The Big Read: Passwords unlock much more than our accounts

We despise them - yet we imbue them with our hopes and dreams, our dearest memories, our deepest meanings. They unlock much more than our accounts, writes Ian Urbina

Howar Lutnick, the chief executive of Cantor Fitzgerald, one of the world’s largest financial-services firms, still cries when he talks about it. Not long after the planes struck the twin towers, killing 658 of his co-workers and friends, including his brother, one of the first things on Lutnick’s mind was passwords. This may seem callous, but it was not.