A Pain in the Whatchamacallit
By Tiny Ruisch
This month I thought I’d take a few minutes and tell you about the Password Program that I use every day when I’m computing. If you do a Google Search for “password manager“, you‘ll get about 41,000,000 choices. I’ve carefully researched all of them except for the last 29 million or so.
I use a lot of passwords in my daily computing. As of this writing, I’ve got 41 e-mail addresses. I have eleven passwords that I use to manage them. I frequent 8 different forums, each with separate password. Then there are my gaming site passwords. Five right now. Did I forget to mention my military and medical passwords? Eight of them. Then there are on line shopping passwords and the most important one of all – the one that logs me into the SWLAPCUG web site. I’ve got more than 50 passwords that I use fairly frequently.
The first week of every month, I change the passwords for websites that keep important data. It seems that some company or government office is always being compromised and losing important data. For most web sites, I use hard to break passwords. Want to see one of my sample passwords? qyF+,CMqaF;+@x!,Sd is a password that used to open my web site for editing.
The program I use is KeePass Password Safe. It is a really easy to use utility that helps you to keep track of all your passwords while keeping them safe. It lets you store all of your passwords in a lightweight, simple-to-use database, and encrypts the database so that only you can access it.
KeePass Password Safe stores all your passwords in groups, so that it’s easy to find the one you want quickly. The program does more than just store the passwords; it also lets you easily copy them onto a Web page or an application. You can drag and drop them, copy them to the clipboard, or copy them using a hot key.
One of the best features is the random password generator which creates passwords with characteristics that you specify. That way you can tailor your passwords as needed. For example, some websites won’t let you create a password with underlines while others might require a specific length. KeePass makes it easy to create any password.
The program also includes support for TAN passwords and allows you to create TAN lists which automatically expire a password once it has been used. Other features include auto-lock, database search, import/export, and many more.
Of Course, KeePass also fits in with one of my most demanding prerequisites. It is open source and the cost is ZERO. You can download the program from the KeePass Password Safe Home Page for yourself and give it a try. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.