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Ask HN: Personal password storage and usage

8 points by laurencei ↗ HN
With the recent issues with leaked passwords, poor encryption, gmail hacking etc - I was curious; how do you store and protect your passwords?

I currently have a 'throwaway' password I use on low end sites, and some specific ones for email, banking etc - but I'm thinking of making really big tough unique passwords for all my sites now, and use something like FireFox to store them - and that way I only need to remember one generic (yet tough) password. Thoughts?

11 comments

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ashaikh
A good way to store them is a physical copy in an old address book. Use the alphabetical directory for the site name and then you won't have to worry about forgetting them.
michiel3
If you're going to use a password manager, I would recommend 1Password or LastPass.

Other tricks you can apply:

- Use a different password on every website. To help you remember it, you can choose one main password and make variations on it for every website (the variation is based on that website, but don't make it too obvious!)

- I can't tell my password for a specific website if someone points a gun at my head, since I don't know it. I need a QWERTY keyboard to enter my password, because I only remember the flow of the characters I type. I don't remember all the characters.

horv
I add my vote for 1Password. Just started using it a few days ago but I think it's very well done.
laurencei
Thanks - I've given 1PAssword a go - looks promising
robgough
I've been using 1Password for about six months now, and loving it. It can auto-generate passwords for you, so for most of my main sites now I actually don't know the password anymore.

The advantage of 1Password is that it runs on Mac/Windows/iPhone/iPad which are all the main platforms I use regularly, though this setup cost a little more than buying it just in one place.

A feature I quite like, and that made me feel somewhat more confident in trusting ALL my passwords to it - is that not only does it sync to dropbox, but you can visit the dropbox website and view a .html file to get web-based access to your passwords though a now-familiar UI.

(I'm just a happy customer, I don't work for them - and I've never tried a competitors products so this isn't a comparison)

pwg
Don't use the built in password storage of any browser. Doing so leaves you vulernable to bugs such as this one: http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=25044.0;wap2. I.e., if a hole that leaks passwords exists, your browser could be leaking all your "high quality" passwords without your knowledge.

Instead, do as michiel3 suggests. Use a separate, independent, password manager. There are plenty out there. I recommend (and use) Password Gorilla myself (https://github.com/zdia/gorilla/wiki).

This way, your passwords are protected from browser bugs (should they appear). Further you can easily make completely independent, strong, passwords for every site, because you are not remembering each, you only need remember the unlock password(phrase) (hopefully also strong) for your password manager app.

lukebaker
I'm a fan of PasswordMaker. Based on the domain name of the site, a master password (you could still use a tier system where sites of different value have a different master password), and other settings a password gets generated. Each site gets its own password and your passwords are only stored on the target site (i.e., there's no central password manager that stores all your passwords). There are browser extensions that make it easier to use and if you're not on your own browser there's an online JS version available for generating your passwords.
yashchandra
I keep about 3 passwords at one time. 1 password for email, one for bank accuonts, one for everything else like HN, reddit,linkedin etc. I treat email as most critical since emails contains pretty much everything about you including critical documents that you email (passport copy etc). Then comes financial accounts such as bank,credit cards etc. The last one is everything else.
toomuchcoffee
A little pad of paper you keep in some drawer somewhere that no one is likely to stumble upon. Satisfies all 3 corners of the CAP theorem and is infinitely scalable!