My own opinion has been that Hotmail was far inferior to both Google's and Yahoo's offerings. In that light, Google was the only better alternative. Thus "competitor" :-)

I see your point.

You said they didn't know each other...

Wow is all I can say. I had no idea so many people are so incompetent.

You're absolutely right. I forgot that changing your email address can be a big hurdle/insurmountable task for many people.

I should say behind competitor, not competitors. But the question still stands.

I don't understand how yahoo can be alive today. It's been way behind competitors for about a decade. This type of story fits right in with that picture. Okay, if they are still alive, I guess they must be making money. But I'm happy they are still around. Now and then I find that I need to reconnect with a site I haven't used for years, where I registered with my yahoo address... And in that case, it's nice that I'm able to receive a password reset link. But what's the attraction today, besides that?

But you need to remember who you gave the password to. No good for someone with amnesia.

I decided a while back to only access sites that employ biometrics-based access. Unless an event destroys my biometric signature, I'll be safe. Obviously, at Slashdot I use a standard strong password, namely "abc". Slashdot allows password resetting, so no issue there. Darn clever, I think.

Depends on the paper. Might have been intercepted by NSA under its TAO program. In that case, you might have network connected paper.

So what is a viable alternative, assuming one would like to maintain the private/public key feature?

Could you give an example of what you think would constitute "more insidious?

It seems to me that anything we thought were encrypted and could be, and was, considered secure in that embodiment, is soon subject to revelation. I'm no expert, but I'm losing faith in these algorithms. Please tell me it's going to be okay. PS: if you are NSA, I don't need your reassurances.

Trees are the new black!

"No one bans anything anymore." Be careful what you ask for.