{"id":712,"date":"2003-07-27T16:14:33","date_gmt":"2003-07-27T16:14:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sunpig.com\/mt-entry-712.html"},"modified":"2006-09-23T19:30:11","modified_gmt":"2006-09-23T19:30:11","slug":"password-safe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/2003\/07\/27\/password-safe\/","title":{"rendered":"Password Safe"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Many computer users today have to keep track of dozens of passwords: for network accounts, online services, premium web sites. Some write their passwords on a piece of paper, leaving their accounts vulnerable to thieves or in-house snoops. Others choose the same password for different applications, which makes life easy for intruders of all kinds. <\/p>\n

“With Password Safe<\/a>, a free Windows 9x\/2000 utility from Counterpane Labs, users can keep their passwords securely encrypted on their computers. A single Safe Combination–just one thing to remember–unlocks them all.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There’s not much more you need to know. When my list of accounts and passwords became too much to memorize, I started keeping them in a little “keyring” file on my PC. First it was just a plain text file (*embarrassed cough*), but more recently I’ve kept the text file in an encrypted zip file. I’ve seen numerous little programs that take care of this password tracking job, but until now I have never found one that a) doesn’t try to do more than I want it to, b) is a pain in the arse about backups and transporting files, c) is inexpensive, and d) comes from a vendor I trust.<\/p>\n

Password Safe nails all of these issues:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. All that Password Safe does is hold passwords. You give each item in your list a title, a user name, and a password. There’s also a small space for additional notes if you need them. But that’s all it requires: three small pieces of data per password. And once you’ve entered this information, it shows up in a simple list. It’s clean, simple, and elegant.<\/li>\n
  2. Your passwords are stored in a single .dat file. The .dat file is encrypted with the Blowfish<\/a> algorithm. Transporting your passwords between computers is a matter of taking your .dat file with you, running Password Safe on the other computer, and making sure you know the master password (the “safe combination”) to open the file.<\/li>\n
  3. Password Safe was originally developed by Counterpane Labs<\/a>, but it’s now being developed as an open source project. It’s free.<\/li>\n
  4. Counterpane Systems was founded by Bruce Schneier, one of the biggest names in computer encryption and security. He invented the Blowfish<\/a> algorithm. He developed the Solitaire<\/a> algorithm used in Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon<\/a>–one of the best fiction books ever written about code-breaking and computer hacking. He has written many other books<\/a> about cryptography, computers, and privacy. He publishes the monthly Crypto-Gram newsletter<\/a> about computer security and cryptography. His credentials are beyond reproach. Do I trust this utility knowing that it comes from his company? Absolutely.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Password Safe<\/a>. It’s the way to go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    “Many computer users today have to keep track of dozens of passwords: for network accounts, online services, premium web sites. Some write their passwords on a piece of paper, leaving their accounts vulnerable to thieves or in-house snoops. Others choose the same password for different applications, which makes life easy for intruders of all kinds. <\/p>\n

    “With Password Safe<\/a>, a free Windows 9x\/2000 utility from Counterpane Labs, users can keep their passwords securely encrypted on their computers. A single Safe Combination–just one thing to remember–unlocks them all.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    There’s not much more you need to know. When my list of accounts and passwords became too much to memorize, I started keeping them in a little “keyring” file on my PC. First it was just a plain text file (*embarrassed cough*), but more recently I’ve kept the text file in an encrypted zip file. I’ve seen numerous little programs that take care of this password tracking job, but until now I have never found one that a) doesn’t try to do more than I want it to, b) is a pain in the arse about backups and transporting files, c) is inexpensive, and d) comes from a vendor I trust.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}