No need to remember passwords: keep them in this handy log book
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How in today's world is it less secure?..... How are most passwords pwned these days? Via electronic means.....how many burglars will lift a piece of paper from next to a computer in case it has passwords? Next to none. The prevailing advice is indeed to write them down on a piece of paper - we don't live in the kind of world (despite what Wargames would have us believe) were it's a security risk, and it's a LOT less likely to be "cracked" than even a password manager....
C# has already designed away most of the tedium of C++.
Back in my Silicon Valley days (in the late neolithic, pre-internet), there were definitely people who regularly went rummaging through dumpster bins of high-tech companies looking recyclable gear, trade-secrets, unannounced product details, passwords, credit card numbers, etc., and there was a well-known (text only) BBS for the Mac full of pirated wares using serial numbers found in said dumpsters, stolen by employees of software companies, hacked, etc. One trash-removal company employee was reported to be one of the unseen-hands behind this BBS, and was a notable "personality" at Mac User Groups.
« I am putting myself to the fullest possible use which is all, I think, that any conscious entity can ever hope to do » HAL (Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer) in "2001, A Space Odyssey"
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I used to always use passwords like "KeithS_19570812!", it meets most requirements of length, mixed case, numeric characters and symbols. I kept the password in my address book with the numeric part as a birthday (or phone number) and the name is optionally completed with surname. "Keith Smith" doesn't exist for me as a person - I know that, but a snooper wouldn't. I can look up the name and construct the password and only have to remember what name is for what system - a lot easier than remembering a bunch of random digits! My real contacts are intermingled with my passwords and only I know which are which. When it comes time to change a password due to compulsory expiry (a practice I personally disagree with) I can just change it to something like "Kenneth_20030613!" which is sufficiently different to pass password similarity checks and yet stays on the same page of my address book as a new name. I might even just list it as "Ken 13-Jun-2003". Effective obfuscation. PS. I now use a different method that involves having a better memory and not writing anything down - only because I was too lazy to write all of them down.
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
Forogar wrote:
only because I was too lazy to write all of them down
Laziness is a great motivator. :)
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Forogar wrote:
only because I was too lazy to write all of them down
Laziness is a great motivator. :)
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I have written some of my best code to get around my personal laziness? Lazy pedants make the best programmers.
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
Forogar wrote:
I have written some of my best code to get around my personal laziness?
100% agree. I was serious about laziness being a great motivator. The best programmers are the lazy ones.
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Passwords shouldn't be rememberable at all. The policies that are ridiculous are mainly the ones that set a maximum length. Go take a look at http://www.keepass.info/[^] and let your life become far easier. Easier than remembering, and also easier than a text file, thanks to search, auto-type, and the ability to sit in your system tray until called upon with a key combination. Just remember one password, then store, search, and auto-type the rest, along with notes, URL's, usernames, and other data in safe, encrypted form. Bonus tip: also a handy place to store other life data that you occasionally need to look up (vehicle VIN, tax ID, spouse social security number, insurance policy numbers, etc.). Bonus tip #2: use random gibberish as the answers to those web site "security questions", which are rarely very secure since they usually involve very easily obtained information about you, and store your gibberish answers in the password manager as well.
Perhaps unbelievably, I do know how to use a computer, so I use three somethings similar at home (I subdivide the contexts that you suggest clumping together), but it's more the "change passwords every 35 minutes and never use a letter that you have used in a previous password" cr@p that I protest against. For example, the app used to book time off. Any normal person uses such an app every couple of months. They demand a fresh password every month, so you have to change password every time you open the fruggin' thing -- and you can't use anything resembling any of your last twelve passwords! Hence the text file. **** 'em.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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You know it's bad when a little black book now contains website addresses rather than chick's phone numbers. Glad to see our priorities are in order.
Jeremy Falcon
Jeremy Falcon wrote:
You know it's bad when a little black book now contains website addresses rather than chick's phone numbers.
Not at all. I need a bigger black book for the chicks.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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This is a #1 Best-seller at Amazon. One of the Amazon reviewers says, "I keep it right next to my keyboard." That's ultimate security. :D Technology has defeated itself by being so secure it is no longer useful or secure. :wtf: Internet Address & Password Log Book - amazon link[^]
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At work, I keep all my passwords in a text file on my desktop. The file's name? passwords.txt If and when they change their ridiculous password policy, I'll change my method of remembering them.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Perhaps unbelievably, I do know how to use a computer, so I use three somethings similar at home (I subdivide the contexts that you suggest clumping together), but it's more the "change passwords every 35 minutes and never use a letter that you have used in a previous password" cr@p that I protest against. For example, the app used to book time off. Any normal person uses such an app every couple of months. They demand a fresh password every month, so you have to change password every time you open the fruggin' thing -- and you can't use anything resembling any of your last twelve passwords! Hence the text file. **** 'em.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
I've just tried to access my very first GMail account, and can't remember the password. Google's password policies aren't the issue, it's their password reset policies. I see on my current Google Apps mail accounts I can just reset my password my getting a code via SMS, and one of these accounts is still using POP3 to pull mail out of the old GMail account, but I have tried and tried, and there seems to be no way I answer the questions correctly, except the name of my 1st teacher, which myself and a few hundred people I know, know well. But, was it "Mrs", "mrs", "mrs.", etc? As to the dates I created or last used the account, anybodies guess.
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Le'ssee... Ah. 127.0.0.1
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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I've just tried to access my very first GMail account, and can't remember the password. Google's password policies aren't the issue, it's their password reset policies. I see on my current Google Apps mail accounts I can just reset my password my getting a code via SMS, and one of these accounts is still using POP3 to pull mail out of the old GMail account, but I have tried and tried, and there seems to be no way I answer the questions correctly, except the name of my 1st teacher, which myself and a few hundred people I know, know well. But, was it "Mrs", "mrs", "mrs.", etc? As to the dates I created or last used the account, anybodies guess.
Hmm. Dunno. Google keeps asking me for my phone number, but I won't give it to them, so the SMS thing wouldn't work for me. It asks me every time I install or upgrade apps on my three mobile devices, so it's an annoying intrusion that is poisoning the waters of android for me.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!