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This would probably help a little bit in terms of security but you would still depend fully on your password manager for access to various services. Personally,

This would probably help a little bit in terms of security but you would still depend fully on your password manager for access to various services. Personally, I don't like the dependency aspect of password managers. I hate having to log into my password manager first before I can log into the service... And I don't like having to adhere to the whims of the password manager about things like changing my password every 6 months or using certain characters... It's really none of their business to determine what level of security is appropriate for me when trying to access my Instagram account which I barely care about anyway. I'm not some billionaire with teams of hackers trying to crack into my account 24/7. I hate it when I can't use certain passwords because the password manager thinks it should contain certain characters which I simply won't remember. I hate when trying to log into LastPass with my master password and I can't remember my password and have to try like 10 permutations to find the one in the format that it forced me to use last time that it forced me to change my password. I hate getting locked out of LastPass and having to go through its 'Forgot my password' flow only to find out that the password for my email account which receives the email password reset link is also controlled by LastPass... And it's only by the grace of god that I had not trusted LastPass to generate my email password for me and I was able to guess it and didn't end up fully locked out of all my services which I need for my work. That last experience was so scary, I actually wrote down my LastPass master password on a piece of paper and put it in my desk drawers so that I would not forget it. I know this is insecure but that sort of risk profile is aligned with my current non-billionaire status. Somehow, I don't think North Korea is going to send spies to my house to peak into my desk drawers to break into my work accounts...

commandersaki 2y ago
Sounds like you don't understand how a password manager works and what it is trying to solve. Also how is remembering a master password any different to remembering a secret heuristic.
- Rury 2y ago
  A master password (e.g. to access a password manager) needs to be both remembered and stored somewhere (ie the password manager, not your brain). A secret heuristic doesn't and so is more secure by simply not also being stored somewhere outside your brain.
  - commandersaki 2y ago
    Depends on the implementation. For example with 1Password it is not stored anywhere unencrypted, it is derived with a slow password hash and mixed with a secret key (this part is stored) to unlock your vaults. You can't access your vault without both.
    - Rury 2y ago
      You asked what the difference was. Simply put, you can't hack what does not exist. LastPass also stores passwords encrypted and was hacked. In other words, no matter of how well 1Password handles the storing of your master password (encrypted/decentralized or what not), the fact that it does is inherently less secure than something that doesn't store anything at all, such as the case with a secret heuristic.
      - commandersaki 2y ago
        LastPass didn't properly implement E2EE and because they used a weak password hash which affected low entropy passwords. > In other words, no matter of how well 1Password handles the storing of your master password (encrypted/decentralized or what not), the fact that it does is inherently less secure than something that doesn't store anything at all, such as the case with a secret heuristic. When I say 1P stores your master password encrypted, it usually does it as an item in the vault. You can easily remove it from the vault and therefore doesn't store it anymore, and you can have the same security as your secret heuristic. Storing it in your vault is of negligible concern.
        Rury 2y ago
        You clearly are not a software expert. If your master password is not stored anywhere, there is no way for 1P to know what your master password is - and so no way to validate what the correct password is to access your vault. Even if 1P doesn't store the master password on local disk, their servers, on a hard device, encrypted, unencrypted, or does it completely algorithmically or whatever... it is in fact stored somewhere outside your brain, and therefore more hackable than something that isn't stored anywhere other than your brain.

commandersaki 2y ago

Sounds like you don't understand how a password manager works and what it is trying to solve. Also how is remembering a master password any different to remembering a secret heuristic.

Rury 2y ago
A master password (e.g. to access a password manager) needs to be both remembered and stored somewhere (ie the password manager, not your brain). A secret heuristic doesn't and so is more secure by simply not also being stored somewhere outside your brain.
- commandersaki 2y ago
  Depends on the implementation. For example with 1Password it is not stored anywhere unencrypted, it is derived with a slow password hash and mixed with a secret key (this part is stored) to unlock your vaults. You can't access your vault without both.
  - Rury 2y ago
    You asked what the difference was. Simply put, you can't hack what does not exist. LastPass also stores passwords encrypted and was hacked. In other words, no matter of how well 1Password handles the storing of your master password (encrypted/decentralized or what not), the fact that it does is inherently less secure than something that doesn't store anything at all, such as the case with a secret heuristic.
    - commandersaki 2y ago
      LastPass didn't properly implement E2EE and because they used a weak password hash which affected low entropy passwords. > In other words, no matter of how well 1Password handles the storing of your master password (encrypted/decentralized or what not), the fact that it does is inherently less secure than something that doesn't store anything at all, such as the case with a secret heuristic. When I say 1P stores your master password encrypted, it usually does it as an item in the vault. You can easily remove it from the vault and therefore doesn't store it anymore, and you can have the same security as your secret heuristic. Storing it in your vault is of negligible concern.
      - Rury 2y ago
        You clearly are not a software expert. If your master password is not stored anywhere, there is no way for 1P to know what your master password is - and so no way to validate what the correct password is to access your vault. Even if 1P doesn't store the master password on local disk, their servers, on a hard device, encrypted, unencrypted, or does it completely algorithmically or whatever... it is in fact stored somewhere outside your brain, and therefore more hackable than something that isn't stored anywhere other than your brain.