Passwords, passwords, passwords…
So I’m sick of passwords. I’m sick of every single site I visit asking me to create a new password. And I’m definitely tired of the varying rules on what my login and password can be.
Some want your email, some want you to select a user name. Some passwords can be alphanumeric only, some must contain at least 8 characters, some don’t allow the use of ASCII symbols like ‘#’ and ‘&’.
It’s, quite frankly, a mess.
FaceBook Connect has helped a bit, and is moving towards helping websites to unify their logins and utilize the now ubiquitous Facebook system to verify identity and get people verified for blogs and forums all over. That won’t help with online banking, but it does at least take away the need for separate user logins on all the blogs and information websites you visit. It’s likely this will never catch on beyond social and news media, but it’s at least a step in the right direction.
For the rest of those passwords, I stumbled upon a new application called Callpod Keeper. This app is Mac and PC compatible and offers a way to use a single password to unlock access to hundreds of user and password account info. It won’t log in for you, but it will at least provide a way for you to take along your secure information on a laptop and store it without fear. With U.S. Military and Department of Homeland Security approved 128-Bit AES cipher encryption, your private information remains safe and secure.
Before this I never took along sensitive info as I wondered what would happen should my laptop get lost or stolen.
There’s even a free iPhone app, and mobile apps for Blackberry’s and Android tech, that lets you sync your info and keep everything with you. Better still, an auto-destruct mode erases the database after 5 unsuccessful login attempts.
It’s like Mission Impossible secure.
Since we can’t seem to get away without passwords, and the world seems bent on not standardizing the rules and protocols behind them, at least an app like Callpod’s Keeper can help us bring our info with us and keep it safe. Check it out.
You might want to give lastpass.com a try also.
On the password mess and other pseudo-security issues: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/cormac/papers/2009/SoLongAndNoThanks.pdf
If it is approved by the US military and Homeland Security, that probably means they can read it reliably.