Password Blues and Woes
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Thread: Password Blues and Woes

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Feb 2000
    Location
    Coquitlam BC Canada
    Posts
    2,827

    Password Blues and Woes

    I've found my self this past week having to change a number of passwords to my favourite programs and/or login re: forums/ browsers /billing etc ..

    what a job! .. lately you can't use the same password which means changing it just a bit or relying on past events makes the challenge fairly complicated. They now want special charactors or the very first letter to be capitilized .. symbols, letters upper lower numbers..

    so I have over the past decade relied on password generator sites .. one is/was Dashlane and the other most recent is LasTPASS . both rely on your stored passwords within the Windows browser ( IE or better still Google Chrome or I also have Firefox mozzilla . They mostly never work .. They don't necessarily activate when you arrive at the site .. still sleeping I guess.
    I also keep this same program on my smartphone and there are quite a few times when I can't log in on windows and the program information if lost, so I go the Iphone and bring up the same saved info and then manually input on the other windows end .
    I also find a very tedious problem that both to my knowledge do not totally delete your passwords when needed, so when your browser recognizes your ip address.., a drop box shows up and drops down with Dashlane info, and it may have up to ten years worth of passwords! for you to choose and you would think the top one is the most recent ,, nope neither the 2nd 3rd 4th, etc ,,, it may be there it may not.. You have 5 chances before you get locked out for 30 min or totally.. you have to phone the company hotline.. !

    and on top of that I have my families and coworkers and friend's passwords (not all just a few) in my drop down box of emails to log into., Where did these come from? ..
    Well if we go back to the browser log in again ,.. I may have logged in on my phone , or even on their PC itself.. & under their WiFi at a time years and years ago.., i even managed to log into one of my sister n laws health records and the password was there for me to use . .and SHE never told about this or does she know I was there, if she was to notice the last logged in date in small print .. ( secret I have..)
    So I then go my most recent program Lasspass and it may only show three in their drop box as the program has only been with me for 6 months. easier choice to find .. Today I decided to try something new and that is an extension of these programs to analyse and find the most repeated passwords and change them for you .. My Lasspass found about a dozen and asked to change these ? and I clicked yes .. I just know for the records that most of these will not go thru.. as the program itself seems to forget my passwords and on top of that if they find it has to login to say i.e. Google/apple or Youtube it send a 6 digit verification code for me to see on my phone type it in the box provided on the other screen.. and as this program is churning out new passwords.. my phone is dinging away with verification numbers to input and no where on the main screen is this here, as the program hides this information.

    I hit stop after 30 minutes .. and I have no idea right now what is changed and isn't .. That being on lasspass I wonder if Dashlane wil lsee this and update its records .. it should that is the design of the program .. If only it was true to a T ..

    frustrated ? of course ! have I brought up most of these to their support desk.,. and I always get the same lamebrain answer back ..' reinstall .. or another -never heard of this.''. perhaps your antivirus is to blame '' .

    Is there anything easier to use and work good or better ??
    Windows 10 Home 64 Intel® Core™ i5-8265U (1.6 GHz base frequency, up to 3.9 GHz, 6 MB cache, 4 cores)
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  2. #2
    Join Date
    Feb 2000
    Location
    Idaho Falls, Idaho, USA
    Posts
    18,063
    Here are my views on passwords and security, for what they are worth. Your ideas may differ.

    I never, ever have passwords saved in a web browser. My browsers are set to never save passwords. It is just too big a security risk for me.

    I also never use random password generators, since they generate passwords you can never remember. What you want in a password is one that is long enough (these days, 14 characters should be considered minimum) that it cannot be broken using the brute force method in any reasonable amount of time. You also want one that cannot be found in any dictionary. Passphrases or letter/word and number combinations with a special character or 2 or 3 would be the way to go. An example might be something like "Primary3798Secondary$". That will not be in any dictionary and would take too long to brute force (years).

    For a password manager, I would use something that can be set to never transfer your password list, even encrypted, to any storage device not in your possession. DashLane and LastPass have both had security issues over the past 2 years. Keepass is one that you can use to create a local encrypted password database. You do need backup copies of this database, on devices or media in your possession, just in case of device or media failures.

    I would also never mass-change or auto-change passwords, and never use the same password for more than one web site or other purpose. That way, if the site is hacked and the password stolen, it cannot be used to access anything else. I always select a unique password for each purpose.

    Just my $2.50 worth of ideas on the subject.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Apr 2000
    Location
    Sheboygan, WI
    Posts
    53,392
    I work up my passwords at
    https://www.grc.com/haystack.htm
    just for quidance.
    And make sure the Massive Cracking Array Scenario: is for longer than I expect to live.

    Plug this is and see what the outcome is " Boston-19/77 "

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