Password Changes

Rant ahead. You've been warned.

I am very dissatisfied with the way that many online websites handle passwords. I have over 15 different passwords that I've used since joining the internet community for different websites. 15 of those passwords each have their own variations because of these password rules.

My latest password change came about because of my PlayStation Network account. The account had too many rules such as no repeating characters, no letter/number is allowed to begin...on and on with so many rules.

I recently forgot my Google account's password (don't know how cause I never changed it) and they wouldn't let me use one of my used passwords because it was one that I had previously used. I don't understand what's the big deal with using that one.

The same thing has happened with my Craigslist account. I don't even log in there anymore because that whole system is screwed up. Every once in a while, they randomly reset my account and force me to pick a new password. To make matters worse, they won't let me use any of the passwords that I've had before, even if the password was used over a year ago.

I understand why we have the password rules because some people would literally have passwords like 123 or simply 1 and would get mad when they got hacked. I understand, but some of these rules are ridiculous. Would you agree or disagree? What sort of rules have you encountered that you thought were absolutely ridiculous? In what ways do you think that these websites can change?