Hacker News Reader

Comment by imh | Hacker News Reader

I don't write down my most important passwords and they're randomly generated gibberish. About a month back, for whatever reason I just couldn't remember one for a minute and it damned near gave me a heart attack. I think I ought to go with your strategy now.

View on HN

> I don't write down my most important passwords and they're randomly generated gibberish.

How the hell do you remember randomly generated gibberish of a length that would be cryptographically secure?

Multi-word passphrases work great for me for everything that has to be kept in my mind safe. If I had to remember things like "LOZOktjR33IxVbACQsgicUtDubOyz9o2" I'd definitely have to drink less.

Even better, store the password with recovery instructions in your will. That's both safe and available because wills share many of the security treats of passwords. And it's also a good backup plan for your relatives to access bank accounts, cancel subscription services etc in the event of accidents.

And/or maybe in a sealed and tamper-evident container. So you or your family can access it in an emergency, but you will know if this has occurred. The hiding location could be outlined in your will?

how would a physical tamper resistant container work? just curious. if it's something one can buy, what prevents an attacker to buy one same container itself to replace the damaged after the fact?

Sealed with tape, with your signature on the tape? And/or some tiny mark on the container that's hard to find.

ah silly me I was thinking about buyable products but that sounds both easy and feasible

Reply on news.ycombinator.com