Organizing Passwords

[validatelife]

This is more of a productivity/organization question.

I have a simple rich text file of about EVERY
online website userid/password
serial number for products
family social security numbers and blood types
credit cards and websites and phone info for those accounts
email accounts
billing accounts
random web account numbers

It's SOO much "login" or core sensitive password info collecting in a sloppy file for the past 4-6 years or so.

How do you organize that?

apps like "wallet" are cool and colorful, but might be cheesy, pluse the export feature is terribly unformatted (tab-delineated) and that's key b/c I need the passwords file accessible to iphone (ideally).

I'm considering putting some of this info in address book, but that could get confusing. Basically, I'm trying to manage the best organization for this important document (maybe with a program, but probably not unless it exports to text extremely well).

I think what I'll do is just credit a simple format alogorithm for each section like
cardaccount
routing
checking
savings
website
phone

For credit cards.

Hey better yet, maybe I could tinker with an ide and make a program that locks in info (like Wallet), bt links to Address book, and is perfectly exportable to iphone. Hey, awesome! But for now, I need to organize this information before taking on the massive projet of creating my first cocoa app (which is far down the road).

 

[dansch]

Check out Roboform

I have had very good luck with Roboform for storing passwords and other sensitive personal data--either on a USB drive or home computer.

 

[mcogilvie]

I think the most popular mac program for storage and retrieval of passwords and other sensitive information is 1Password. It syncs to iPhone by putting bookmarklets in your iPhone web brower.

 

[vatark]

I think the most popular mac program for storage and retrieval of passwords and other sensitive information is 1Password. It syncs to iPhone by putting bookmarklets in your iPhone web brower.

You beat me to it. I was just about to suggest this for a Mac user. Great application - I now have passwords that are 10 to 20 characters long for most of my logins.

 

[validatelife]

You beat me to it. I was just about to suggest this for a Mac user. Great application - I now have passwords that are 10 to 20 characters long for most of my logins.

thanks for the rec. wow, 10-20. that's incredibly secure if it's alphanumeric with case sensitive.

But this is more complicated than I thought. i've got family members accounts (social, milieage plus, etc) that I want to keep seperate .

This is the "miscellaneous" file to end all miscellanous files. Good god. Who knows how many of these "clutter from all hell" files I have looking in my computer reference.

DA didn't even touch organizing this stuff and I really want to get all that information crystal clear and differentiate between phone numbers for contacts and just raw account info. Phew! This is probably a 30k-20k project and MUCH bigger than I though!

Then I've got my

c

• redit accoutns,
• installment loan accoutns,
• game serials
• product serials (bike, iphone, computer)
• credit cards
• drivers license
• email accounts
• store charge card info
• bandking cards (I want to include crdit limit info)
• asset accounts
• random misc. online account userid/passwords
• expired accounts (old credit card numbers I had stores)
• junk accounts I'll never use

So it's a hodge-podge of
f

• inancial
• product info (games, product serials)
• online (email, web accounts)
• personal (blood type, social security, eye vision info)

I guess I'll organize it into those 4 categories. WOW Talk about the MOTHER of all "Miscellaneous" files before organizing!!!

Steps
Develop Filing System (1password sounds great or just a text file with an algorithm)
Add all the info
Synchronize and update Address Book

Important questions
Is it wise to pool ALL of that sensitive data in the same place?
Yes, it makes it more convenient easier to access and if it's passworded, then it's easily accessible. Best not to scatter that info. still working out the kinks with this.

thanks for the program references, but this is a much bigger project than shoving my data in a program, i'm still processing/organizing it.

The simplicity of just a text file that's formatted with headings is appealing, but there's password/security info concerns with that, but with the 1passwords, there will likely be formatting concerns. hhmm trade off.

 

[validatelife]

I have had very good luck with Roboform for storing passwords and other sensitive personal data--either on a USB drive or home computer.

I think robo is windows only. besides when wasting time on a windows machine I tried it and thought it was absolute crap.

thanks though, glad something works for you.

I'm doing 1password or most likely highly formatted and formulaic text file.

 

[validatelife]

I think i'm more interested in designing my own program for organizing this data than dumping it in someone else's structuring of this info. On the other hand the "identities" "secure notes" and "web forms" categories if 1passwords looks great. that looks like a fairly decent program. I'm shopping around for a lot of mac-based data capturing software (hopefully free ware or just docs) macheist boasts a LOT of great gtd productivity related apps from wallet to writeroom to devonthink.

