Opinion - What are your thoughts on password managers? Do you use one? Would you recommend it to others?
Opinion - What are your thoughts on password managers? Do you use one? Would you recommend it to others?
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In general, password managers are a must-have in today's world. The question is not if you should have one, but which one and why.
As a Software Engineer very conscious about security and privacy, but also with a high practicality sense, I'd say you should opt for whatever you feel more comfortable.
If you don't want to manage anything, then 1password, BitWarden, LastPass or any of those might be right for you. If you are more of the kind to tinker with everything, then you can have your own OwnCloud/NextCloud and use KeePassXC.
I particularly used the later setup, but NextCloud was too much to handle for me, and settled with KeePassXC + Dropbox.
You do you, but use a password manager.
You can roll your own with bitwarden too.
It may sound stupid but my mental health drastically improved once I started using a password manager.
seconding or at this point 15ing KeePass + Dropbox
Strongly disagree. I don't trust anyone with my passwords, especially since they are all vulnerable. LastPass was just recently hacked and it could happen to any of the other services as well. It may sound insane, but internalizing your passwords is going to always be the most secure. I came up with a simple algorithm I use to help remember my passwords, all sites are associated with a 6 letter shortcode, and I have a way to convert that into a secure password that is 12 characters of mostly random alphanumerics and symbols. Sure, it's not something that everyone would want to do, but your sentiment of "not whether or not, but which one" is not correct for everyone.
internalizing your passwords is going to always be the most secure. I came up with a simple algorithm I use to help remember my passwords
Every pattern, no matter how clever, reduces entropy and makes your passwords less secure than a randomly generated one.
I agree with you about the cloud services though. I would never trust the most sensitive data to an online service. They have to be competent to stay in business but they're guarding a real treasure there.
From my understanding, none of the last pass master passwords or saved passwords were identified or taken though - they still kept the passwords secure despite hackers accessing files...
Let's agree to disagree. It's true that these companies are vulnerable and lovely honeypots for hackers. And because they know that, they'll try to harden as much as possible. Besides, not everyone is willing to create passwords out of algorithms seeded with mnemonics. Most of the people will reuse the same password over and over in different places. And that's the worst situation, because most of those sites are hundreds of times more hackable than commercial password managers.
Are there better options than commercial password managers? Yes, of course. How many are willing to use them? Maybe less than 30% of the population. And that's bad, because it makes the internet less safe for everyone.
And by the way, the method you use is one of the earliest ways to create passwords and is hackable by brute force in seconds. If I have two or more passwords, or two or more seeds, the algorithm is done unless you have some random generator in it.
Did you read my comment? I acknowledged that it is not something everyone will want to do. And you're wrong, brute force methods won't be able to break a 12 character password that's random alphanumerics and symbols in any sort of timely manner. The only way they could retrieve the underlying algorithm is by successfully breaking multiple passwords and then cross referencing them to determine the code, which is extremely unlikely. By the time the brute force method found a solution, I would have changed the password already, as they all rotate monthly.
You could use Himitsu and sync your passwords across devices with Syncthing, instead of encouraging people to confuse security with pedantry. Cybersecurity measures should be as transparent as possible, and nowadays cumbersome solutions also tend to be insecure. See, for example, pass(1): totally not secure, and also cumbersome to use. Compare that with SSH, developed by the OpenBSD project: it just works, especially by delegating complexity, i.e. by letting users and admins set up another secure channel, via HTTPS, to drop the SSH key.
The OpenBSD project has also developed doas, signify, libtls, scp, which are all no-brainers. Mastering doas is literally one blog post away.
SafeInCloud is my manager and I love it! It’s free and I can host my encrypted file wherever I want.
paper and penci is still superior to any password manager.
Why is this being downvoted? As long as the paper is not easy to access then in all ways this is better then software.
Sorry but "as a Software Engineer" every solution must be software is the vibe I am getting.
As long as the paper is not easy to access then in all ways this is better then software.
You have to log into a website. Enter the password from the sheet of paper. Now log in again with a password manager that has autofill.
Paper is not better in "all ways" and that's why this thread is being downvoted.
In all ways other then lazy convenience, that I will give you.
The possibility to loose the paper or than someone else has access to it is way greater than others getting access to your account or loosing access or the data in a cloud-based application.
You cannot generate a password on paper, that's why. Keeping your master password written down isn't the worst idea though. It's a rudimentary 2FA.
Why?