Password Management

After an initial consolidation of some of my passwords into a password manager, the current count is 36 logins, and 5 generic accounts that I have to remember on a regular basis (and still probably a few that I’ll eventually use and add to this list). It is interesting to observe that only exactly half of the logins so far accept a password that my password manager would qualify as “Fantastic”, including digits and symbols and lengthy enough to really make guessing almost impossible (generated passwords look like: *78NaoA3BY0N#NOf).

My requirements of cross-platform support made me chose the 1Password package, from Agile Bits (more details on http://agilebits.com/products/1Password). The user interface has some idiosyncrasies, and yet it is far better than some of the competitors that I’ve tried. Its main issue is that I always considered that the advantage of a cross-platform application would be the consistent UI. I stand corrected. The 1Password software is not only inconsistent with itself across platforms, but also inconsistent “with the platform”. The version for Windows looks like Mac software. Well, I thought, that is probably because it started on the Mac. Maybe that it is case, or maybe not, because in the Mac OS the software has a significantly different user interface! That should have been hard to achieve…

Yet, consistency is not something that is in high order when evaluating a password manager. That kind of software itself would be unnecessary if web sites could make us the favor of adopting protocols like OpenId (http://openid.net/). In the meantime, besides its own features, I keep using 1Password integrated with Dropbox, although that integration has a few glitches. The 1Password software creates a hidden file at the root for Dropbox named .ws.agile.1Password.settings, where it looks like it places the location of the settings. However, if you buy a family license for 1Password, and two family members create different data folders, that file keeps being overwritten. Yet, that is minor compared to issues like the recent Dropbox snafu regarding passwords (link). With “friends” like Dropbox, 1Password doesn’t need enemies…