have the best war stories lol. But did Jim ever explain what he actually does instead for all his logins? I'm picturing a notebook by his computer or some insane mental system for 50 different passwords. Curious if he memorizes unique long ones or just recycles a few favorites.