Old War Stories With Uncle Jay - "Password Reset"

Originally recorded February 14, 2026. This harks back to around 2008 or so. Doo Dah Doo had gotten herself a "shack" or "cabin" in CT and asked the wif and I to come up there for the weekend. So we agree, pack everything up, go up there, and see the house, explore the area, all that stuff. Now it's time to catch up online. So I brought my laptop, get it booted up and now I have to get on the wi-fi. Doo Dah Doo has wi-fi, we verify the SSID, but when I ask her for the password, she doesn't know! This is one of the reasons people shouldn't have wi-fi passwords. The range is so limited already anyway, it shouldn't need it. But of course, there was a password, and she didn't have it. Her derelict son set it all up, surely he has it or can tell me where to find it. Well he has a "communications issue", along with being socially and economically inept--no, scratch that, inept with everything, so when I ask him for the wi-fi password, he doesn't tell me "no" or even "I forgot" or where to find it, he just stays silent. When you ask if he's still on the line he will respond that he is, but wouldn't give the password. This was absolutely ABSURD because Doo Dah Doo already had granted me access, I was given access and was approved to connect. But because Doo Dah Doo, she didn't know the password because iPhone hun. So I did what any other self-respecting computer professional would. I busted out the password by doing a full reset on the router and that made everything happy. Same thing happens everywhere else today, though these days it's called 2-factor authentication. It already asked me for my username, I gave it. It already asked me for my password, I gave it. That's it, I should be granted access! But no, now you need the damn phone to accept and get logged in. And do any of you remember what happened when YouTube FORCED monetized creators, such as myself, to have 2-factor authentication on their accounts? Within a couple of weeks, my account was hijacked! HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE? 2-factor is supposed to prevent any other possibility of anyone getting in. The phone never left the house, this should have never happened. And of course, when asked, YouTube had absolutely no idea how it happened. 2-factor is a huge pain and simply gets in the way. If you own it and have the credentials needed, permission, approval, whatever you want to say, you should be granted access. If you go to the front door of your house and put the key in the lock, you can walk in. Anyone else without the key can't do that, unless they are breaking in, which is another story entirely. I'm really tired of having everything needed and still getting denied or bitten on the back end. There was never anything wrong with a username and a password. You don't tell anyone either of them, and you remain secure, that's all there is to it. Yes, with email, often your email is the username, so that can be known, but it's no different than the old white pages years ago. Unless you paid extra, your name was in the book.