Stop with the endless verification codes. Stop asking to send a code to my phone number or my email.

I get it, I really do. Having multiple avenues of verification is preferred when it comes to keeping online accounts safe. Two-factor authentication is good. Security is good. Making sure someone across the world who somehow got my password can’t immediately log into my bank account is objectively a good thing. But Jesus, is it annoying.

Because why, in the span of three and a half hours today, did I receive seven separate verification codes to my phone number and another two to my email? There are so many codes in my Messages app that it looks like nobody else texts me. One website had me enter codes three separate times. Three. At some point you have to start wondering… what the hell is going on?

And this is where I think we’ve wandered into a weird place with online security. We’ve spent the last 25+ years being told not to use the same password everywhere. Don’t reuse passwords. Make them long. Make them complicated. Use numbers and symbols. Don’t write them down, you could lose that. Don’t use the name of your dog or your birthday, someone could guess that.

So we did. We created different passwords for everything. We used password managers. We made our passwords so complicated that even we don’t know what they are anymore.

And then the internet collectively looked at all of that and said, “Okay, but what’s your phone number?”

Oh.

My phone number.

The thing I’ve had for years. The thing that can receive text messages.

The thing that is attached to basically everything, and can now apparently prove my identity to half the digital world.

Now this highly-coveted number has become akin to your Social Security number or even your fingerprints.

What’s the point of having seventeen different passwords for seventeen different websites if all seventeen websites can ultimately be accessed through the same phone sitting in my pocket?

And yes, I understand the argument. If someone gets your password, they still need your phone. If they steal your phone, they still need your passcode or Face ID. If they get into your email, they might still need another verification step.

I understand.

But every additional security measure seems to somehow make my phone more important.

My most loathed example of this is the authenticator app.

If I’m trying to log into an app on my phone, and that app gives me a code, and then I have to open up another app on my phone to enter that code and prove that I’m the same me who just tried to log into the first app on the same exact phone… go to hell lol.

I have a similar irritation toward “magic links,” aka the whole thing where you enter your email address on a website and it emails you a link to click and be logged in.

And look, they’re super convenient. I love clicking on things, I’m human.

But we’ve just… done away with passwords entirely? That doesn’t sit right with me. Because now my email account has effectively become the master password for everything.

And if my email can be the password, and my phone can verify my email, and my phone number can verify my identity, and my phone has my authenticator app, and my phone has my digital wallet, and my phone has my banking apps…

Well, congratulations. We played ourselves.

This brings me to my other related irritation: Apple Pay, Google Pay, digital wallets, and whatever.

I know. They’re secure. I’m sure they’re secure.

They’re encrypted and they can generate new card numbers each time. I’m sure Face ID is difficult to fool. Blah blah blah. I’m still not a fan.

Because we keep coming back to the same problem: everything is connected to one source.

And that’s the weakness.

Even if a physical card can get swiped or skimmed, it’s not exactly instantaneously connected to the wider digitalsphere as your phone is. And it’s separate from everything else you own.

My physical credit card isn’t also my email account, and my authenticator, and my phone number, and my GPS, and my photo library, and my password manager.

It’s just a piece of plastic. And there’s something comforting about that.

If my phone dies, I don’t want my ability to pay for something to die with it. If I lose my phone, I don’t want the same object that contains my bank account to also be the thing I need to access my bank account.

Just the other day, I changed the notification settings on my phone to hide previews of messages when locked, since now I have a fear of just about anyone being able to read codes on my phone without even unlocking it.

We’re slowly turning our phones into the keys for everything.

Your bank account.

Your credit cards.

Your email.

Your social media.

Your work.

Your photos.

Your passwords.

Your boarding passes.

Your hotel reservations.

Your identity.

I’m not saying we should go back to ye olden days of paper checks and rotary phones. I’m not anti-technology, quite the opposite. I like not having to remember passwords. I have been known to tap my card. I like being able to pull up a boarding pass or concert tickets on my phone instead of printing it out like someone who has to print things.

I just don’t love the direction we’re heading when every convenience depends on the same single piece of hardware continuing to work perfectly.

I think there’s value in having a few things that are intentionally separate. A physical card. A password you actually know.

A backup authentication method that doesn’t live on the same device.

A phone number that isn’t the universal skeleton key to your entire existence.

Basically, I want some f****** compartmentalization.

(There’s also something to be said about the loss of physical objects in general as we turn everything to digital items on a screen and lose our ability to actually own anything… but that’s another post.)

I don’t know. Am I wrong, irrational? Am I now the old man yelling at the cloud at my grown 28 years of age, “pushing 30” as they say?

I just have a healthy fear of centralized authority. What can I say, maybe that’s the red-blooded American in me.

When everything is connected, everything is convenient.

But when something goes wrong?

Everything is connected.