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Ask HN: How do you manage your passwords?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your passwords?

#51

Post by cgriswald »

maxcan wrote: post #8

1password on iOS/OSX. There was a big discount on both a while back and I jumped on it. Even today, I'd consider paying for it. I've tried all the open source options, none of them worked nearly as well as 1pwd.

https://agilebits.com/onepassword

1password is great. On OSX, I have one long, nice password and on iOS I can use Touch ID to open it (typing in that password on an iPhone was a pain). It syncs across devices over wifi, Dropbox, or iCloud.

There are versions for Windows and Android as well. I've used the Windows version a little bit and it's pretty much the same.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your passwords?

#52

Post by henshao »

ftwinnovations wrote: post #44

I use a secret scheme that only I know. It works like this - I have one single long complex "base" password, which is no problem for me to remember, which has letters, numbers, caps, and symbols so all password checkers are happy. Then, for every site I change that password using my secret scheme. I won't say what mine is, but an example is that I change the 3rd character to match the 3rd character of the URL, and I…

This is how I do it. The only problem is that I thought of doing this only a few years ago, so when I go access things I haven't been on in a few years, I have to try to remember if i already changed my password or not.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your passwords?

#53

Post by daddykotex »

boydjd wrote: post #10

keepass. I don't trust a service to store my passwords. I use a key file and a passphrase to secure my keepass database. The database is stored on dropbox, the keyfile is stored elsewhere.

I use KeyPass and sync it using BitTorrent sync on all my devices. The problem with my current setup is that I carry the keyfile along with the database which useless.

I got to think of another way!

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your passwords?

#54

Post by raimue » 

  $ vim passwords.gpg
I configured vim to

a) automatically pipe *.gpg through gpg on open and write,

b) to not keep viminfo, swap files or undo history for these files, and

c) to close automatically if I leave this file open for longer than 10 seconds without cursor movement.

This modeline at the top of the file hides everything besides the first indentation level:

  # vim:set foldenable foldmethod=indent foldclose=all foldlevel=0 foldminlines=0 foldtext='\ \ (hidden)' fillchars+=fold\:\  :
I have been using this approach for years. There might be better alternatives now, but this still works for me. I admit this is not perfect, as I still need to look at the password in plaintext for copy and paste operations.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your passwords?

#55

Post by stffndtz »

Mnemosyne https://www.subclassed.com/apps/mnemosyne/details

You can use it as a standalone generator, but also as a manager since it will generate the same password for the correct name + passphrase + output variables.

It's not much of a "useful" manager to me though, so I'm using Mnemosyne to generate the passwords and 1password to store them. Works like a charm!

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your passwords?

#56

Post by cgriswald »

ftwinnovations wrote: post #44

I use a secret scheme that only I know. It works like this - I have one single long complex "base" password, which is no problem for me to remember, which has letters, numbers, caps, and symbols so all password checkers are happy. Then, for every site I change that password using my secret scheme. I won't say what mine is, but an example is that I change the 3rd character to match the 3rd character of the URL, and I…

An attacker who can get two of your passwords will basically have all of your passwords, because by knowing which characters can change, they only have to attack those changes (your effective password length becomes the number of those changes). Additionally the pattern may be discernable with only two passwords, and even if not, each additional brute forced password provides additional information.

Put another way, every time you sign up for a website with a derived password, you are giving out information about your base password.

Special software doesn't reveal any information about your base password and even if the base password is acquired, the attacker still needs access to your vault to do anything about it.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your passwords?

#57

Post by thehoff »

Another lastpass user here. I used to use an in memory algorithm like dpayonk mentioned.

But having a family and lots of other obligations, others in the household had to have an easy way of logging into sites (ie. financial).

Lastpass makes it easy. Just the one password for them. And I use the notes feature quite a bit due the mentioned reason above.

Two-factor on any site that allows it makes it a little tricky but that's all explained in my lastpass notes.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your passwords?

#58

Post by woebtz »

KeePassX (Mac) + cloud storage and unique "low security" derived passwords for each service1.

I made a clone (lazypass.com) of passwordtable.com, so I could use a custom no-look-alike's character set (sans-"iILl1...o0O", etc.) and to improve lookups -- but the improvement, in practice, seems to be somewhat negligible.

I feel that important passwords should to be stored on paper or encrypted for a close friend/parent/spouse to recover should you get dead... is that kind of a similar concern?

1 Until they tell me to make a new one that can't be the same as the previous. :(

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your passwords?

#59

Post by denverdavido »

cwt wrote: post #2

I use lastpass. Never tried any other password manager. I don't mind logging into it. On my phone I can swipe my thumb. The only thing I don't like is having to type out the long random passwords on non-physical-keyboards - like setting up a roku to connect to amazon play and spending an extra 15 clicks switching case/keyboard. How often do you have to log into it? Is it specific to a device?

Another vote for Lastpass. Truly cross platform as it works on Linux as well. And the price is much less then 1password.
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