Too many computer passwords

[johnnyrod]

You know the story, everything needs a password these days, they all have their own rules, shelf lives, all that. I have to keep a list of them just to have a change of staying on top of things. I know this is considered bad practice but what is the alternative? I think there are some sort of vault programs that store them all, but isn't that putting all your eggs in one basket?

My work laptop has a fingerprint scanner, Its brilliant.
It know all my sites and all logon details, all you have to do is swipe a finger.

But yeah there isnt many alternatives to writing them down (Everyone says dont), keeping them all the same is also frowned upon (for good reason)

[Bibio]

stored on a thumb drive in txt format with each site as its name. when your finished using the passwords remove the drive from computer.

always burn a backup to RWCD and add new ones as you go.

[maviczap]

Agreed, and I like both the above options, but Google have been messing about with Chrome, so many finger print readers don't work with Chrome now.

[carelesschucca]

can this be moved to gripe of the day?

It rips ma knitting I have 10 passwords I need just to be able to do my job. We also have systems that will log off within 15 minutes even if your looking at the documents. PITA!

[punyXpress]

Knit yer p*sswords into a jumper, Dean, nobody would ever look there!

Friend of mine does a lot to do with internet security for a big retail company. He uses a password safe with a single very strong password to access it, like 20+ characters. He swears by it. He only knows the password for the safe, and the safe knows the passwords (random string of 20 characters which it generates) for everything else. I think it also changes them randomly so even if someone cracks into it, they still don't know your password, and the passwords that they steal are only valid for a short time, and they don't know what site it is for, or your username, so even if they get the information its not very useful. Its not worth the hackers time when there are people with passwords of "password".

[Red ones]

I heard someone speaking on passwords not long ago.
There is very little known about password security because no one wants to discuss the passwords they use, but it is increasingly looking like writing them down is not a bad idea - the thinking is that to see them written down you need to physically see the paper, but internet crime does support actual physical theft.
Then, when websites get hacked the press say that user passwords are at risk. This isn't the case. The user IDs are at risk, the people who then hack just guess at likely passwords, phrases like: password, 12345, letmein etc. as long as you have a more secure password then you are very unlikely to get hacked, so phrase like "13oll0ck5" is unlikely to be guessed.

This actually means that it's not a major sin to use the same password repeatedly and those systems that have monthly reset are possibly only doing it to make it look like its secure.

[fizzwheel]

16 + Characters and complex i.e Letters, numbers and symbols and store some password vault software as has been said above.

Use a dictionary password i.e two words or a phrase thats easy for you to remember, but impossible for somebody else to guess.

[Littlepeahead]

I had to reveal a work password to the IT team, which I could then change once the problem was fixed. This was done over the phone. D0esmybuml00kbiginthis had to be repeated several times before they stopped laughing.