Marius Masalar
So Your Password Manager’s Been Abducted by Aliens
Bummer! But don’t fret, we’ve left behind some tips to help you survive
We should have known this day would come.
Heck, you asked the question in plenty of time, but it still caught us off guard when the entirety of 1Password was engulfed in the scintillating glare of an alien tractor beam and pulled into the abyssal night of outer space for eternity.
But why dwell on the past? We may be gone, but you’re still here…and you have questions.
Questions like “is this a joke?” and “Do you have an easy-to-share listicle with next steps?”
Well, dear denizen of the planet formerly known as Earth, don’t worry: we do have answers. They are “yes”, and:
1. Don’t panic.
They may have gotten aunt Trudy, but they won’t get your data (and she was a bit much anyway, let’s be honest).
Before our entire company was abducted by unimaginable entities from the furthest reaches of the void, we were feeling pretty proud. We’d really gotten the hang of managing passwords, and had just raised a bunch of money to help us branch out and do more to protect people on the internet.
Alas, the aliens didn’t come for our NFTs, they came for our natural resources.
Still, we’d developed a really cool security model to protect customer data from unexpected circumstances—including the wholesale destruction of our company. Admittedly, we didn’t anticipate that destruction would come at the hands of an eldritch horror, but I suppose that’s what we get for hiring a bunch of Canadians: hopeless optimism.
The good news is that even though we’re all gone and our servers have been assimilated into an endless hive mind, the aliens still can’t get at your expertly curated TikTok favourites. Besides, all our apps work fine without an internet connection and you’ll always have full access to everything you’ve stored in 1Password.
And hey, look on the bright side: no more subscription fees!
2. Keep a journal
We won’t lie, the next few years will likely be tricky for you.
Between the disappearance of entire ecosystems and the existential loneliness of life on an increasingly barren planet whose every resource is being unsustainably plundered to further the unfathomable agenda of inhuman beings, it’s going to be tough to stay positive. The aliens will also be a problem.
We recommend chronicling your adventures in a journal to help preserve the legacy of our species and maybe leave behind some inspiration for a future Netflix original—you never know!
Incidentally, did you know 1Password can store more than passwords? You can even put your journal entries in for safekeeping. In retrospect, we probably should have changed our name to make this clearer but “Limitless Protection and Productivity for all Your Most Important Data, Inc.” lacks a certain je ne sais quoi.
It’s too late for us now, but you have a real opportunity to star in an episode of someone’s podcast after all this blows over.
3. Stay vigilant
It’s important to take care of yourself, stay active, and eat well—burnout is real, folks. We hear scavenging is good cardio, so you’ve got that going for you.
But as we all know, midway through Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (somewhere between Food and Belonging) is two-factor authentication. After you’ve gotten hunger taken care of, the most pressing threat to your wellbeing is surely unrecognized login attempts.
Once you set up two-factor authentication on all of your accounts that support it, you’ll be able to rest easy knowing that nobody (human or alien) can steal your credentials and impersonate you on Twitter.
4. Consider exporting your data
We understand that you might be feeling a little vulnerable right now. Normally, we would never recommend inscribing your secrets on the mangled flesh of dead trees, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
That’s why we made sure to build a robust set of export methods into the service to ensure you always have the option to pull your data out. Will it be as secure? Probably not, but we’ve been swallowed by a cosmic force so what do we care. You do you.
Just don’t come crying to us when the aliens start “sharing” your Netflix account.
5. Tell your friends
It used to be our job to tell people about 1Password, but now that we exist only as a fading memory in the collective unconsciousness of humanity’s remnants, our motivations have become more prosaic: we just want you to be happy. Also, we need you to tell people about 1Password now that we no longer can; these departmental OKRs aren’t going to fulfill themselves.
So care for those you love, don’t be afraid to cry, remember to floss, and take pride in the responsibility of continuing our work. By using 1Password, you’re carrying on the legacy of a great Canadian company, tragically cut down in its prime by the inscrutable wiles of extraterrestrials. We may be gone, but our data lives on…and isn’t that the best outcome any of us can hope for?
Look, it’s not that we don’t believe you’ll make it—you’re totally going to be the person who manages to survive until the aliens are gone, don’t even worry!—but on the off chance you aren’t…maybe let some of those fallout shelter buddies of yours know about us?
Thank you.
Yours in infinite oblivion,
The 1Password Content Team
Abduction-proof security, courtesy of 1Password.