I was just thinking about how many mobile devices we have (laptops and smaller) and how we log in to all our accounts on them. If we were to lose a device, we would need to reset passwords for all the accounts we’ve used on that device. Then I realised it would be a pain to recall all the accounts I’ve used, so I thought I should make a list of all important passwords to reset should I lose a device. Does anyone do this? Is it a good idea?
Hmm, it’s a good idea, but the only ones I can think of that would be important for me to reset are my email, Amazon, and online banking.
Nothing else would be absolutely critical. I mean, if someone were to hijack my SDMB account and start posting troll messages, that would suck a little, but I would get over it.
How many important accounts does the average person really have?
ya, anything important enough would require a password every session. the ipad itself has a password, and can be remotely wiped if it comes to it.
As in, thing that your computer automatically logs you into? At home, I just have a small handful, and I have them mostly memorized so it’s not a big deal.
At work, that’s different. I have far too many to remember. Most of them my computer won’t memorize (https), many of them have to be updated far more often that should be necessary and a lot of them I only log into once a month and either don’t remember them or that just about coincides with the amount of time that I have to chance the password so I end up having to change it every or every other time I log in.
So, I have a password protected file on my desktop with all my work passwords. On top of that I put my work credit card number in it so I don’t have to dig that out (and I can just cut and paste it into forms).
I can think of email, bank, amazon, eBay, PayPal, iTunes, steam, Facebook and twitter. That’s more than 10 accounts (some have more than 1).
Yeah, I have a list of about 20 passwords buried in an otherwise normal ebook in a text file.
I don’t have such a list, but I wondered about what would happen if I lost my wallet. So I made a list of all the cards in it, and the numbers to call to cancel them.
I absolutely keep a list of passwords, including the site address and the date I registered. If I have to change the password, I note the date that I changed it. I am extremely careful, vigilant, and borderline obsessive about the dozens of passwords that I used daily. I have different levels of security, too, depending on the site. IMHO anyone who doesn’t do this is nuts. I keep the list in a text file in two different places, and I update both places to add new pws and make changes. Sure the computer “remembers” some, but if you delete all your cookies, many of those memories will disappear, and if your computer crashes, God help you.
I also back up my entire My Documents folder (which is where everything is, including Quicken backups and the store file from my email client) every day, and alternate between two 1.5T external drives, so if something happens to one drive, the other one is only a couple of days behind. I have been BURNED, my friends, and BADLY when I didn’t take care of these housekeeping details. A couple of times, I’m embarrassed to say. I learned my lesson. Back up everything.
I read someplace where you should consider what is on your computer itself to be no more permanent than an Etch-a-Sketch and safeguard/backup accordingly. A word to the wise.
I’ve done that in the past. Then when I went on a vacation I gave the list to someone I trusted and let them know that if I lost my wallet I’d need them to call all my credit cards and get them canceled for me.
The other thing doing that does is make sure you don’t have stuff in your wallet (especially when going on vacation) that you don’t really need. For example, if you’re going to Niagara Falls for the weekend, do you really need to take your Best Buy card with you?
Yes I have a rather large list of passwords. They are kept on a separate drive along with a hard copy.
I have a buttload of passwords stored using Keepass, which I have uploaded to my Dropbox. In theory, I only have to remember those two passwords, and I should be able to recover my access to everything that I care about.
I have a metric buttload of passwords and such, and also recommend Keepass.
One more lesson: keep one of those external drives offsite, at work or a relative’s house even if it means slightly less frequent backups. That way some house disaster, like a fire, doesn’t render your obsessiveness useless.
I also keep a password list but remember my frequently used ones. It’s amazing how many companies make you create a user name/password just to apply for an open position, so the list of infrequent ones is quite long.
A password manager such as Keepass is very useful. In addition to storing passwords, you can also store phone numbers for credit cards, answers to security questions, and the like.
Security answers are the worst, but with the password manager, I can tell you that my mother’s middle name, the make of my first car, the school I went to high school, my first pet’s name, and my favorite color are all the same: Jju876GTRhsioik34iu
The only device I own that can access anything is my desktop at home. there are a few financial institution accounts, I have the passwords coded in the Bookmark title to remind me if I forget, and I never tell them to save my login data, and I require secret answers every time.
Poor security, but I don’t have enough to steal.
I don’t keep any passwords for anything that might have financial consequences anywhere, and certainly not on my cell phone. I remember them (there are only three or four), and don’t use my cell for any financial transactions.
If I lost my phone, people could get into my email and Facebook; most everything else I access on a computer.
We have a password vault tool that runs on all our handhelds (my phone, my husband’s, and our two iPod Touches). It synchs using Dropbox, to the handhelds and two computers. The main password to that is something really non-obvious and has not been written down, anywhere.
All our essential logons are in that tool - and it’s rather stunning to think how frickin’ MANY of them there are. I just counted 40 - and only got through the letter B.
So yeah, we have it all “written down”.
While there’s the theoretical risk that someone could get hold of one of our devices and break the password encryption, this would require:
- Physical access or some kind of remote access e.g. trojan
- Knowing the login password for the device itself
- Time to crack / decrypt the password vault itself.
I don’t do any ‘important’ stuff on my mobile devices - for just this reason.
I also have keePass on my phone, though mostly for convenience.
I have a list of accounts, but it doesn’t include passwords.
I have trigger words that remind me of other words, phrases or numbers. The phrases are put in as acronyms (the first letter of ea word).
I have about 15 triggers, and use them in various order and combination for my different accounts.
The file name of the list of accounts is an acronym.
Relatively safe.
I use Roboform password manager, the version that is stored in a cloud. I can retrieve it from any computer.
Probably a naive question:
Is there a disadvantage to using USB thumb drives instead of hard drives for this kind of backup? Such as reliability, capacity, encryption issues?
I back up my Documents folder daily to two USB drives and stash them in a nearly thief-proof location; wondering if there’s a hidden gotcha to this technique.