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by cxy7z 5665 days ago
Maybe this is a case of premature optimization: but what if you ever need to log into a site from a public computer where you can't install your password manager.

I realized that without a password manager you're forced to choose between 1) having one super-secure password and 2) having multiple easy-to-remember passwords.

My compromise is this: have a password template. This is a string that changes in a predictable way based on the site. This could be something as silly as "password_${site_name}", making my gmail.com password "password_gmail" and my twitter password "password_twitter".

Obviously, the formula won't be terribly complex, so if I tell yo my gmail pass you can probably figure out my twitter pass given though time. But that doesn't bother me, since I'm mostly concerned about gawker-type incidents where my password is among thousands of others, in which case the bad guys will exploit the 90% of the passwords that do work instead of trying to reverse-engineer those 10% which don't.

1 comments

LastPass gives you the ability to generate one time passwords [https://lastpass.com/otp.php] ahead of time that you can print out and keep in your wallet for use on public machines.

There are also several options for multi-factor authentication for an additional level of security.