As the digital jungle expands, the password must die

I cannot be the only person who is tired of passwords. Or to be more specific, I cannot be the only person who is tired of having to remember dozens of unique passwords for dozens of digital estate that I own or manage. Which is why I am convinced that at some point in time, the password must die.

It is made much worse because best practices for password is that each digital platform should have a separate password and each must be not easy to figure out. As such, the more platforms one has to manage, the more tasking it gets.

Managing Multiple Digital Assets

Here are some of the digital assets that I manage:

1. Web Host Manager (WHM) – multiple accounts
2. Cpanel – multiple accounts
3. Google
4. Microsoft
5. Facebook
6. Twitter
7. Corporate email – multiple accounts
8. Instagram
9. Pinterest
10. WordPress – multiple accounts
11. Internet/Mobile Banking – multiple accounts
12. Online Shopping – multiple accounts
13. ISP accounts – multiple accounts
14. Ride hailing services – multiple accounts
15. Smartphone vendor accounts e.g. Samsung, Apple, BlackBerry, Infinix, TECNO, MIUI, etc.
16. Music streaming platforms – multiple accounts

There are other services too that I will just lump together under Miscellaneous. It is a mad jungle.

Somehow, I have to remember the passwords for each and every one of these services. And each password has to be secure. It is a jungle out there, friends. It is a miracle that anyone who is fully immersed into digital life is able to stay sane with the multitudes of login details that they have to remember.

Everyday People Are Swamped Already

I was helping someone switch from their old smartphone to a new one, and she could not remember her Gmail account password. This is such a commonplace occurrence when people are switching phones that it no longer surprises me.

Usually, the account that people do not log into on the regular is the one whose password gets forgotten. In her own case, she insisted that she used the same password as one other asset she owns. Yet, she still forgot. This person is not a techie and does not keep more than a few accounts requiring login.

On a personal note, for some reason, there is one particular account whose password I always forget when I need to login. ALWAYS. I have to do a password reset each time I need to do something on there.

The Password Must Die

The digital jungle is constantly growing with new services coming up and requiring that we create an account and login to use them. Even here on MobilityArena.com, we recently implemented a user system that requires a login.

And it is for this reason that the password must die. There has to be a better way to manage all these accounts safely and securely without having to memorise at least 40 complex passwords. It is a miracle that I haven’t run stark raving mad yet. A miracle of heavenly proportions.

No; don’t mention a password manager, as what that means is that once that account is hacked, all your passwords to every account you manage is exposed. Bad idea. We need to do away with password banks, and we need to do away with passwords entirely.

Can cell phones and/or phone numbers provide an alternative to passwords? Google already implements something of the sort (see THIS), and it has made my digital life easier. When I need to login to my Google account on a PC, I get a prompt on my phone and by tapping a code on it, I get logged in automatically. Awesome!

Yahoo mail also has a similar system for logging in without a password. See: You can now login to Yahoo mail without a password. Nairaland used to offer an option to login without a password, but appear to have scrapped it.

There is also the emoji password experiment. Clearly, I am not the only one who thinks that passwords need to die and be consigned to the dustbins of history. I wait excitedly for that day to come, and it cannot happen soon enough.