5 ms·

To many high profile names falling in the last few weeks. Must remember to always use different passwords.

by Kelliot 14y ago

dsirijus 14y ago
I have over 50 overly strong passwords in a little black book, encrypted by simple method so I can decipher at "runtime". I've memorized most of the regulary used ones though.
- cshimmin 14y ago
  From previous incarnations of this thread on HN (I think the linkedin one...), I have learned to use SuperGenPass. There are a few similar utilities, basically it hashes your password browser-side with the site domain. This allows you to maintain unique passwords on all different sites by memorizing a single "master password".
  - gsundeep 14y ago
    "hashes your password browser-side with the site domain" Does this mean using the domain as a salt?
    - ibotty 14y ago
      yes. and that's a problem.
      - Jach 14y ago
        It's only a problem if the secret key is compromised. (But that's a problem for pretty much everything, isn't it?)
        ibotty 14y ago
        are you sure? that makes it possible to use rainbow tables (rainbow tables per domain obviously, but still pretty bad). or am i missing something?
        Jach 14y ago
        You wouldn't use rainbow tables for a scheme like using hash(secret phrase + domain) to generate personal passwords, you'd use a dictionary attack where domains are the words, followed by a brute-force technique (which you'd use if you lacked the secret key). If I know you use such a scheme and I learn your secret phrase, your email provider and bank account websites would be the first on my list. It becomes no more secure than using the same password on every site plus the domain name at the end. The benefit is that you never have to trust all those different websites with your secret phrase. The parenthetical in my above comment calls back to a comment by some early giant in cryptology (I think). It's best to have all the details about your specific method of hiding data known publicly, with the secret key being the only private piece of information.
  - dsirijus 14y ago
    There's the cross-platform issue with that one. I need this everywhere.
    - reidrac 14y ago
      I'm using KeePassX (Linux, Mac) and KeePassDroid, both open source (you can audit the code if you need to). Both are compatible with KeePass (to some extent), that runs on Windows. Basically you can use it (almost?) anywhere: http://keepass.info/download.html http://keepass.info/download.html
      - dsirijus 14y ago
        +1 for the valid suggestion. Though I still prefer have them physically and nowhere else.
  - raverbashing 14y ago
    The main problem with "password vaults" is (and this is a showstopper for me) You have to download it before using ANYTHING And if the machine is compromised, they will have your passwords either way
  - Jach 14y ago
    I have "don't care" relatively weak passwords, various mnemonics for stronger ones I want to remember, and a bash+python script that takes a hash of a memorized passphrase + site domain as a random number generator seed that spits out 64 "graph" and 64 "alnum" characters (and some helpful trimmings for common, ridiculous, "maximum length" of sent passwords (20, 12..) that get SHA1'd into 40 characters anyway). I typically just remember which combination I used for the site, and since each is unique I just let the browser store it if I don't care too much for the account. Before I started using my script, for some sites that were important but I visited maybe once a year at maximum I grabbed something off of http://www.fourmilab.ch/hotbits/ http://www.fourmilab.ch/hotbits/ and forgot it and then used the "forgot password" feature when I needed to log in some other time in the future. Few things bug me more than sites that have a maxlength property on the registration password forms (that's longer than the form-width shows), but not on the login password form. I wonder what hash nvidia uses? These days when they don't specify, I just assume sha1. I hope it's not md5.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

To many high profile names falling in the last few weeks. Must remember to always use different passwords.

by Kelliot 14y ago

To many high profile names falling in the last few weeks. Must remember to always use different passwords.

I have over 50 overly strong passwords in a little black book, encrypted by simple method so I can decipher at "runtime". I've memorized most of the regulary used ones though.

cshimmin 14y ago
From previous incarnations of this thread on HN (I think the linkedin one...), I have learned to use SuperGenPass. There are a few similar utilities, basically it hashes your password browser-side with the site domain. This allows you to maintain unique passwords on all different sites by memorizing a single "master password".
- gsundeep 14y ago
  "hashes your password browser-side with the site domain" Does this mean using the domain as a salt?
  - ibotty 14y ago
    yes. and that's a problem.
    - Jach 14y ago
      It's only a problem if the secret key is compromised. (But that's a problem for pretty much everything, isn't it?)
      - ibotty 14y ago
        are you sure? that makes it possible to use rainbow tables (rainbow tables per domain obviously, but still pretty bad). or am i missing something?
        Jach 14y ago
        You wouldn't use rainbow tables for a scheme like using hash(secret phrase + domain) to generate personal passwords, you'd use a dictionary attack where domains are the words, followed by a brute-force technique (which you'd use if you lacked the secret key). If I know you use such a scheme and I learn your secret phrase, your email provider and bank account websites would be the first on my list. It becomes no more secure than using the same password on every site plus the domain name at the end. The benefit is that you never have to trust all those different websites with your secret phrase. The parenthetical in my above comment calls back to a comment by some early giant in cryptology (I think). It's best to have all the details about your specific method of hiding data known publicly, with the secret key being the only private piece of information.
- dsirijus 14y ago
  There's the cross-platform issue with that one. I need this everywhere.
  - reidrac 14y ago
    I'm using KeePassX (Linux, Mac) and KeePassDroid, both open source (you can audit the code if you need to). Both are compatible with KeePass (to some extent), that runs on Windows. Basically you can use it (almost?) anywhere: http://keepass.info/download.html http://keepass.info/download.html
    - dsirijus 14y ago
      +1 for the valid suggestion. Though I still prefer have them physically and nowhere else.
- raverbashing 14y ago
  The main problem with "password vaults" is (and this is a showstopper for me) You have to download it before using ANYTHING And if the machine is compromised, they will have your passwords either way
- Jach 14y ago
  I have "don't care" relatively weak passwords, various mnemonics for stronger ones I want to remember, and a bash+python script that takes a hash of a memorized passphrase + site domain as a random number generator seed that spits out 64 "graph" and 64 "alnum" characters (and some helpful trimmings for common, ridiculous, "maximum length" of sent passwords (20, 12..) that get SHA1'd into 40 characters anyway). I typically just remember which combination I used for the site, and since each is unique I just let the browser store it if I don't care too much for the account. Before I started using my script, for some sites that were important but I visited maybe once a year at maximum I grabbed something off of http://www.fourmilab.ch/hotbits/ http://www.fourmilab.ch/hotbits/ and forgot it and then used the "forgot password" feature when I needed to log in some other time in the future. Few things bug me more than sites that have a maxlength property on the registration password forms (that's longer than the form-width shows), but not on the login password form. I wonder what hash nvidia uses? These days when they don't specify, I just assume sha1. I hope it's not md5.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]