WHAT THE MODERN PASSWORD HAS BECOME

The basic idea for this piece is that in the past five to ten years passwords (creating, remembering, storing, changing them) has become a major player in virtually everyone's lives. I want to collect funny and interesting anecdotes that capture how people relate to passwords -- their frustration, the sometimes poignant stories behind their creation, the dizziness of managing them, the impossible binds they create for us.

I'm looking for anything along the following lines:

• stories of complicated situations created because someone forgot their password.
• funny, poignant, interesting stories behind how a certain password was created.
• stupid, clever, funny ways that people have found to remember their passwords.
• Ways in which passwords have become even more burdensome than they were even several years ago.
• stories of embarrassment when a person had to reveal a password to someone else and the password was something they had assumed they would never have to reveal to anyone.
• Any interesting cultural productions, songs, jokes, poems, websites, whatever, specifically dedicated to what passwords have become?
  
• has anyone seen pieces of software or hardware that are specifically designed to help us deal with the tedium and complexity of passwords. I know of the storage devices, but any others?

TECHIES RULE THE WORLD

The simple idea for the piece is that in many companies and large institutions techies (ie: folks in the IT department) have actually become more powerful in many (and discreet) ways than even the CEOs.

I'm looking for anecdotes that might fit in any of the following categories:

• Stories of companies or large and powerful institutions being brought to their knees because of something the tech person did (perhaps vindictively).
• Stories that show how the tech person not the CEO is actually the most powerful person at major companies (or other institutions) (for instance, tech people often know first when someone is going to be fired, they have access to everyone's email and passwords)
• When tech folks leave their job, sometimes they intentionally leave things in disarray out of spite, sometimes they simply dont communicate with the successor. I'm told their are folks/firms that come in and help companies transition by reverse hacking passwords, and figuring out how a system is set up so that they can explain it to next person. any knowledge of this?
• Pranks that tech folks have played on powerful folks above their pay grade. (pranks that only tech folks could play)
• Are job contracts now written with clauses that speak specifically to this sort of issue ands attempt to safeguard against slash and burn tactics or try to limit the extent to which tech folks can hold institutions by the yin yang.