How do I remember all my usernames & passwords?

In order to live in the 21st century you are required to remember a ton of usernames/passwords for all the different web sites you interact with, but instead of creating new usernames and passwords people often use the same username/password for all the web sites because it’s easier to remember. This is a huge security problem, because if someone is able to look at your login credentials via an insecure connection, unencrypted database, shared computer, shady web master, key logging programs, etc … they know they will often be able to use the same information to login to other web sites (banking, email, Paypal, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Netflix, etc)

So what can you do?

The best solution would be to have different login credentials (username / password ) for every site that is easy to remember.

Say you want to login to 3 different web sites:

  • www.privatebanking.com
  • www.mywebsite.com
  • www.emailsite.com

Usernames

use your email address + the name of the website.

  • natewilliams+privatebanking@gmail.com
  • natewilliams+mywebsite@gmail.com
  • natewilliams+emailsite@gmail.com

No need to create new email addresses, all emails will end up going to your default email address example: natewilliams@gmail.com, but this will allow you to have different email addresses and also know if a site spams a specific email address you will know exactly which site is doing it. You can also set up filters in your email so that any email that comes from a specific email address can have a specific action

  • natewilliams+privatebanking@gmail.com –> flag this email
  • natewilliams+mywebsite@gmail.com –> delete this email
  • natewilliams+emailsite@gmail.com –> archive this email

note: some sites won’t let you use “+” signs in the username, if that is the case just use your email address

Passwords

For passwords think of an algorithm that can be easily applied to all domain names. You will have to remember your algorithm, but once you know it , it will be easy to apply to any site and a lot easier to remember.

Here are some algorithm examples

  • first letter of site +”2m0nkey!5″+ number of vowels + third letter of web site + “215″
  • position of the  first vowel + “sHell02″ +   last letter + “06″ + second letter
  • number of letters + “t0mmy26″+ second to last letter + last vowel
  • etc

Examples

So if I am using the algorithm below, here would be my login information for each site

the position of the first vowel + “sHell02″ + last letter + “06″ + second letter

web site: www.privatebanking.com
username: natewilliams+privatebanking@gmail.com
password: 3sHell02g06r

web site: www.mywebsite.com
username: natewilliams+mywebsite@gmail.com
password: 4sHell02e06y

web site: www.emailsite.com
username: natewilliams+emailsite@gmail.com
password: 1sHell02e06m

.

Thanks!

.
  • Nate Bear

     Good thinking! Don’t get the “position of first value” part.

  • fraximus

    Yep. Doing something like this already.  Not the username bit though, that was good.  Thanks.

  • http://www.n8w.com/f/f/diqus Nate Williams

    Thanks Nate .. for the “position of the first value ” I meant to say Vowel
    So for the the word “cat” the vowel is the second letter so you would put a 2
    arm=1
    tricycle=3

    You can mix this up .. number of vowels, what is the first vowel, last vowel, what postition is the vowel “e” in, etc

  • Nate Bear

     Ah. That makes much more sense. Thought I was missing something way over my head.

  • http://www.n8w.com/f/f/diqus Nate Williams

    :) .. actually went under your head .. you assumed I knew what I was talking about ;)

  • Kevin Almanza

    A few months ago, someone got into my mail account, forcing me to change my password. I wanted to change the similar passwords of my accounts, but I couldn’t remember a bunch of different or complex passwords. Now I have something that works! Thank you!

  • http://www.n8w.com/f/f/diqus Nate Williams

    My pleasure .. it will make things much easier

  • http://twitter.com/ReginaHott Regina Hott

    my problem with this is – what about the sites that make you change every 3 months

  • sam

    valid question.

  • Mik