FACES & PLACES
TECH TALK
AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2010

Password Management (Part 1)

Passwords!  It’s a love, hate relationship.  We need them to secure our stuff, but they sure are a pain to try and remember.  We need them to log onto our computer and then to access our email account, our online banking, and a multitude of other web sites that ask us to create a password.  How can one person with so many other demands and tasks to perform keep track of all of these different passwords?

Having worked in IT for over 15 years, I’ve seen it all.  Some people use a single password for everything.  Some use a few select passwords.  Some choose a password and just change a number or something else, but basically it revolves around the same content.  Some try to choose different passwords for each site but forget what they are or worse yet, write them all down in a notebook or piece of paper that a stranger could easily find and then immediately have access to all your accounts!

There is a solution!  Ideally what we want to do is have a complex password that is unique for every web site or other platform we access.  We also want to be able to easily type this information without having to remember it.  This is no easy task, but there are tools to help.  Some tools are even FREE!
Before we get into the free stuff (everyone loves free stuff!), let’s go over an example of a bad and then a good password.  We’ll use our online banking website for example, we have a username, probably which is our email address: user@emailaddress.com and then a password.  A bad password would be something like our child’s name, our date of birth, or any information that could be publicly accessible.  In this day and age of social networking where personal information flows easily, it wouldn’t be hard for someone to put together some good guesses what your password might be.  An example of a good password would be this: o7fM40FUmPZDSoHOrSoy.  I know what you’re about to say, it’s too long to remember, and I don’t want to have to type that in all the time.  I agree 100%.  This is where the free stuff comes in.

There is a tool named KeePass which is a free open source password manager.  The program is available for almost whatever type of computer or other device you might own.  For example, it is available for Windows, Macintosh, iPhone, Blackberry, Android, PocketPC, Linux, etc!  You can find the downloads and more information about KeePass here: http://keepass.info

 For now, I’d ask that you check out the web site and download the version applicable for your computer or mobile device.  In my next article I will continue with Part 2 on using KeePass to securely and easily keep your passwords safe!

Rob at Inline Tech is a 15+ year technology veteran in the IT industry and if you have any questions feel free to contact him via his web site at www.inlinetech.com.