Your title suggests to me that you got it. It’s commentary on a
problem with passwords. If it’s too easy to recover them, what
good are they? If it’s too hard to recover them, nobody’s happy.
But it’s done speakeasy style, instead of something modern,
because allusion is funnier than explicitness.
I understand (and agree with) most of Arthur’s answer @1, except for the first sentence. What in the world does a swordfish have anything to do with passwords? Would a catfish be an acceptable substitute? How about a dogfish?
P.S. I considered adding a seahorse, too, but in the words of James Lipton, this is beginning to be flogging a dead one.
I think the old site wasn’t smart enough to accept parens as
part of a URL.
One thing I miss about the old site is that it probably knew all
of my mistyped edresses. At least I figure that’s what sent my
previous post into moderation.
Thanks Arthur (@1,3,4,5) – It’s been many decades since I’ve seen “Horse Feathers”.
You don’t normally recover passwords, do you? You have to reset them, or rather set a new one. Presumably in speakeasy times they would then send a letter to your home address for you to bring back to prove you were you.
Ah, no, you got-a tell me. I tell-a you what I do. I give-a you three guesses.
There are some distinctly named variations on, not catfishing itself as much as phishing more generally. Such as spearphishing (phishing targeted to a specific individual). I haven’t heard swordphishing in any similar context, but wouldn’t be surprised if someone came up with something.
It’s not “reindeer flotilla”?
Arthur, of course I knew the reference, just didn’t know how that translated into a joke.
“Swordfish” is, in fact, my go-to password for sites that in a sane world would not require passwords (like to read the free edition of some online magazine).
I honestly did not know that reference, I thought the stupid movie was what was being referred to. I am ashamed I did not know it, but am grateful to this site; I should just have that happy xkcd attitude, that today I am the lucky one who gets to learn about a wonderful thing I didn’t know about. New (to me) Marx Brothers material! What a blessing!
(Of course, I can’t keep my mind now from seeing Margaret Dumont fellating Groucho while he tries to crack Chico’s password…)
Swordfish as a password goes back to an ancient Marx’s brothers movie, I believe that the movie was “Horse Feathers”. Harpo Marxs is asked for the password to get into a speakeasy. Harpo, always the mute pulls a swordfish from under his overcoat!
My password for everything is house*magnet because CompuServe said it’s the most secure password of all.
Some commercial or show or movie recently used this idea and the password was swordfish,but neither of us can remember which.
Actually, Harpo pulled out a sword and a fish from under his coat. Now I want to see the movie again.
I wanted to buy a train ticket to visit my sister for Christmas, but my credit card company decided I needed to have a password for making online purchases, supposedly to protect me. Except that if the password was anything other than my standard password, I’d forget it immediately, and if it was my standard password, it wouldn’t be any protection.
And then there’s those websites where I’m going to buy things from once in a couple of years. I don’t need an account and password to shop at Target or Walmart, why should I need to create an account and password to buy toy cannons and the goo that powers them. I’ll give you my credit card number when I want to buy something from you.
Comics I Don't Understand 
Your title suggests to me that you got it. It’s commentary on a
problem with passwords. If it’s too easy to recover them, what
good are they? If it’s too hard to recover them, nobody’s happy.
But it’s done speakeasy style, instead of something modern,
because allusion is funnier than explicitness.
I understand (and agree with) most of Arthur’s answer @1, except for the first sentence. What in the world does a swordfish have anything to do with passwords? Would a catfish be an acceptable substitute? How about a dogfish?
P.S. I considered adding a seahorse, too, but in the words of James Lipton, this is beginning to be flogging a dead one.
Marx Brothers. The entire next line is a URL:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swordfish_(password)
I think the old site wasn’t smart enough to accept parens as
part of a URL.
One thing I miss about the old site is that it probably knew all
of my mistyped edresses. At least I figure that’s what sent my
previous post into moderation.
Thanks Arthur (@1,3,4,5) – It’s been many decades since I’ve seen “Horse Feathers”.
You don’t normally recover passwords, do you? You have to reset them, or rather set a new one. Presumably in speakeasy times they would then send a letter to your home address for you to bring back to prove you were you.
Ah, no, you got-a tell me. I tell-a you what I do. I give-a you three guesses.
There are some distinctly named variations on, not catfishing itself as much as phishing more generally. Such as spearphishing (phishing targeted to a specific individual). I haven’t heard swordphishing in any similar context, but wouldn’t be surprised if someone came up with something.
It’s not “reindeer flotilla”?
Arthur, of course I knew the reference, just didn’t know how that translated into a joke.
“Swordfish” is, in fact, my go-to password for sites that in a sane world would not require passwords (like to read the free edition of some online magazine).
correcthorsebatterystaple
https://xkcd.com/936/
I honestly did not know that reference, I thought the stupid movie was what was being referred to. I am ashamed I did not know it, but am grateful to this site; I should just have that happy xkcd attitude, that today I am the lucky one who gets to learn about a wonderful thing I didn’t know about. New (to me) Marx Brothers material! What a blessing!
(Of course, I can’t keep my mind now from seeing Margaret Dumont fellating Groucho while he tries to crack Chico’s password…)
Swordfish as a password goes back to an ancient Marx’s brothers movie, I believe that the movie was “Horse Feathers”. Harpo Marxs is asked for the password to get into a speakeasy. Harpo, always the mute pulls a swordfish from under his overcoat!
My password for everything is house*magnet because CompuServe said it’s the most secure password of all.
Some commercial or show or movie recently used this idea and the password was swordfish,but neither of us can remember which.
Actually, Harpo pulled out a sword and a fish from under his coat. Now I want to see the movie again.
I wanted to buy a train ticket to visit my sister for Christmas, but my credit card company decided I needed to have a password for making online purchases, supposedly to protect me. Except that if the password was anything other than my standard password, I’d forget it immediately, and if it was my standard password, it wouldn’t be any protection.
And then there’s those websites where I’m going to buy things from once in a couple of years. I don’t need an account and password to shop at Target or Walmart, why should I need to create an account and password to buy toy cannons and the goo that powers them. I’ll give you my credit card number when I want to buy something from you.