World Password Day 2021: Password “Origin Stories” From Your Friends at Dashlane
It’s the most festive time of year for those of us at Dashlane. Across two continents and three countries, Dashlane employees are Slacking with extra pep, coding with unusual zeal, and basking in a bit of additional glow on our faces—and not just from our computer monitors.
Yes, folks: It’s World Password Day once again.
While we’re (mostly) joking about the warm-and-fuzzy holiday feelings we get from World Password Day, how could we pass up the opportunity to celebrate all things password?
Below, check out our collection of password origin stories from Dashlane employees that range from sweet to funny to downright cringey.
Enjoy, and happy World Password Day from Dashlane!
Gifted by friends and family
One of my first passwords was actually one of my friend’s! We played many online games, and we needed to be able to play on each other’s accounts. I started to use his password for my accounts...and not only for games—it became my primary password. Ten years later, he was still able to access most of my online accounts. ::facepalm::
The first password I used in my life was for the French internet provider Club Internet. It was one of my parents’ that I was not supposed to have access to. I feared they discovered I had it, so I remembered it, not keeping any copy of it. I still remember it, 20 years later.
My mom helped me make my first password. She said that I’ll always remember it because it’s my most hated food. It was papaya—I love papayas now.
One of my first memories was really wanting to play Little Big Adventure 2—available only on the parents’ computer account. They left a hint saying the password was a capital, so I climbed a chair to look at our globe and tried capital names until it worked.
My first password was a word invented by mistake when a friend of mine wanted to convey two ideas at the same time. Something like "yellow submarine" becoming "yellorine." It was safe because it's not a dictionary word, but not so much as it was only 8 characters, no symbo!s/numb3rs/cApitals and...well, two people also knew about it. Even though I have abandoned it long ago, I still have the muscle memory to this day.
Created with questionable (and clever!) strategies
One of my first passwords was a curse. My thought was, if someone finds out about it at least when they type the password I’m sending them somewhere unpleasant.
My first IT passwords were for accessing bulletin board systems when I was around 10. I followed a pattern that is still efficient and I still use nowadays (with slight mutations). I would love to share more about it, but I guess its secrecy is half of its success.
I used variations of the password "incorrect" for a few years so when I would get it wrong the error prompt would tell me my password was incorrect.
When I started engineering school, they gave us some (very poor) advice on choosing a password to log in to school servers. One piece of advice was "think about a memorable phrase, then take the initials of each word," and that sounded ok, so I started to use "jamdlp" (“j'aime manger de la pizza”) almost everywhere, because “I like eating pizza.” Then I joined Dashlane, and now it's not used anymore.
I wouldn't have called it "manifesting" then but my early passwords were usually little aspirational phrases. Things like “MBandAB4evr” (for my crush) or “PerfectSATScore2400.” A few years ago when I was pushing for a big raise, I started using more “$$$s” as my special characters and whether it helped or not I got it!
A little celebrity inspo
“Matias Almeyda”—he was one of my favorite football players.
One of the first passwords I remember was sk8erboi. Yes, I was an Avril stan once upon a time. I always enjoyed how perfectly the title of the song looked like a password and used it for my first school email password. It was always easy to remember and usually resulted in getting the song stuck in my head and thinking of ways to incorporate a white tank and tie into my wardrobe.
My first password was the first tournament that Pete Sampras (my childhood idol) won as a professional player.
Mined from personal trivia
I was a Girl Scout until I was a teen because I’m very cool. As counselors at scout camp, we had to choose “camp names” for ourselves. My friends chose cute, fun things like Marshmallow and Saddle, but I fancied myself a poet and chose Moonglow (cringe). To make it even more pretentious, I came up with an alternative spelling, and that became my password for more years than I care to say.
I used the first phone number we had when I grew up as a code. I know it by heart, like I knew all my friends phone numbers by heart, before the smartphones took this need away
The password that stuck with me was a combination of a character name my cousin had made up for our homemade Star Wars film and a combination of numbers I came up with after fatally misunderstanding the Fibonacci series. It's probably still around on a few sites I haven't visited in years and I cringe every time I read it, so I won't share it.
I do not know if it was my first password, but it was long enough ago that I used it for my msn.com account. It was my band's name, "Thing Flips," which seemed arbitrary enough at the time, and I ended up using it for a lot of sites back when I was younger. It definitely got out (and remains) on the dark web, even though I have long stopped using it.
Check out our Worst Password Awards to keep on celebrating World Password Day.
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