How do you manage your passwords?

[OutHouse]

ive been experimenting with lastpass. not sure if i like it or not.

 

[Fritzo]

I have a system. I make a standard sentence and add the subject of whatever I'm logging into to it.

For example:
"This is the password for the Dave's mail server room."
"This is the password for the server next to Sally's printer."
"This is the password for Frank's workstation."

This system usually has well over 200 bits of entropy, making it very secure and very easy to remember. The trick is to remember the clue you use at the end of the sentence.

 

[NutBucket]

Pen and paper baby!

Basically the most secure method IMHO.

 

[ImpulsE69]

I nitpick and second guess their every move, then I make them work tons of unpaid overtime.

 

[ImpulsE69]

I have a system. I make a standard sentence and add the subject of whatever I'm logging into to it.

For example:
"This is the password for the Dave's mail server room."
"This is the password for the server next to Sally's printer."
"This is the password for Frank's workstation."

This system usually has well over 200 bits of entropy, making it very secure and very easy to remember. The trick is to remember the clue you use at the end of the sentence.

My god you must never use those systems....

 

[Fritzo]

My god you must never use those systems....

If course I do

 

[momeNt]

I hide them in forum posts on forums.anandtech.com

The "master key" is a very specific search term that will then reveal the website, username, and password if you decrypt the messages that the search term retrieves.

Hopefully this place isn't going anywhere any time soon, I don't trust password software.

 

[blankslate]

I have mypassword01, mypassword02, and so forth for all my different accounts. I also store in a .txt file named "very very important passwords" on my desktop in case I forget any of them.


___________________

 

[JSt0rm]

I post them all in the nef thread and I know the post number.

 

[Jaepheth]

I have an NxM randomly generated matrix I keep a hard copy of near my PC.

I have a mental algorithm that uses this matrix to generate passwords.

So all I need to remember is which iteration I'm on, and which website I'm attempting to access and I can read the password right off the page; after a week or so I have it memorized until I change it again.

 

[Linux23]

usually brute force and if locked out, password reset.

 

[Carson Dyle]

Manage?

Manage what? I've been using the same password for everything since 1982. When forced to, I add the same exact special character, capitalize the same letter, and add or or change the single digit on the end of it.

Not really, but I'm pretty certain that's what the vast majority of people do.

 

[DrDoug]

For years I've had several go to passwords that I'd use for everything but I find that it's getting harder to keep track of them all in my head and so there have been a few accounts that I habitually get locked out of because of this.
More recently my employer started doing paperless payroll and we login to view our paystubs and submit vacation time. The website is slightly buggy but their password rules are utlra-strict and I can't seem to come up with a 12 digit alpha-numeric password containing both caps, lowercase, and special characters that I'll remember after one week.

So I broke down yesterday and started using keepass. It seems pretty good and works well on both mobile and desktop. So now all of my passwords have been changed using their generator so I should be good as long as I still have my backup file which I keep unprotected and publicly downloadable on my google drive with the link posted to my facebook wall.

Use something in real life for reference. One 'formula' I give to my customers with a spouse and/or kids is to first start with two of their initials (first/middle, first/last or middle/last) and the numeric values for two of the birth date details (month/day, month/year, day/year). For example, using the first and middle initials and the month and last two numbers in the year of birth for a family of four with the following information:

Robert Allen ------ 10/74
Barbara Ellen ------ 4/76
James Arthur ------ 9/95
Kelly Anne ------ 11/97

Would yield: ra1074be476ja995ka1197

In this example you could order the values with ladies first (mom then daughter) and the guys (father then son), which would give:

be476ka1197ra1074ja995

Now select which letters you want to capitalize (both first, men's first- ladies second, whatever...) and then garnish it with some symbols. In this case, I will capitalize the men's first and the ladies second initials:

bE476kA1197Ra1074Ja995

and add the garnish (inserting the symbols for the first three odd numbered keys, for example):

bE476!kA1197#Ra1074%Ja995

and now you not only have a damned long password but you can easily recall it when you need to as long as you remember how you constructed it. My oldest customer is an 83 year old lady that has a pc and does everything online (Amazon, streaming, banking, etc) and she loved this advice, as have many other customers.

You can do the same thing with information particular to you: cars owned (make/model initials, date of manufacture/purchase/etc), motorcycles owned, towns/addresses and so on. Build a password from something that you can easily remember and reference and after a while you will just remember the password because you have used it so often...lol!