Storing passwords

[mtbc]

Passwords are tricky to deal with. I like to have fairly long, random ones and to not reuse them. With the various accounts I have this means there are rather a lot of passwords to remember, an especial challenge when some must be changed on a regular basis and others ought to be.

Further, some authentication like for online banking requires various ancillary information: answers to security questions and the like. I do not like to give correct answers to these, nor reuse the answers, so that is even more to remember.

Some people use mnemonics but it is easy for one's mind to blank out on something well-known. I could keep written records in our safe but one sometimes require a rarely used password exactly at an inconvenient time or place. I certainly do not trust password-keeping apps.

I am not proposing or soliciting answers so much as noting that practical password management is a hard problem. Still, as ever, others' thoughts are most welcome.

Comments

[goldibehr]

I use a password manager app on my android phone, with the "master" database file on my PC at home. There's just too many to remember, and more and more sites are locking you out after a few wrong guesses.

[goldibehr]

Using an encrypted password manager also lets you make up wacky answers to the security questions. But a downside is that you need to hope no other app is snooping on you while the manager is running.