The process of trying to rationalise mine over the last few days has left me newly aware of how outdated the username and password system is. With a lot of effort I’ve managed to get it down to 55 accounts with their own username and password, as well as a few that use Twitter or Google ID to sign in. I’ve also been surprised at my inability to delete my data & accounts on some sites.
This is an interesting read on alternatives to the traditional password system. It seems obvious that something systematic has to change here. As sinister as I find google’s attempt to establish the ubiquity of the Google ID, its continued rise seem inexorable just because I can’t see any scalable alternative to this problem other than widespread social sign in. I’ve also deleted a lot of accounts in the last few days which don’t use social sign in that I would have kept if this wasn’t the case.
I’ve been increasingly aware in the last six months of my reticence to sign up to anything that requires a new username and password. I feel like I’ve now begun to put this into practice, with a list of all my active accounts, as well as an inclination to cut further. Ideally I would like to have 2 step authentication on my core accounts (Twitter, WordPress, Google) and be able to sign into everything else using one of these.
What worries me is that I’m sure I must have missed some of the accounts.
Mark Carrigan 