I’ve often read it’s a good practice to look through all my online accounts. And then to see which ones are still active and where I can log in. Lastly, it’s a good practice to cancel any accounts which aren’t likely to be used again.
Those are all good practices. And they are things I don’t make a regular habit of doing.
In episode 388 of the Software Defined Talk podcast, Coté and Schafer had a different way of describing it. Systems which are never pruned and always grow would be called a tumor in the body. They suck up resources and create additional risks for the system in the long term.
Now I feel much more motivated to clean those old accounts and old programs. And yes there are lots of risks from old unused accounts hanging around. Those are accounts which can be hacked and it doesn’t make a lot of sense to have that risk for something which won’t be used again. I did know that, but I wanted to avoid weeding through my old accounts.