3 ms·

One thing I've been doing in the past months, with great results, is memorizing passwords. I don't know how prevalent this is in the US, but here in Brazil, we

One thing I've been doing in the past months, with great results, is memorizing passwords. I don't know how prevalent this is in the US, but here in Brazil, we use a lot of cards with chips, so that you type a password instead of signing a paper. To make it worse, there are sometimes different passwords for the same service in different situations (for example, most banks use a 4 or 6-digit password for debit purchases and a different 6 or 8-digit password for Internet Banking). There are also credit card passwords, employee-issued benefit cards (I for example have a different card - and different passwords - for a meal card, a groceries card and a fuel card). So, lately I've been randomly generating those and memorizing them with flashcards in a spaced repetition system. Has worked very well for me, with about 10 random 4-8 digit numeric passwords to remember.

tomsthumb 12y ago
Please tell me you encrypt your anki deck, or something.... This could be a huge problem if your phone/laptop/whatever is stolen.
- ralmeida 12y ago
  I use Flashcards Deluxe, whose data is only on my phone. After memorizing the password, you can remove the cards. If one is really concerned about security, you can just install a safe password manager and only leave the prompt on the flashcard. For example: [CARD FRONT] What's the password for Service X? [CARD BACK] ( Check answer on 1Password )
- Micaiah_Chang 12y ago
  I was also concerned about this issue, and have instead taken a nice medium path: After changing a password, I would try to log into the service at approximately the same intervals the Anki algorithm dictates until I feel the interval is long enough (i.e. I can reproduce it after two weeks with no reminder, which corresponds to a forgetting curve of about a month later). Just because I won't use the program doesn't mean I won't use the idea! Ideally I would have a reminder in my Anki deck to log into some service, but I spend most of the time on Anki via phone and it'd be a PITA to stop my current session and laboriously type out long passphrases on the tiny iphone screen. I'd be interested if anyone else has found a better solution than this.
  - ZoFreX 12y ago
    That's brilliant! To avoid doing it on your phone, could you put those cards in a separate deck, or use tagging?

tomsthumb 12y ago

Please tell me you encrypt your anki deck, or something.... This could be a huge problem if your phone/laptop/whatever is stolen.

ralmeida 12y ago
I use Flashcards Deluxe, whose data is only on my phone. After memorizing the password, you can remove the cards. If one is really concerned about security, you can just install a safe password manager and only leave the prompt on the flashcard. For example: [CARD FRONT] What's the password for Service X? [CARD BACK] ( Check answer on 1Password )
Micaiah_Chang 12y ago
I was also concerned about this issue, and have instead taken a nice medium path: After changing a password, I would try to log into the service at approximately the same intervals the Anki algorithm dictates until I feel the interval is long enough (i.e. I can reproduce it after two weeks with no reminder, which corresponds to a forgetting curve of about a month later). Just because I won't use the program doesn't mean I won't use the idea! Ideally I would have a reminder in my Anki deck to log into some service, but I spend most of the time on Anki via phone and it'd be a PITA to stop my current session and laboriously type out long passphrases on the tiny iphone screen. I'd be interested if anyone else has found a better solution than this.
- ZoFreX 12y ago
  That's brilliant! To avoid doing it on your phone, could you put those cards in a separate deck, or use tagging?