Pasword-protected

I am reading a book that contains the following sentence:

"If you password-protect a laptop that lives in your house, aren't you mainly protecting your privacy from the person or people you live with?"

Interesting question, that. We generally password-protect our devices for security reasons, to prevent unwanted access or because of company policy. These days one requires a password for pretty much everything and you either end up having to remember a thousand of them, or re-using the same one over and over. I use a password manager so I only have to remember one password and frankly don't even know the one to get in to my bank account anymore because it's set to change routinely. I know all of Keith's passwords because they are mostly similar or the same and because I generally set things up for him. He doesn't know mine, not because I am hiding them from him, because I would tell him, or he could figure out most, but because as I just pointed out I barely know half of them myself anymore. 

I access my phone and iPad with a fingerprint and can't remember the backup password. Christina and I came up for a solution to that......

When a phone buzzes in our house, we don't look at it if it doesn't belong to us. To me it isn't even about trust, it's about respecting other people's things. I don't go rummaging through Keith's drawers when I am looking for something. I ask first. He has yet to say no, and I will always ask. How do I know that it has nothing to do with trust? I was cheated on a long time ago. I remember his phone buzzing constantly. Had I have looked I may have seen an offending message and done something about it, rather than suffer the embarrassment (all ego) that did finally ensue. Did that experience make me any less trusting? Nope. I still don't check when Keith's phone buzzes. My friend Christina has a different tone for different people, so her husband knows exactly who is messaging her. I think mine is a duck sound but I cant be sure. 

Should we turn off all security when we arrive home, so as to maintain full transparency? I don't think so. But frankly I don't think that the sentence that started this post is true. In the context of the book I am reading it is, because the wife murdered the husband. Because she didn't know the password to his computer. Well, that's not why she murdered him. But I digress. 

I think that the futuristic, electronic world that we live in has created a larger sense of distrust by virtue of our need to protect our thoughts, tweets, pics, emails blah blah blah from those that should not see it. Because it also protects us from those that can. I also think it's OK to have secrets. It's OK to keep some things to yourself. I have a friend that asks too many questions, but never shares. I have a friend that asks too many questions and over-shares. I have a friend that tells me nothing. I am pretty much an open book, but I don't tell everyone everything. None of it is about trust. 

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