Password sharing as a sign of trust?

[theriver]

I was sent this link recently:

danah boyd | apophenia » How Parents Normalized Teen Password Sharing

which claims data to show that 1 in 3 US teenagers share their passwords.

If this really is normalised, as is claimed, then clearly telling people "don't tell anyone your password" doesn't work, and this is an issue that has to be acknowledged.

[Dazzle]

Your be very surprised what passwords people will share these days............A few months back I was looking around Facebook and this one kid had his wall open and on it was his MyMaths school passwords. He posted them in a status to get people to log into his account and do his home work for him. :O

[tom_newton]

It cannot and must not become normalised. Passwords currently account for the majority of auth on the internet - ok, some systems allow 2fac these days but few kids use that - even if we did think it's "ok" for facebook, it sets a terrible precedent for banking etc.

There is no way we as IT professionals can accept this - normally i'm all for putting the user and their foibles at #1, but this is a step too far.

[FN-GM]

Your be very surprised what passwords people will share these days............A few months back I was looking around Facebook and this one kid had his wall open and on it was his MyMaths school passwords. He posted them in a status to get people to log into his account and do his home work for him. :O

I thought mymaths was a generic password for the whole school anyway?

[elsiegee40]

After an incident outside school to do with a youngster using Dad's password, I did a session with Years 5&6 about passwords and PINs.

About 60% knew their parents' PIN. A similar number used their parents card or PayPal to shop online without the parent present... The most common reason they knew was because their parents had let them use the cash machine and many of them said it was the same as the burglar alarm code... and the Sky parental control PIN

Nearly all of them knew their parents' password "because they only use 1"

* sigh*

[FN-GM]

Its a good reason for the use of Two-Factor Authentication. The company i work for use RSA tokens for logons. Each person has one and the number changes every minute. If someone shares the number it will be useless within the minute.

[Dazzle]

I thought mymaths was a generic password for the whole school anyway?

I am not sure I just happen to see it posted on this kids wall while I was looking around Facebook one day. In the status was something along the lines of "someone do my homework on mymaths" followed by all his usernames and passwords for the site.

[chrisredfield93]

Of course it's a sign of trust how many people give their partners their password to the emails facebook bank accounts and how many have a shared account even thou they say it for one person only ?

My partner give me all their password and stuff but I never used it since it not my place or any of my business but she dont know my password I might leave my self login but that happens rarely

[tom_newton]

Its a constant source of annoyance to the wife that i won't share passwords. Its for her own good
TBh I know there's one or two she knows, and i don't intend to change them, but the main ones, I wouldn't want to. Its just not cricket

[laserblazer]

I share banking passwords with the wife. If one of us got knocked down by a bus and all that. I also know her email password, simply because she is incapable of logging on herself.

[PICNIC]

I thought mymaths was a generic password for the whole school anyway?

The school has a generic login, but if teachers set homework assignments and the like, they can input class details (just name and class name) and it generates individual logins for each student (my wife is a maths teacher and she swears by the site).

[witch]

I do understand the issue about using the same password for everything but when I counted all the on-line things that I need a password for that might be problematic (not just logging onto forums etc) I need ten and it is very difficult to remember ten different passwords. I tend to use variations on a theme but have been caught out several times getting them wrong and being locked out of the account

[X-13]

Your be very surprised what passwords people will share these days............A few months back I was looking around Facebook and this one kid had his wall open and on it was his MyMaths school passwords. He posted them in a status to get people to log into his account and do his home work for him. :O

He's not the first one to try that.

[JJonas]

I am not sure I just happen to see it posted on this kids wall while I was looking around Facebook one day. In the status was something along the lines of "someone do my homework on mymaths" followed by all his usernames and passwords for the site.

I do hope you logged in and did his homework for him, but made sure every answer was wrong so he got extra maths lessons.

[ChrisJ]

When I was living with my ex she had my banking password, but no others. Changed it when we ended.

We just had an issue here in school with a group of girls sharing each others passwords on a site called Stardoll where one girl had been sending nasty messages from another girls account to make her look bad.

I could this sort of thing becoming a common scene if people aren't protective of their passwords.

Also it turned out one of them had created multiple fake accounts to post positive messages about herself to make her look more popular.