Banking passwords stolen from Australians are being traded online by criminals

When I signed up to tax preparation services on hrblock.com, their security process forced me to choose a username that was not my email address, didn't contain my name, etc. So I was compelled to use a quite unique one at that.

Also when setting up online banking, my credit union offered me the choice of any username, so I chose one that was atypical and looked more like a generic "someone at this place" login than something connected to me.

These days it can get a little crazy when you have a singular email address, and it's your account sign-in practically everywhere on the Web. Or you have a persistent persona or pseudonym that more or less is replicated everywhere you go.

I'm thankful for centralized identity services. By now I'm taking advantage of "Sign in With Google" and Facebook logins for most services. That makes the password manager's space much more manageable!