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Ask HN: I have 176 logins/accounts. How many do you have?

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Re: Ask HN: I have 176 logins/accounts. How many do you have?

#151
post #114

If I need to login to your site less than once or twice a year, "Forgot my password" is my password manager. Personally, I feel that the utility of me working to keep and maintain that information in a database for high availability is essentially zero. As a result, I store very few accounts overall and checking out as "guest" hasn't been a problem of any sort. There's like 10 critical things that I feel the need to…

I just use a crappy password. It's been leaked before. I don't care. If someone wants to take over my last.fm account that I haven't used in 3 years, sure go for it. The important accounts get a randomly generated password stored in my password manager. And the really important accounts only have half the password saved, I manually fill in the other half.

I guess that's kinda fine, but there are at least two reasons to not do this:

- Access to any of your accounts could make impersonation easier. You might not be the one who suffers from whatever they do. Or if they can assemble enough PII, you might unexpectedly have a line of credit taken out on your name.

- Many websites use some form of federated login, or a crossover kinda situation where you have a username/password login that is linked to eg a Google account. Access to the username/password account could open you up to an attack on the juicy targets.

Personally, I'd rather none of my accounts are easily compromised, but that's a pipe dream - it's not up to us to secure the services we use. So best thing to do is just use a good password.

It's easy these days to use a good password, though I acknowledge still tedious/impossible to update all of your services.

Re: Ask HN: I have 176 logins/accounts. How many do you have?

#154
post #114

If I need to login to your site less than once or twice a year, "Forgot my password" is my password manager. Personally, I feel that the utility of me working to keep and maintain that information in a database for high availability is essentially zero. As a result, I store very few accounts overall and checking out as "guest" hasn't been a problem of any sort. There's like 10 critical things that I feel the need to…

I just use a crappy password. It's been leaked before. I don't care. If someone wants to take over my last.fm account that I haven't used in 3 years, sure go for it. The important accounts get a randomly generated password stored in my password manager. And the really important accounts only have half the password saved, I manually fill in the other half.

Why save half the password, versus not saving any of it at all? Is this because the password is very long and you just want to save keystrokes?

Re: Ask HN: I have 176 logins/accounts. How many do you have?

#157
post #100

I'm probably the one with the least. I have 35 in my password manager. I purge the ones I don't need every 2 or 3 months. I even gave away GOG and Steam accounts to friends after years of not playing games. Sometimes I have to send a threatening email to delete some accounts. Currently there's about 2 I'm waiting for an answer. It's gotten worse lately: people just don't delete your account anymore :D. Because of tha…

I'm confused about what you're fucking off. Would you prefer to schedule haircuts via a call or an anonymous online form? Being able to schedule appointments online is one of the big wins of modern life imo: it beats waiting around on hold and laboriously explaining to the receptionist how to spell my last name.

Restaurants get the online reservation thing right, usually. With other local small businesses, it's very hit or miss and you are better off calling unless you know for sure their online system actually works.

I made an optometrist appointment online recently. Their online calendar showed which dates and times were available, so I picked the closest one which was still a few weeks out. I got an email immediately after and a text message confirmation the day before. When I went in at the correct day and time, the receptionist told me I wasn't anywhere in their system and they had no idea there was even an online appointment form. (Yes it was the correct business and they only had one location.)

My guess is that they recently paid for a website which included online scheduling and integration but someone forgot to flip the switch that sent the appointment to their scheduler.

Re: Ask HN: I have 176 logins/accounts. How many do you have?

#158
post #100

I'm probably the one with the least. I have 35 in my password manager. I purge the ones I don't need every 2 or 3 months. I even gave away GOG and Steam accounts to friends after years of not playing games. Sometimes I have to send a threatening email to delete some accounts. Currently there's about 2 I'm waiting for an answer. It's gotten worse lately: people just don't delete your account anymore :D. Because of tha…

I'm confused about what you're fucking off. Would you prefer to schedule haircuts via a call or an anonymous online form? Being able to schedule appointments online is one of the big wins of modern life imo: it beats waiting around on hold and laboriously explaining to the receptionist how to spell my last name.

Neither. I can already schedule in other barbershops, make government appointments, book hotels, purchase food, order guitars online, and several other things, all online and without a login/password. Not anonymous, just doesn't involve an account and a password.

I'd like to do this there, too. I sorta already do: I use "hide my password" for their website and delete it after the appointment.

Re: Ask HN: I have 176 logins/accounts. How many do you have?

#159

If I need to login to your site less than once or twice a year, "Forgot my password" is my password manager. Personally, I feel that the utility of me working to keep and maintain that information in a database for high availability is essentially zero. As a result, I store very few accounts overall and checking out as "guest" hasn't been a problem of any sort. There's like 10 critical things that I feel the need to…

If I haven't used your website in the last 15 minutes and you have unconventional password requirements, I'll be logging in via email :)

Re: Ask HN: I have 176 logins/accounts. How many do you have?

#160
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just use a crappy password. It's been leaked before. I don't care. If someone wants to take over my last.fm account that I haven't used in 3 years, sure go for it. The important accounts get a randomly generated password stored in my password manager. And the really important accounts only have half the password saved, I manually fill in the other half.

Why save half the password, versus not saving any of it at all? Is this because the password is very long and you just want to save keystrokes?

It's a lot easier to remember the second half if you know the first half (if it's a password and not a passcode)
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