Passwords
UPDATE
Just this morning (4-22-2003), I was checking some info my HR manager gave me for their web site; besides the basic verbiage for her page, I received about 100 Social Security Numbers of various employees of the company. That makes me feel so fucking secure!
END OF UPDATE
It is just as good that we refuse to give ourselves in to technology, and even when the case is about revealing our secrets and passwords, we tend to give them away.
About this security issue here: Expected and Accepted behavior. When confronted with some group with authority outside our daily context, we all behave as conditioned, accepting the mild suggestion from others and revealing a lot of information: that is what identifies the social engineering that hackers use, and the strength of journalists and other careers that emphasize interaction and discovery: The question that the journalist makes gets to be validated because they are expected to make questions that ought to be answered. If not the journalist, some other group has then the acceptance that guarantees disclosure of events - physicians, groupies, whatever works at the moment. On many occasions a person will simply accept the other's suggestion and reveal serious personal information, passwords, any checkered past and the kind of medicines they are taking, all in exchange for a little attention and validation.
It is not so much as which info to disclose, but to train oneself not to talk away just because somebody asks.
Just in case, I just changed my password here.