AI-RoboForm

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Has anyone had experience with AI-RoboForm, especially, but not limited to, a Plug-in for Avant Browser?

I have a system now that I can press a shortcut key to bring up a clipboard extender, read through a list, select it, & press . Takes about 4 clicks to enter a password, but I have to enter the username manually. Is Al-RoboForm any better? Any downsides? Thanks,

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I wondered about the safety aspect also. I suppose as long as it’s on your machine, there is a certain danger. I was thinking that if I could memorize a 16 mixed character password to open it, that the other passwords would be safe. I think if you write down such a password & hide it in your house (office) until you memorize it, you’d be pretty safe. After all, how often are you burglarized? And if you are, how often will they take that piece of paper? Once you memorize it, sort of like a SS# or bank account number that you’ve had for a long time, I’d guess it would be fairly safe. Safety vs. convenience.
Cheers,

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By the same logic Phil, why not write all your passwords on a piece of paper and hide that, then there is no chance of someone hacking your machine and stealing your passwords.

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Hi Michael:
I thought of that, too. Probably would make sense. But I have to admit that I’m lazy. I want the password on my machine so I can paste it in, rather than take a chance mistyping. Actually, I had an investigator tell me that the best method is to have 3 passwords:
1) 1 complicated 16 character password for bank accounts, etc.; i.e. places where you couldn’t afford to have someone else crack it. This is one he memorizes.
2) An 8 character password for places that you don’t want others to have access, but really it doesn’t matter that much.
3) An easy to remember 4-6 letter password for sites that insist that you sign in. After all, if someone signed in here with my password, what could they do–make me look bad? Who knows, maybe I’d even look better.

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Phil

My memory is not up to dealing with ‘expert’ advice on passwords, I have 5 bank or credit card accounts, all of which say you should not use the same password for internet banking that you use for ATM’s, and that you should change these regularly. So there are 10 passwords each of which has to be changed every six months or so. I have difficulty remembering any other than the one or two I use weekly, and zero chance of remembering those that I use infrequently.

Presumably if your have a 16 character master password you should change this regularly too. This does not affect the store in the computer or store on a piece of paper argument of course, but I wonder what other Loungers do on these matters?

One piece of advice I was given that seems reasonable to me, is to use the street address where you grew up, you are unlikely to forget it and the chances of any felon knowing it are very small.

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A few ideas that may help. Basic approach is to avoid giving away clues that are meaningful to anyone, but you. and to make the passwords complex enough to be hard to crack,but not so complex that they’re unusable.

If you must write down your passwords, don’t. That is, never write down a whole password. Instead, break it into two, or more parts, and write them down in different places, like in an appointment and an address in your diary. Even better, one part in your diary, another in a “shopping list”. You get even more security if you don’t write down any of the password itself, rather a mildly cryptic reminder to yourself on how you devised the password.

To come up with passwords you could track down password utilities that will generate gobbledygook for you. The problem is trying to remember them. A less secure, but more practical alternative is to cycle thru a stock of password components that you have selected. You could use the first three words (in reverse order) of the second paragraph on each page of your favourite Windows bible, and use the page number as your reminder. If you’re multilingual, combining words from two or more languages is also a good approach, say the previous month in finnish (of course) and a street name along a long route you’re familiar with. Think of a way to throw a few meaningless numbers in between, say your mortgage balance last month, and it should start getting challenging to crack.

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It’s Michael’s fault, he asked. I sail pretty close to the wind too, as far as passwords go. Sort of “do as I say, not as I do”.

I thought Id share a few ideas I’ve picked up from workplaces where security was important, and I was responsible for trying to eliminate the “password taped under the keyboard” approach. How far you go with it all depends on what keeps your paranoia at a comfortable level.

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The bank that I bank with changed there password system from a password to a setup that asks for just 3 of the letters in random order from the password. I.E 4th, 2nd and 7th letters. I have now gone from a 16 letter phrase that I could remember to a 7 letter password I have to write down to work out the letters they want!

Think that I prefer the old setup!

Peter

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Cowboy:

I’m kinda dropping into this one mid-stream, but…

What you said makes a great deal of sense (‘they’ can have anything of mine they can find, including my d— bios), but, in addition:

If you use a firewall (i.e. ZoneAlarm) it alerts you to any program trying to send or receive data, so if you’re paranoid, can’t you just use AI for passwords (bypassing and omitting all the personal info); the more nervous ones out there always say to change your passwords regularly anyway…

CAuse if you REALLY want to get worried, think instead of the FBI and the ability to gather info from the big boys (banks?) … didn’t they just say they were going to get wiretap permissions for *net* phones?

O-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o………

Regards,
Chuck Billow

Chuck Billow

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