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Show HN: If you lose your memory, how to regain access to your computer?

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Re: Show HN: If you lose your memory, how to regain access to your computer?

#21

Post by rcxdude »

munk-a wrote: post #20
bitexploder wrote: post #7

Low tech: I put my secret manager password in a physical journal that is locked in a fire proof, water proof vault and hidden somewhere only my partner and myself know where it is. I use a password manager. Everything else goes in the password manager.

Alternative - my partner and I (and also two other close contacts) have password managers that contain each of the other one's secret. This was less an effort to help with the memory loss scenario and more of an effort to deal with death and access to services (especially to cease subscriptions and the like). In a lower trust scenario you could probably use a lawyer as a broker of the secret (potentially even as part…

Password managers like bitwarden also have emergency access features which can do this, with the caveat of trusting them to enforce the requirement of access only being granted after a notification to the account holder is not denied in some time period (but unlike the lawyer you're not trusting them with the secret directly)

Re: Show HN: If you lose your memory, how to regain access to your computer?

#22

Post by rawgabbit »

For my personal passwords, I use Apple's password manager. It lets me share passwords with my family. I also created a folder on Apple's iCloud that I share.

https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/share-passwords-iphe6...

https://support.apple.com/guide/icloud/share-files-and-folde...

Re: Show HN: If you lose your memory, how to regain access to your computer?

#24

Post by maurycyz »

bitexploder wrote: post #7

Low tech: I put my secret manager password in a physical journal that is locked in a fire proof, water proof vault and hidden somewhere only my partner and myself know where it is. I use a password manager. Everything else goes in the password manager.

This. A physical safe provides something that you can't do digitally: It's hard, but not impossible to get in without credentials.

On the internet, it's either: Public for anyone in the whole world, or impossible to recover if anything goes wrong.

Re: Show HN: If you lose your memory, how to regain access to your computer?

#26

Post by nandomrumber »

nippoo wrote: post #16

This kind of thing, widely implemented, would be a game-changer for dealing with assets after someone's death! I maintain my family's IT infrastructure (Google Enterprise admin, webserver etc) and I've been tempted to write down 1/4 of my password manager root password and give it to each of my family members - but then we run into the problem where if any one of them loses their shard, it's unrecoverable. Some kind…

You can give your password, or part of it, to your estate lawyer to attach to your will.

This is obviously more cumbersome, and probably costly, if you intend on changing your password. I guess you could change the part of it you don’t store with them.

Re: Show HN: If you lose your memory, how to regain access to your computer?

#27

Post by Zambyte »

lucenet wrote: post #12
ericbarrett wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also had old Google backup codes fail a few years ago. Anybody who hasn't regenerated them in a year or two, I recommend you do so.

Well, this is disturbing news.

Google services are best treated as a liability.

Re: Show HN: If you lose your memory, how to regain access to your computer?

#29

Post by econ »

I like it. Perhaps you can use a weird idea of mine.

You can discard/modify part of a password before sending it to your backend. Then, when you log in the server has to brute force the missing part.

One could extend this with security questions like how many children pets and cars you own. What color was your car in 2024. Use that data to aid brute forcing.

The goal would be to be able to decrypt with fewer than 5 shards but make it as computation heavy as you like. If no one remembers the pink car it will take x hours longer.

Re: Show HN: If you lose your memory, how to regain access to your computer?

#30

Post by kylehotchkiss »

maurycyz wrote: post #24
bitexploder wrote: post #7

Low tech: I put my secret manager password in a physical journal that is locked in a fire proof, water proof vault and hidden somewhere only my partner and myself know where it is. I use a password manager. Everything else goes in the password manager.

This. A physical safe provides something that you can't do digitally: It's hard, but not impossible to get in without credentials. On the internet, it's either: Public for anyone in the whole world, or impossible to recover if anything goes wrong.

I've broken into Physical Safes using nothing more than a drill with a half inch bit (I was young and didn't want to drag myself to harbor freight to sacrifice a more suitable tool). Enough boreholes and I had access.

In hindsight, looking harder for the key would probably have been fruitful.

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