apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Wouldn't this fall into the same "scooped up" plan as other things (like a power strip safe). It'd be fine for hiding from a snoop in your household if you worried about that but if a thief comes in and just takes all your stuff they aren't going to go UGH FLOPPIES and chuck them (maybe when they get to where ever you are going, but they will still have them, not you, no closing your accounts if you forgot the password). A neat list tucked into a separate place in the house, heck it'd be safer from burglars on the fridge. All depends who you are keeping your passwords from I suppose.

Floppy Disk...in 2009...really?

Also, isn't the part that the sticker is on the part of the disk that gets read by the computer? Wouldn't it be like putting a sticker on the underside of a dvd?

@loudlyquiet: Well, since a robber has to carry stuff, they are probably somewhat discriminate about what they try to grab. Certainly they don't slowly categorize all your belongings to figure out what is optimal for them to take. Still, if they did happen to grab the floppy, I imagine they would just trash it when they sort their illicit gains later. If they tried seeing what was stored on it (given they even had a drive), they'd probably just assume it wasn't working and trash it.

@modernguy: well, yeah, it would probably prevent the disk for being used for data, but I would assume one would use the disk just for the password thing and not as both a password thing and functional.


If you really need to write down your passwords, this is probably not that bad of a method. It would be annoying to update it with new accounts though.

Additionally, if you absolutely must write down your password transforming them with a simple substitution cypher would probably make it pretty secure even if discovered.

Why not just keep your password online? That way, you can access them when you're on the computer but if your stuff gets stolen, you're passwords wouldn't go with them.

@modernguy, because if someone guesses one, they've got them all? Or do you mean let your browser remember them? Because then all the theif has to do is start browsing and lo, all your accounts are theirs for the hacking.

I read an article about a really genius way of coming up with difficult to guess but easy to remember passwords. Use a phrase that the service reminds you of. For example, "Email is really necessary for me in 5280 ways." And then use an acronym of it as your password: "emirnfmi5280w" which is not a pronouncable word, would be really hard to guess and is still likely to be something you remember. (5280 is the number of feet in a mile, which I always remember or can look up. Pick numbers you know and remember). It's not a perfect method but it works pretty well for my really important accounts.

I don't know which I enjoyed more - the floppy idea or the discussion that ensued. Wunami: that's what I do. I keep a list of my passwords in code form so the snooper would have to first figure out the secret code to the password.

KeePass (ver. 2 preferably) running off a USB flash drive. Just make sure you come up with a strong master password.

KeePass also includes a great utility for generating random passwords. You can make them as strong or weak as you want.