I use Keeper. I imagine it’s similar to Wallet and Splash ID and everything else. I chose it from what’s available because I like the layout.
I used to feel confident that I could remember it all, but my bank requires users to change your password every 180 days. The big hurdle for me is that I have business and personal accounts at the same bank and they’re not on the same 180 day cycle so I forget which one’s the one I just changed.
(I don’t know what FLW means. Am I supposed to?)
I keep a text file with password (and other) info on my computer’s desktop (or, in a few cases, written down), but with asterisks replacing some of the letters. For example, if I see “O*******57” that’s enough for me to remember that my password for that particular site is “Oklahoma57.”
I have a system of memory tricks that allow me to figure out anything I forget.
I guessed** Famous Last Words…**
Yes, correct. 
It can autofill - you can touch an arrow or something and it’ll take you to a browser. I’ve found this iffy as to which sites it works on.
It can sync to other devices (or to your desktop) using Dropbox, which is a huge plus; my husband and I have a shared account which is very useful. Doesn’t offer separate lists with different sharing options as dracoi mentioned with his (her?) tool, as far as I know. And the Android version is readonly - I have to enter my passwords on my iPod Touch, then they sync over. I was using 1Password prior to getting the Droid or I would probably have chosen a different tool. I have M-Secure (it was an Amazon Free App Of The Day) and have heard decent things about it, but since we already had 1Password set up, I didn’t play with it.
It, like others, can sync to a desktop. In fact, to get the Dropbox synching to work, you have to download the desktop software and sync at least once. The desktop software isn’t free - BUT it does have a trial version, that was enough to let me do the one initial setup; after that, we didn’t need to use it any more.
Another feature of this tool (and, I presume most of the others) is the ability to store things like driver’s license number, membership card information, etc.
I do get nervous about losing the handheld, though I reason that the iPod Touch version is behind 3 passwords (the main PIN, a 1Password-only PIN, and a longer password) so a hacker isn’t likely to crack it easily.
How good is the Microsoft Office password system? I remember, about twenty years ago, a friend of mine figured out the Word password system, just by studying how it saved empty files. I presume they’ve gotten better since 1992! But hackers have gotten better too…
Yeah! I do this…sometimes. It’s a little risky, because it depends on the text part of the pw being a “real word.” But I read a lot of fantasy novels, so I know a lot of “words” that might not be in a standard “word-list.”
Whew! I can follow Thudlow Boink’s system, but your practice is beyond my capabilities. (And his system, while pretty good, fails me now and then. Oklahoma? Ohio? Oahu? Obergammergau? Oh, hades…)
Keepass password safe. Recommended.
I also have a text file encrypted with .gpg. Unfortunately, the implementation for Win7 isn’t very good. http://gnupg.org/
There used to be a free .pgp program that worked well in WinXP. You could encrypt any file with a public key, but only decrypt it with your password. The means that you don’t have to type in your password every time you encrypt a file, which is convenient and error-tolerant. My .gpg program, by the name of Cleopatra, also permits this, but the process involves a number of unnecessary steps. http://gpg4win.org/
Yeah, sorry, I was unclear. I disabled this feature so it doesn’t autofill anything on my iPhone.
I use a generic password structure. Here’s how it works.
Pick a number N from 3-5. Pick your first or last name.
N characters from the chosen name @N characters of the site name and a four digit number that you can easily remember.
For example: Assume last name = Smith, N=3 and the street number of the house I grew up in is 2616. My password for Google would then be Smi@Goo2616. If you plug that into http://www.passwordmeter.com/, it gives a 100%, Very Strong rating.
The nice thing about this is that you do not have the same password for multiple sites, but the password is easy to remember for the site.
K.I.S.S. Keep It Simple, Stooopid!
All my passwords are the same, my surname. (it’s got a capital letter which makes it superhard to crack)
All my pins are 1234… it is equally as likely as any other
My bank password requires a number, so it is my surname with the capital letter and 2 at the end (too many dumbos use 1 at the end, so predictable)
Thanks for all the input. I’m no IT whiz like a lot of y’all are, so the specialized applications are a bit much for me undertake. I like Namkalb’s admonition of keeping it simple.
With some education from my workplace’s IT guy, I learned how to security-lock a document using a password, and selected a password I’m very unlikely to forget, and the name of the doc will suggest to me the password, as Thudlow Boink describes. I keep that doc at a hard-to-guess at place on my work computer with the same strategy of occasionally printing out a hard copy to keep hidden at home.
Now that it’s deleted out of where I used to keep it, I can reveal the previous hiding place: in the notes section of a fictional “contact” in my MSO contacts, with lots of space entered above it so that the data was below the “spoiler space”. It’s the cropping-up of viruses that look at your contacts that made me decide that was stupid and that I had to come up with a different strategy.
my method
a root password like [EMAIL=“Dr@chi11ix”]Dr@chi11ix
then add the the first 3 letters of the name of the site or service
so hotmail account might be [EMAIL=“hotDr@chi11ix”]hotDr@chi11ix or [EMAIL=“Dr@chi11ixhot”]Dr@chi11ixhot
The file encryption in Office 2007 and 2010 is quite good, as long as you save in the newer formats (e.g. .docx, .xlsx) and use long, complex passwords. The password protection on the older formats is trivial, and can be broken in under a second by free tools easily found online.
Regarding the OP, I’m going to put in a plug for RoboForm. It’s not free, but the functionality is wonderful and it’s available on lots of different platforms. It fills in passwords and forms on websites seamlessly, as well as keeping encrypted notes for non-web uses.
On the off-chance you were talking about RoboForm, the newest version is much better about not bothering you on sites you tell it to ignore.
Memorization. I have a pretty good memory when it comes to long sets of numbers, add a special character in there, and an animal of the month. I ain’t going to forget it.
Um. I have a little Internet Address book I bought at a hospital gift shop and I write everything in there in pencil so it can be changed. The odds of anyone ever breaking in and wasting time sorting through the clutter on my desk to find it are minimal, and I have no money or credit to protect. Steal my identity and you’ll be begging me to take it back in a week!
Please,
I have splashid, but I just got it so I don’t have an opinion yet. It does generate some tough looking passwords and a lotr of other features.
But I have a related question;
My new iMac offers to save my password when I visit a site such as amazon.
Is this a good idea?
Peace,
mangeorge
Generally, yes.
But: If you have automatic login turned on (which is the default), anyone who steals your machine (or walks up to it while you are away) will be able to access those sites. That doesn’t necessarily mean they can actually buy things (or access account information), because those operations usually require you to enter a password that does not get auto-filled.
So, it’s a trade-off between convenience and security. It’s up to you how paranoid you want to be.
Pax,
Beowulff
Thanks. I think I’ll use it for sites I’m not concerned about and splash for others.
BTW; I hope you and yours came through those nasty sand storms okay. We had a big one in Bakersfield, CA back in '77. It really sucked (well, blew) but was also kinda exciting like that sort of thing can be.
Pace,
mangeorge
I just remember that shit.