 

[vatark]

But this is more complicated than I thought. i've got family members accounts (social, milieage plus, etc) that I want to keep seperate .

This is the "miscellaneous" file to end all miscellanous files. Good god. Who knows how many of these "clutter from all hell" files I have looking in my computer reference.

If you've got that sort of thing to deal with, it depends on how the information is being used. Are you just keeping all this information just in case? Or will it be used by the family members?

If the former I'm back to advising the use of DevonThink Office or Yojimbo. 1Password will organise your use of your passwords, and allow you to enter them quickly so you can login to your sites. I wouldn't try to use it for miscellaneous information.

If others are using your computer, have they got their own user account?

Lots for you think about before you leap into the pile to sort it out.

 

[jknecht]

I know this topic is much bigger than just dealing with your passwords; but for password management, I highly recommend KeePass.

The data file is password protected and encrypted, so if someone stumbles across this file, they will need your master password to get to the rest of your passwords. The program has been ported to Linux, OS X, Windows, and even PocketPc, Blackberry, and J2ME for installation on your phone. And in my experience, the data file format can be used on any platform; so all those passwords you created/saved on your Mac can be read from the Windows version of KeePass as well.

I keep mine on a USB drive with both Linux and Windows versions of the program. It saves me a ton of time bouncing from box to box.

Oh yeah, and it's free.

 

[connfamily]

Another good one is Splash Data. I used it all the time on Palm and just downloaded the program to my Blackberry - Still working on blackberry to see if i like it.

I have everything but the kitchen sink in there.

Bank Accts
E-mail accts
Frequent Flyers
clothing sizes
car info (including past owned cars & license plates - It came in handy when the City of Philadelphia sent me a parking tix for a car I sold 5 years earlier)
Insurance numbers
Bill information
Work Logins
Web logins
etc.

 

[sdann]

I have passwords galore too. I worry though that if I keep them electronically, someone will get to them. Right now I have them all in my non-electronic organizer addressbook, which I use solely for passwords. (I keep addresses electronically.) Writing this I am concerned about losing that. This is my lifeline. I refer to it several times throughout the day, since I use it to check so many things, particularly data items.

How comfortable are people keeping the passwords in a web-based program? And, how is it backed up? Also securely?

 

[GTD_in_ATL]

I have had very good luck with Roboform for storing passwords and other sensitive personal data--either on a USB drive or home computer.

I use Roboform as well and love it. I do a print out once a month so I have a hard copy on file. Always adding so the monthly print out is great should anything happen.

 

[jknecht]

I have passwords galore too. I worry though that if I keep them electronically, someone will get to them. Right now I have them all in my non-electronic organizer addressbook, which I use solely for passwords. (I keep addresses electronically.) Writing this I am concerned about losing that. This is my lifeline. I refer to it several times throughout the day, since I use it to check so many things, particularly data items.

How comfortable are people keeping the passwords in a web-based program? And, how is it backed up? Also securely?

I, personally, would never keep passwords (or any other sensitive data, for that matter) in a web-based program: simply too many instances of data breaches, even from reputable companies.

Also, I would be very wary of keeping them written on paper, unless I had a very clever scheme for encrypting the data. In addition to the obvious security risks, sorting and searching have got to be a royal nightmare for you.

This is why I keep them on my USB drive in KeePass (there are other very good programs that do the basically same thing; I just happen to like this one for a bunch of reasons). The USB drive is always with me. It doesn't take up any more room in my pocket than a couple of keys. The whole psasword file is encrypted; so unless someone physically gets ahold of my USB drive, knows where to find the file, and knows my master passphrase, my passwords are safe, secure, and well-organized. My biggest risk is that I forget to take it out of my pocket before I do laundry, but regular backups mitigate that risk.

 

[jesig]

Memorize them all.

I've used the hint from Geek to Live on Lifehacker about creating a password algorithm. My passwords are stored in my head: good luck cracking *that* without me noticing!

http://lifehacker.com/software/pass...hoose-and-remember-great-passwords-184773.php

I would expand on the suggestions, though: I have three categories of base passwords depending on the information stored on the site: personal, financial, work. My financial base, instead of being a word or initials that someone might guess, is 8 random characters that I forced myself to memorize. But since it's used for all my financial sites, and I access them frequently, memorizing the password wasn't hard.

 

[HostV]

I have had very good luck with Roboform for storing passwords and other sensitive personal data--either on a USB drive or home computer.

Yes! The roboform is good for pass/login management! It builds in your browser and very simple to use