It just happened again! I went to a website I use regularly, tried to log in, and was told my password was invalid. The solution usually is to click on a "convenient" little tab, usually labeled "Forgot Your Password?"
Well no, actually. I keep track of passwords, I have a list of them. I do not "FORGET" passwords. What apparently occurs, with some regularity, is that the company/organization/institution that runs the website revamps it and cannot be bothered to keep active passwords. It's easier (for them) to just trash them and make us all appear to be fools.
Is it possible that their changes really REQUIRE new passwords? Remotely possible, I suppose, except that begs the question, how is it that they can always recognize our email address, and connect it with the account whose password we have "forgotten?"
Granted, a FEW sites - very few - will tell us they have changed things and ask us to reset our passwords. Some even provide a one-use log-in password for the purpose. But you website creators, please, if you can't do that, then let's at least have some honesty. If you want unilaterally to declare my password invalid, then let's have some honesty about the process: the solution box should be labeled "Did We Lose Your Password?" It won't be much less annoying but it will at least be true.
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