Probably a boring answer but I know my grandmother’s credit card information. I live with and help take care of her, so she doesn’t mind sharing it with me. Not like I’m planning to do anything nefarious, but I guess technically it could ruin her financially.
Writing passwords down isn’t that bad, actually. We humans are very good at securing little pieces of paper; just put the one you wrote your password on with the other valuable pieces of paper, in your wallet.
It’s “sticking the post-it note to the computer screen” that’s the problem.
Picked up a keyboard from the thrift store with a pink Post It on the back.
user: admin
pass: password
Who the hell needs to write that down?!
I wouldn’t do this for my own stuff, but I just might do it if I’m donating it to a thrift store…
My Internet help desk days are over 20 years behind me, but that’s the default user/password combination for some consumer routers. D-Links and maybe Netcomms I think?
As for who needs it: you’d be surprised at how technically inept some people are. It’s truly amazing.
Absolutely, but unless you do stick it to the monitor, you still rely on them remembering where the note is, what it’s for, and keeping it around.
And keeping some passwords in your wallet is only safe for as long as you don’t also include what they are for. Which would be necessary in this case…
I obviously also forbid them from using the same password for everything, which meant that even when they did write their passwords down, finding it was a scavenger hunt that’s an even bigger time-waste than a password reset. Because they never kept them organized or in even in one place!