Slashdot Mirror
Best Tool For Remembering Passwords?
StonyCreekBare writes "Lately I've been rethinking my personal security practices. Should my laptop be stolen, having Firefox 'fill in' passwords automatically for me when I go to my bank's site seems sub-optimal. Keeping passwords for all the varied sites on the computer in a plain-text file seems unwise as well. Keeping them in my brain is a prescription for disaster, as my brain is increasingly leaky. A paper notepad likewise has its disadvantages. I have looked at a number of password managers, password 'vaults' and so on. The number of tools out there is a bit overwhelming. Magic Password Generator add-in for Firefox seems competent, but it's tied to Firefox, and I have other places and applications where I want passwords. And I might be accessing my sites from other computers that don't have it installed. The ideal tool in my mind should be something that is independent of any application, browser, or computer; something that is easily carried, but which if lost poses no risk of compromise. What does the Slashdot crowd like in password tools?"
Post-It notes have the distinct advantage that no computer virus or Trojan can steal it.
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
Inside the plain text file, of course!
Websites could do more to protect their users too. For example if you accidentally write your password here on Slashdot comments, it comes up as masked. Like for example my password is ********.
Really? That works? My password is hunter32. :P
Seems like i can see it still though.
A guy I used to work with told me a story about a late-night support call with the operations center. He figured out that they needed to run a job that was under someone else's account. So they conference-called in this other guy at home in the middle of the night, and asked him for his password. He refused to give it over the phone, and the operations people were getting madder and madder because the night's jobs were being held up. Finally, he agreed to give them the password but only if they turned off the speaker phone.
The guy's password was BigBlackDonkeyDick.
Hilarity ensued. I'm pretty sure the whole shop knew the guy's password by the next morning (hell, I still remember it and I didn't even know the guy!)
John
Really? I couldn't see it. this is what i saw
Really? That works? My password is ********.
You only see it because it's your password. Everyone else sees it like this:
Really? That works? My password is ********.
He didn't know your password. He just typed "********" but you saw it as "hunter32" because that's your password.
I have a similar setup, I have this on a piece of paper in my wallet
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
and I simply remember which letter my password starts with, and then what letter comes second etc.
For example, if my password was SLASHDOT, I would start by remembering the first letter, which is S, then remember the second letter, which is L, and I continue remembering until I have completed the password.