I ran a small university computer lab from '94 to '96 and was in charge of the school's e-mail system. The biggest problem we had was convincing not only the students, but the FACULTY, not to share their e-mail account information with anyone.
The FACULTY was always pi$$ed off at me because I wouldn't let them use their name as their password - how's that for security. And many students saw no problem with writting their account name AND password on the cover of their notebooks, not the inside cover, the outside cover!!
We even had one idiot, vegan, screaming liberal, wore a bandana around his neck all the time, philosophy professor give his FREE e-mail account to his step-son for the kid's birthday. (Could you get any cheaper than that!!!) Then this idiot has the nerve to complain to the president of the school when the kid hacks the mail system and we cancelled the professor's account!!
Strange coincidence -yes, anything deeper, not from my experience in the hall of higher ed!!!!
But this Nick guy was supposedly one of the more savvy types who aren't as quick to do that --- but it's true a lot of people give out passwords easily. The thing is they wouldn't likely tell their dad so how would he know? I could see if 20 people claimed Nick handed them his password so they could use his e-mail account --- but isn't it just the dad making that claim?