Passwords

I watched a couple of episodes of a British program about scammers. One of their topics was about passwords.

How do you decide on your passwords? Do you use the same password for all sites? Can you remember your passwords?

Just curious.

No comment.

I have an application where I store my passwords securely, so I only have to remember one (to the safe). Since I got that, I have been changing my more important applications to use long passwords (all different) that I can't even remember. So if the password safe goes tits up, I'm thoroughly screwed.

What's the name of that app, Richard? I should probably be using it.

It is Password Safe.

For at least ten years, I have been using a program similar to the one Richard uses.

It generates random passwords that can't be guessed - or remembered. The program and the passwords file, which is encoded, are on a USB drive. I keep backup copies of the password file on external drives. I use a different password for every site that requires one, and I have six different email addresses that I use for sites requiring one for registering. Seems safe enough, but the real hazard is the hacking of the sites themselves.

Okay, so I downloaded pwSafe and am giving it a go.  I've never been hacked but that's not due to diligence on my part.  Reading the Help files but having trouble finding answers to my initial questions:

• So it looks like you can create several different "safes" -- do you need a separate safe for every password?  If not, why use more than one safe?  If so, what's the point of password-protecting every password?
  
• Does the program automatically provide passwords when encountering a door, or do you have to manually open pwSafe and cut & paste?
  
• When populating a safe, the screen pre-populates a password.  Is this a randomized password pwSafe has chosen?  If so, how does it get activated in the username/password account you're documenting?
  

NoCoPilot wrote:

Okay, so I downloaded pwSafe and am giving it a go.  I've never been hacked but that's not due to diligence on my part.  Reading the Help files but having trouble finding answers to my initial questions:

• So it looks like you can create several different "safes" -- do you need a separate safe for every password?  If not, why use more than one safe?  If so, what's the point of password-protecting every password?
  
• Does the program automatically provide passwords when encountering a door, or do you have to manually open pwSafe and cut & paste?
  
• When populating a safe, the screen pre-populates a password.  Is this a randomized password pwSafe has chosen?  If so, how does it get activated in the username/password account you're documenting?
  

* Some people will have different safes for different domains, a "work" safe vs a "personal" safe, for example. For less regimented people, one safe is fine.

* I always cut & paste, neanderthal that I am, but there is a facility called AutoType. You do have to have Password Safe open, but it will save you some keystrokes. Check out AutoType in the Help file.

* I'm not sure what you're seeing. When I add an entry to the safe, it doesn't pre-populate anything. It will generate a password if you tell it to, but that involves clicking on "generate". Otherwise, you have to type in the password. In any case, you have to get the password into whatever the application is yourself. Usually, this isn't such a big deal, since once you have a password set up or generated inside Password Safe, a double-click on the password field copies it to the clipboard. You can then go to the application and use ctrl-V (paste) to put the new password wherever the application needs it.

Hope that helps.