I'm sick of passwords.

Of all the things to complain about in life, pass words wouldn't be at the top of my list. Matter of fact, I wouldn't complain about them at all. I love the idea of passwords. It makes me feel so much safer on line. For some of my utility companies, I keep the same password for quite a long while. But for my bank and credit card company, I change my passwords monthly. In the past, I have used states, cities, countries, and even the name of James Bond movies for my passwords, along with some numbers. For instance I might have used at one time for a password: Denmark1973, or Chicago1982. Nothing against passwords. Nothing at all.
 

WheatenLover said:
I save my passwords on Firefox. I also save a list of Firefox passwords on my computer.
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This ^^^
Also, I often use a Firefox recommended password. The FF recommendations make no sense, have special characters and numbers. I couldn't remember them if I had to. All I do is login to Firefox on any device and all my passwords are stored right there in the Firefox cloud, so I don't have to remember them. All I have to remember is the Firefox login password. But like WheatonLover, I do keep a file of the FF passwords on my computer in case something happens to Firefox.
 
Another thing I like about Firefox is ... Firefox Relay ... to mask email addresses.
Firefox receives the email @ mozilla dot com and forwards email to your personal email address.
I use Firefox Relay on sites that ask for an email address and I have a concern about the site sharing my email address.
With Firefox Relay I then have an option of blocking emails or deleting the email mask entirely should sharing or hacking happen.
Firefox Relay⁩ supports email forwarding (including attachments) of email up to ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨MB⁩⁩ in size.
Firefox Relay Frequently Asked Questions

I recently used Firefox Relay when establishing an account with Honey Baked Ham.
I was worried HBH might share my email address.
So with Firefox Relay, I can just delete that email mask at any time and it will not affect my personal email address at all.
 
Nathan said:
It's not that your Facebook account is 'hacked'(taken over), your account gets spoofed(faked) by someone that can see your Friends list, to whom the spoofer will use Messenger to send spam to all your friends.
Best advise: take control of your account, set up your security settings in Facebook so that nobody can Google to find you, set Privacy so that your Friends can only be seen by yourself. Facebook Privacy
Click to expand...
Thank you
 
Ack! I think my complaint ("I'm sick of passwords") was poorly constructed.
I was looking for others who were sick of dealing with passwords, not those of you who have conquered this life-task and never have had any problems due to your clever/unhackable ways of saving them.

Except for hawkdon and me, everyone else seems to love dealing with this nuisanse. Good for you guys.
Hawkdon and I will go over in the corner and commiserate with each other. Maybe someone can start a new thread "I love passwords"
David777 said:
Not much an issue even for someone like this hi tech person that has had to deal with passwords for decades.

My device resident files with sensitive information as password files are encrypted. There are numbers of apps that can do so. I use aescrypt because I can run it from either a GUI interface or command prompts. Thus no need to carry around paper cheat sheets. Such paper notes may seem like a good idea but that is only so as long as one does not carry such in a purse, wallet, or vehicle, all of which are prime targets of thieves. But one will need to remember and or somehow securely store outside devices at least that one password to decrypt aescrypt so that alone requires wise consideration.

Using AES Crypt - Advanced File Encryption for Windows

-----------------

Command-Line Option

To encrypt a file, you simply enter the "aescrypt" command with the approrpiate command-line arguments.

Suppose you have a file called "picture.jpg" that you would like to encrypt using the password "apples". You would enter the following command:

aescrypt -e -p apples picture.jpg

The program will create a file with the name "picture.jpg.aes".

When you want to later decrypt the file "picture.jpg.aes", you would enter the following command:

aescrypt -d -p apples picture.jpg.aes

The program will create the file "picture.jpg", containing the contents of the original file before it was encrypted.

Using AES Crypt on Windows
Graphical User Interface (GUI) Option

You do not need to be an expert to use AES Crypt for Windows to securely encrypt your data files. To encrypt a file, you simply right-click on the file you wish to encrypt, select the "AES Encrypt" option, and enter the desired password. AES Crypt will produce a file that cannot be read by anybody who does not know the secret password. It is as simple as that.

AES Crypt will produce an encrypted file with the same name as the original file, but with an ".aes" extension.

Note that when you encrypt a file with AES Crypt, it does not delete the original file. Generally, people encrypt files for the purpose of sending a file securely via e-mail or copying it to a portable storage device that is more susceptible to loss. As such, most people do not want to delete the original. However, you may certainly delete the original file: just do not forget the password. It is impossible to recover the contents of an encrypted file if the password is lost.

