Writing Down Passwords?

Atryn wonders: "I was recently checking for the latest firmware for a Netgear router when I decided to click on their Guide to Internet Security where it states: 'Contrary to much 'expert' advice, there is very little risk writing down passwords. In fact, years from now you may discover you need them to access old files.' I'm wondering what Slashdot thinks of Netgear's recommendation." Update: 06/08 21:19 GMT by T : Reader 654043 reminds us of the Microsoft recommendation to write down passwords which ran a few weeks back, and which has some pretty sound reasoning behind it.

Comments

Re:recommendations?

[cursion]

I've got this thing called a spiral bound notebook...

Like anything else

[wowbagger]

The security of writing down passwords depends upon the security of the paper they are written upon.

If you have a router/firewall on your Internet connection, and you write the password(s) to the router on a piece of paper taped to the router, then you are not really reducing your security - if the bad guys are in the room reading the password you are already in trouble.

However, if you write your workstation password down on a piece of paper under your keyboard, and other people can reasonably be expected to have access to your office, then you are greatly reducing your security. If, on the other hand, you have your password written down on a piece of paper you keep in your wallet, then the reduction in security is fairly minimal - especially if there is nothing in your wallet that would lead the bad guys to your workstation.

Re:recommendations?

[nizo]

Becoming tired of remembering passwords, I wrote a little perl program to randomly generate a matrix like this:

a-E9 b-?p c-&m
d-6K e-aY f-eP
g-!S h-gn i-D=
j-Hd k-vw l-Cb
m-W5 n-4$ o-R3
p-x% q-7M r-NF
s-+2 t-s* u-Ay
v-fL w-zG x-Zu
y-cX z-Qr

I then print this, laminate it, and put it in my wallet (a backup copy somewhere isn't a bad idea either). Then, for every password I just remember a word (maybe "bank" for my bank for example) which gives me a password of: ?pE94$vw
Hard to guess, easy for me to "remember". If someone gets my paper (say I lose my wallet), it is still not simple to figure out what my passwords are, or even what the heck that little paper is. Shoulder surfing doesn't work too well either, unless you can memorize the whole card and then figure out which word I am using (it would be easier to try to watch me type the password on the keyboard then get it off the paper. Luckily I type fast and get annoyed when people stand over me while I type a password :-) ).

Re:recommendations?

[bnardone]

I thought what he had posted was the Perl script.