Password Minder: The Story of a Failure (Infomercial)

We're tired of offering you very practical ways to generate complex, hard-to-crack passwords, but memorizing them isn't for everyone. That's why many people who don't have “12345678” protecting their online banking accounts write their passwords on papers, notebooks, and other physical media, giving direct access to their privacy to anyone who gets hold of these documents. Noticing this affront to convenience, a company wrote the story of a failure by launching an infomercial for Password Minder, a physical address book specially designed for passwords.

Infomercials have shown us that for every possible thing to do, there's someone who does it worse. From clumsy fathers teaching how to almost decapitate themselves trying to inflate a bicycle tire to absent-minded housewives who burn down a county by leaving the toaster on. The exaggeration of infomercials is the order of the day, showing the substantial change their products would make if we were so sharp as to buy them instantly, right now, with discounts and at a special launch price.

The products are varied, but when we heard the story of one that tried to sell a safe way to remember internet passwords, we couldn't contain ourselves. The story is both humorous and worrying, and the video below tells it very well (in English).

The infomercial dwells on the well-known – and exaggerated – problem of remembering a large number of passwords for use on the work computer or at home. The complications the actors in the infomercial have are typical among users, but the proposed solution from the product Password Minder is incredible. It's a conventional address book specially designed to write down passwords for internet services, connectivity settings, software licenses, and login details. The secret of the Password Minder is an incredible technology derived from the renewable resources of wood pulp, which forms an incredible substance that experts refer to as "paper". How didn't we think of that? It's GE-NIUS!

No. It isn't. The infomercial and the product were massively ridiculed on the internet through YouTube and even on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. The very idea of depositing all the keys to access your privacy, email accounts, home banking accounts, PayPal, and much more on a piece of paper that can be stolen at any moment (or catch fire after trying to make toast) is absurd and seemed like a product ready to deceive.

However, it wasn't, and according to Telebrands (the imposing company responsible for making most of the infomercials you can see in the wee hours), the infomercial was ordered by a "mysterious company" that wanted to test what kind of interest a product like this could generate. Since after the infomercial the phones remained in abysmal silence, the company fulfilled its philosophy of "if they buy it, we'll make it" and decided not to produce the Password Minder, a wonderful manufacture of clumsiness and self-sabotage of personal privacy.

The Password Minder, more controversial than polenta graters and ice cubes, has its points in its favor, since a notebook stays close to you all the time and as long as they don't rob your house, you don't have curious friends and relatives, your information will be safe, far from cybercriminals. That said, if instead of using your mind to store them or a serious password manager you're going to take the risk, grab any notebook or just two or three sheets and write all your passwords there. You will be equally clumsy and careless, but at least you'll have saved 10 dollars.