Decrypting an encrypted file produced through the GUI process described above is just as easy. To decrypt the file, you simply right-click on the encrypted file, select the "AES Decrypt" option, and enter your secret password.
Click to expand...
Wow. Both clever and easy to remember.
.
 
I feel ya. I used LastPass for years until they had a security breach, then as I was looking for a different app, I decided it was easier and more secure to use a random character password generator, then keep the login information in a locked database on my computer that I can access from any device. A bit of a pain to copy/paste but I feel better not having my passwords stored on a cloud somewhere. A lot of sites are changing over to 2 factor authentication, but yeah, I'd rather just go back to my easy to remember passwords.

Earlier today I was screwing around on my iPhone looking for a setting when I came across something about Apple "helpfully" storing my passwords and checking for breaches. Yeah, that sounds like a catastrophe waiting to happen. Turned that setting off, ugh...
 
OldEngineer said:
Ack! I think my complaint ("I'm sick of passwords") was poorly constructed.
I was looking for others who were sick of dealing with passwords, not those of you who have conquered this life-task and never have had any problems due to your clever/unhackable ways of saving them.

Except for hawkdon and me, everyone else seems to love dealing with this nuisanse. Good for you guys.
Hawkdon and I will go over in the corner and commiserate with each other. Maybe someone can start a new thread "I love passwords"

Wow. Both clever and easy to remember.
.
Click to expand...
I don't love them... but I deal with them because they're a necessity...
 
Most browsers will automagically create a password for you. However, like the OP states, you're never, ever, going to remember it yourself. It's a crazy long sequences of numbers, letters, and symbols. Then you have the tools, like Bitwarden as used by JeeperDon. Also, you can set a "master password" on most browsers too, and use the same password across multiple sites, with one central place to change it (though you have to set it at each site as well).

Bella said:
Like Devi, I have a book that I keep all my passwords in. No muss, no fuss.
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Devi said:
I got a little address book and wrote everything there. Very convenient and useful.
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Yeah, this is a security 101 fail. It's the worst thing you can do, really. I do appreciate why you've done it though!

Finally, given access to your browser, it's usually quite trivial to get someones password. For example, in my browser, I can get a list of all my passwords in less than 10 seconds. Which means the number one tool you have to protect yourself is to protect your PC physically.

All of that said, I know what I'm supposed to do - complex passwords, change them often, never share a password across multiple sites, never repeat a password, etc. But it's a lot of hard work. Meaning, I don't do them all.
 
What galls me is when you have a password that a system or website accepts and likes, then three or six months later requires you to generate a new one! 😩
 
JeeperDon said:
I use BitWarden.
Click to expand...
This was one of my choices. The other was RoboForm
NewlySenior said:
I used LastPass for years until they had a security breach
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So have I. They have been breached many times. I deleted all my passwords on LastPass and deleted my account. I have heard that LastPass keeps your passwords for a year after you delete your account. If that's true or not, LastPass will never tell.
I'm using RoboForm Password Manager now and I like it better than LastPass. The transfer from LastPass was a PITA because I did it the long way, one password at a time changing account passwords on all accounts.
I still do the same routine as I have always done with Passwords. I have over 120 account passwords:
  1. Change the "Master Password" Every 3 to 4 months. My Master Password is 40+ characters long (Upper / Lower Case Letters, Numbers, Special Characters).
  2. Every Quarter I change 25% of my account passwords. So all my account passwords are changed once a year.
  3. ALL Account Passwords are at least 30 or more characters long with Upper / Lower Case Letters, Numbers, Special Characters.
 
Right. Now I have trouble just getting into my gmail and secretive sites like At@T. The computer engineers
had made it so hard and time consuming all for security reasons. They make you work for the information.
And ask stupid security questions like, what was the name of your childhood pet? I didn't have one! Did you?
What sports team do you hate? (A real question)
 
VaughanJB said:
Yeah, this is a security 101 fail. It's the worst thing you can do, really. I do appreciate why you've done it though!
Click to expand...
Why do you say that? As if writing your password in a book that you keep in your home is a security breach?

Or were you not addressing your comment to me?
 
caroln said:
I don't know of any website I've been to lately that allows a "simple" password. They all have to be at least 8 characters long, have one upper case letter, one lower case letter, one number, and one special character. I really have to write these passwords down somewhere. How can I remember kfdh%BNR82
Click to expand...

Devi said:
Why do you say that? As if writing your password in a book that you keep in your home is a security breach?

