I believe I've come up with a safe way to store the 20+ character passwords recommended by file encryption programs, "in plain sight." You've probably seen those really long URLs with lots of seemingly random characters, usually for some type of advertising. If you haven't, go to a site like Yahoo or MSN & move your cursor over a few of the ads & you'll probably find at least one of them that shows you what I'm talking about. The basic idea is to copy an '.html' file with one or more of these really long URLs & store it in an unencrypted place on your main hard drive. If you use a Windows-based computer, a good place to store this file might be in the Windows directory. Name it something inconspicuous, like 'W32synk.dll' (as long as there isn't already a file by that name - DO NOT replace/overwrite an existing Windows file). Then all you have to do is open this file in a text editor (I use EditPad Lite) & locate one of the long URLs. If the URL you decide to use has only numbers & letters, then you should ad some other characters (%, *, ~, etc.) to increase the strength of your password. Now just determine a starting character at least 20 characters from one end or the other of the long URL & count left or right 20 or more characters. That will be a password for one of your encrypted devices or containers. You could use really any large file that has random characters to do this. An example would be a '.jpg' photo file - open one in a text editor & just determine a starting charcater for you password & how many characters you want the password to be. Just be sure to copy the file you use to an inconspicuous unencrypted folder on your computer with a name different from the original file. Decide on how many encrypted devices and or containers you want, go through the above procedure for each one, then run the file encryption program & use the file(s) to copy/paste your password(s) when the encryption program prompts you.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Safely keep 20+ character passwords for copying/pasting
I believe I've come up with a safe way to store the 20+ character passwords recommended by file encryption programs, "in plain sight." You've probably seen those really long URLs with lots of seemingly random characters, usually for some type of advertising. If you haven't, go to a site like Yahoo or MSN & move your cursor over a few of the ads & you'll probably find at least one of them that shows you what I'm talking about. The basic idea is to copy an '.html' file with one or more of these really long URLs & store it in an unencrypted place on your main hard drive. If you use a Windows-based computer, a good place to store this file might be in the Windows directory. Name it something inconspicuous, like 'W32synk.dll' (as long as there isn't already a file by that name - DO NOT replace/overwrite an existing Windows file). Then all you have to do is open this file in a text editor (I use EditPad Lite) & locate one of the long URLs. If the URL you decide to use has only numbers & letters, then you should ad some other characters (%, *, ~, etc.) to increase the strength of your password. Now just determine a starting character at least 20 characters from one end or the other of the long URL & count left or right 20 or more characters. That will be a password for one of your encrypted devices or containers. You could use really any large file that has random characters to do this. An example would be a '.jpg' photo file - open one in a text editor & just determine a starting charcater for you password & how many characters you want the password to be. Just be sure to copy the file you use to an inconspicuous unencrypted folder on your computer with a name different from the original file. Decide on how many encrypted devices and or containers you want, go through the above procedure for each one, then run the file encryption program & use the file(s) to copy/paste your password(s) when the encryption program prompts you.
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