I'm looking for an alternate form for electronic access control

I maintain many sites as resources for whenever I might need them.

I have 429 passwords saved in my password manager, although some may be duplicates.

kelper said:

I have 429 passwords saved in my password manager, although some may be duplicates.

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holy ****

I wonder who has the most. My mother in law I noticed had a zillion duplicates and I am not sure why or how that happens.

Steve C said:

You can't beat an airgap between a paper printout and the PC for sensitive passwords.

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Every person on the planet has a camera in their pocket that easily bypasses your airgap!

My tackle is the trusty password manager, I use KeePass mostly because it's totally offline (no problems with website hackings like the online ones) so everything is in my computer. It takes care of autogenerating passwords, storing them and providing it to others when needed. Being open source is also an important aspect of it, being security critical as it is.
The only hasles I have with it is to sync its database across computers, but generally it's not much more troublesome than copying a file around.
This is my primary (and most often only) method. Passwords may be troublesome, but perfectly fine as long as they are unguessable and unique, both of which are taken care by the password manager.

There seems to be a hype around passkeys. The first thing is that the website (or whatever) you want tu use needs to support it and nowadays aren't that widespread as they can. Then for using them you need to rely on another software to create and manage them. People that dislike password managers often suggest passkeys as "the future", but the program needed to use them is fundamentally a password manager that handles random keys instead of random text.
They're better overall, but not as easy to use as a normal password. That's why they are the prefered Linux login method since decades ago. It seems the rest of the world is catching up.

Then there is biometrics (fingerprints, facial recognition and the like).
Very convenient but with critical security issues, nice if you don't need a particular level of security. For one, you leave your "password" all around (your face is always visible in public and your fingerprints are in everything you ever touch). Then if your "password" is leaked, you cannot ever change it (a fundamental advice on every compromise).
I wouldn't use them anywhere, not only unreliable in general but also with critical problems, great for a quick access, but don't beat passwords in general.

Excel, text files and the like. I think they're a rudimentary form of password manager, without most of the benefits (no autogeneration and no encryption). Anything scanning your files will trivially found and leak your passwords, including anyone borrowing your keyboard. Nice for a quick workaround, but not good long term.

And finally you have physical recorded passwords on post it notes, books and the like, not only are difficult to read and copy but are insanely insecure. It's easy that anyone can snoop on them, you can leak them without noticing and updating them is complicated. Don't ever do that.

All in all, I stay with the plain old passwords. Their major problems are avoided with password managers and they're easy to use.

Warren said:

it is getting difficult to remember all your passwords.

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Use a password manager, so you don't have to remember them. And besides, if a password is memorable, 99% of the time it'll be a bad password anyway. When passwords get good enough to withstand attacks, they're difficult to remember.

Warren said:

One solution could be a pass key on a usb drive.

The only problem I have with this is that their storage capacity is so big that even if you do have an encrypted key on it, if it does get into the wrong hands they have tons of space to put a hidden folder on it.

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I don't get what would be the problem of this? Having a bad guy put his hands on your pendrive is a problem for other reasons, but how the empty space would be a problem in itself?

andrew129260 said:

Yeah I am just saying there is no way you still need all of those accounts, so I would just go back and start deleting some.

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I have well over 180 accounts in my Bitwarden vault, it happens. I'm sure some of them could be deleted, but they're not hurting anything, so I haven't taken the time.

I do know I sure don't want to have a booklet with all those 12 digit random character passwords in it to type in every time I go to a site!

gunrunnerjohn said:

Every person on the planet has a camera in their pocket that easily bypasses your airgap!

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Only if they know where to look

Steve C said:

Only if they know where to look

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Even if you don't know, there is always someone else with too much time to look at random pictures. Here is an example of a United States government agency that leaked a password to a random photo:

I'm sure that's not the only case of such a problem.

It seems bizarre to me that those who fear 'the cloud' will leave passwords written on paper, where burglars, visitors, or even wayward teenagers could find them.

Do you fans of the black book style of web security also have a backup? Is it off site?

Could you refuse to show this to those nice US Immigration agents?

kelper said:

Could you refuse to show this to those nice US Immigration agents?

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Yes. They need a warrant, unless someone is in immediate danger or you're about to destroy evidence.

pseymour said:

Yes. They need a warrant, unless someone is in immediate danger or you're about to destroy evidence.

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In theory, but Trump seems to have enabled ICE and others to ignore proper procedure.

and this thread is over

dacrone said:

and this thread is over

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Who says?

Normally it is up to the OP to decide when the thread has achieved its purpose.

kelper said:

I'm sure Pseymour will come along with an even grumpier post!

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I love pseymour's sense of humour; it is as dry as an Abo's jockstrap and he is a master of the sardonic quip.

I always appreciate someone who can turn a phrase, @kelper, and you're one of the best. I'm also glad you recognize I'm not merely sarcastic; my condition is more advanced than that.

pseymour said:

I always appreciate someone who can turn a phrase, @kelper, and you're one of the best. I'm also glad you recognize I'm not merely sarcastic; my condition is more advanced than that.

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Do you live anywhere close to Hawes? I would enjoy a pint or two in your company.

kelper said:

Do you live anywhere close to Hawes? I would enjoy a pint ot two in your company.

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western Ohio, USA

Bummer