Or were you not addressing your comment to me?
Click to expand...
Devi - VaughanJB is correct. It's high risk. It could be stolen (yes even if in your house). You could accidentally throw it in the trash or lose it outside your house. Of course, you think these things will never happen, but they do. And if breached, it's a total disaster, not just a few accounts.
 
birdy said:
I remember reading that one of those password protection sites got hacked. Not the one you mentioned. It's hard to keep passwords secure.
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And I just discovered that XFINITY was hacked. If you have an XFINITY password they recommend it be changed. Read all about it:

MSN
 
Devi said:
Why do you say that? As if writing your password in a book that you keep in your home is a security breach?
Or were you not addressing your comment to me?
Click to expand...
If all you ever do is say write your passwords on page 257 of a 300 page dusty book on a large shelf in your home with lots of other books, that is probably reasonably safe. But that is not what people usually do with that strategy.

Instead, because they may have a mobile laptop or more likely a smartphone they sometimes use outside their homes or use at work places, they also carry paper cheat sheets or a notebook about in a wallet or purse that is frequently opened and easily lost or stolen.

The idea of encrypting a password file resident on one's devices scares many computer unsavvy people from even considering such. But such is really rather simple, easily developed as a habit.

As I noted, its main issue is having a single good master password one can recall that is not some random character string.

There are many ways to create easily recalled multi structured strings that are not simple words that pea brains use. Let's say your name is Jane Doe. Instead of using JaneDoe use j#An$E_dO&e-
Simple scheme and name could be reversed. #$_&- is pop up android sequence on most keyboards that mix between name letters ch chch ch chch ch
 
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For those like this person that have dozens of passwords, only a few actually need to be tricky. Many passwords for sites like this board that don't store any potentially sensitive information in one's account, are only necessary to prevent juvenile cretins from hijacking accounts and then posting bogus comments to embarrass a member.

Something any site moderator could easily fix without much consequence, so is rarely seen anymore. But master passwords, financial passwords, sites with one's credit card numbers, and the like are the few that require higher security.
 
David777 said:
There are many ways to create easily recalled multi structured strings that are not simple words that pea brains use. Let's say your name is Jane Doe. Instead of using JaneDoe use j#An$E_dO&e-
Simple scheme and name could be reversed. #$_&- is pop up android sequence on most keyboards that mix between name letters ch chch ch chch ch
Click to expand...
Okay, so I use j#An$E_dO&e for my bank website password. Now, since I'm not supposed to use the same password for multiple websites, what do I use for these sites?
credit card company
electric company
gas company
cell phone company
social security website
medicare website
prescription website
401k investment company
Microsoft log in
Amazon
Etsy
Kohl's
AARP
AAA
Experian
my personal website

This is just the tip of the iceberg. They all require a password and I'm expected to memorize all of them and not write them down somewhere? Maybe I could remember "simple words that pea brains use", but not passwords like j#An$E_dO&e. Also, is it really necessary to insult normal, average tech skilled people by calling them pea brains?
 
I had decades of passwords on index cards and got rid of some of them recently.
But I have told my daughter where the important ones are, and the first in the stack is my PC password that opens up my PC.

My former computer man said he had bought a Rolodex that held hundreds of cards, with alphabet tabs and had filled it already, and he kept the rest of them in a special box. I should buy a rolodex but they are pricy these days.And they are meant to keep on your PC desk-(where anyone could see them :cautious:

My first PC was in 1988-it cost 400 dollars and had a very small orange screen. My husband was taking computer classes in college and told me one day we would be able to see and hear people we know ,on computers, and the screen would be in living color. Really??? :rolleyes:When I finally got Windows, I got a printer/fax machine and would have to call COVA ( Court of Veterans Appeals, Washington DC) and promise to send them a small fee by mail, to get copies of recent precedent setting decisions they made, of value to many veterans in the VA claims process.

I couldn't wait for him to take the Modem courses, as this 1988 PC had a modem. But he never did.

One day after I checked my livestock I played around with the modem for a few hours and suddenly ,with a phone number, at the back of a book a vet gave me, I got into Vet Link- one of the first 'forums' for vets in the USA.
My husband was shocked to see recent veteran's posts there on line, modem to modem.


But when Windows came around we were on the Prodigy Veterans BBS....maybe early 1990s...via our land line and finally I got a satelitte internet service as soon as it came out and love it and all the things that have made PCs great to use-BUT I agree that PC technology has complicated our lives.

The email scams are outrageous and even legit emails to buy this or that are time wasting.
Two people I know have had their email addys compromised by someone else-it looks like their email but I never click on the links in it . And someone I know clicked on a fake amazon email scam years ago and it cost them some money.
 

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