Too many passwords

The ease shopping online is nice and over the years, I've found vendors for some of my favorite toys. With that, the headaches of all the different user names, passwords and bookmarks of where they are. While the current browsers have the ability to track my accounts, it's not a pretty sight to see just how many vendors I interact with.

Pooter, photo, Amazon, Newegg, forums, banking, C-card...numerous e-mail accounts...

How do some of you manage to keep it all straight? Not to mention the security issues with this many accounts out there.

I do with KeePass. It's Open Source and works great. You can pretty easily configure it to auto-type your username and password based on window titles. You can also configure it to be more or less secure depending on your typical use. For example at home I have it stay unlocked indefinitely even when minimized but at work I have it lock when I minimize it and also after a few minutes of not accessing it.

Added: Because it uses window titles I can even use it to log into my various unix machines at work. I just configure my telnet program (putty) to display the machine name in the window title bar and KeePass will enter the username and password for me. Note: You also need to customize the auto-type string to do this, which KeePass does very well.

KeePass looks great. Thank you. I love Open Source!

i use passmate its free and you can set it up to be a stand alone database..it doesnt fill it in for you it just lets you use one pword to open the file then all your stuff is inside.. http://www.atm-services.net/passmate/ well used to be free i have the original if you want i'll email it to you its about 275kb less than 1/2 meg will fit on floppy with room to spare and no need to install it. it just sits there till u need it. been using it for years now IMO its great..

Firefox will remember passwords and forms info. Firefox for non critical passwords. never allow any password manager for critical passwords.

I try to keep a few usernames/passwords.

I'm pissed when I try to register and my names are already taken.. Sometimes I wonder if it's just me already registered.

I have a heavily used note pad.

A single peice of card with site, login name, email and password.

Seems to work.

A password protected excel file with the information.

How do some of you manage to keep it all straight? Not to mention the security issues with this many accounts out there.

Click to expand...

I have a little filofax with all that stuff written down in it.

Don't see the logic in keeping it on the PC, it could be lost in the event of a catostrophic accident or the like.


CFU

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RA40 said:

How do some of you manage to keep it all straight?

Click to expand...

I have about 3 pages of passwords in the form of a WordPerfect doc, and use control-F to find the one I am looking for. Keep several hardcopies as well in case the harddrive crashes.

peace

I use Password Safe. I guess it's similar to KeePass. I keep all my acounts and forums etc. in there. I have 95 entries and counting.

I usually let Password Safe generate the password for each account. I have no idea what they are. Just a jumble of upper and lower case letters and symbols.

I use it for more than just passwords. I keep the user name, e-mail address, etc. for each account in there. If I ever lost Password Safe and lost the backups, I would be in big trouble.

I use a program called Scarabay. It will work off of a thumb drive and has some pretty good encryption to protect your database. It also allow you to input the URL that the password is used on so you just click, have the page open then drag and drop your login.

I just keep the company URLs, usernames, and passwords for them all in a "scratch pad" file I have ready access to.

The format I use is:

http://www.company1.com
Username: telephony
Password: 11001001

http://www.flashlightcompany2.com/login.php
Username: The_LED_Museum
Password: 00110110

Doing it this way, I can just do a quick on-page search for part of the company's web URL, and the rest is grouped right there with it. And it's secure in the way that nothing is on the internet or is transmitted in any manner.

You guys are lucky. I work in a secured "Clean Desk" environment and have 11 to deal with. about 4 are the same log ons and same password, the rest are different. What to use where and to reused when something times out is a nightmare. After a few wrong tries I am locked out.

Since its a clean environment, I am not allowed anything electronical or anything to write with. If I must, I have a toy to write on with special pen on the pad that erases and writes with pressure.

I use http://www.roboform.com/

I also use keepass...

Just like eluminator, my keepass password file also contains notes, contacts, etc.

I use Gringotts (*NIX) for backup. Mozilla has a password manager that stores them encrypted and I find it quite handy and fool proof.

Security expert Bruce Schneier (of Blowfish, Twofish and Crypto-Gram fame) advises backing them up to a card in your wallet. I did that and I jumbled them on the card so only I may put them back together for use. Laminate it and you're good to go.

I was glad I had the card when I had to use strange computers in the aftermath of Katrina.

i write everything down, backwards on index cards...so only in front of a mirror can you figure them out, overlap each password on another off at an angle...if all angles are filled, use a different color pen and repeat...

all words and letters are written out lengthwise so to view it one would need a mirror and to look at an angle or its just data mush..

20 passwords for everyday needs, kept the card for about half a year before it dissolved in the laundry machine, so far I've retrieved 17 passwords and logged them into a [.txt] file on my desktop. as far as the 3, thats two locked emails and one camping store member account i never used.... :sigh: