this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2023
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Privacy

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PasswordCard - A interesting option for analog password managers (www.passwordcard.org)
submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by jet@hackertalks.com to c/privacy@lemmy.ml
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A PasswordCard is a credit card-sized card you keep in your wallet, which lets you pick very secure passwords for all your websites, without having to remember them! You just keep them with you, and even if your wallet does get stolen, the thief will still not know your actual passwords.

A very cute idea, well implemented.

Your PasswordCard has a unique grid of random letters and digits on it. The rows have different colors, and the columns different symbols. All you do is remember a combination of a symbol and a color, and then read the letters and digits from there. It couldn't be simpler!

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. It's far safer to pick secure passwords and write them down, than it is to remember simple and easy to guess passwords. You already protect your wallet very well, and even if it does get stolen the thief will still not know which of the many thousands of possibilities on the card is your password.

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[–] ExLisper@linux.community 0 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Crack how? With 4-5 words you're going to have a pretty long password so bruteforce is out. Do you mean that if you will have one of my password you will have the rest? That's because I gave you obvious example as a joke. What if my password is TakePicturesOfYou. What other password are possible? How will you crack them?

[–] burgermeister@lemm.ee 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Take the lyrics of the top 1000 popular english songs, and do a rolling hash of 5 words at a time. To account for capitalization, you would have to multiplely the dataset a few times but I bet you most passwords created in this manner would be easily cracked using this method.

[–] ExLisper@linux.community 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

That's not easy. I mean it's not that hard computationally but you're talking about very specific attack requiring some dedicated tools. Real life you would have two scenarios:

  1. You trying to break into my specific account like gmail. This will not help you because they will rate limit you, use captcha and eventually just block you.
  2. You have a leaked list of thousands/millions password hashes and my password is among them. Hackers would just use existing rainbow tables. They will not think 'hey, maybe some of those passwords use song lyrics, let's check'.

This would be bad pretty much only in the very specific scenario of hackers trying to hack my specific account and having leaked hashes of password for this account.

Still I wouldn't really use this method. I'm just saying it's better method than some printed card generating short alphanumeric password.

[–] burgermeister@lemm.ee 2 points 11 months ago

Fair. I guess I'm just being nitpicky.

[–] nik282000@lemmy.ca 1 points 11 months ago

Crackers use words and phases, they don't just start at 00000000 and head for zzzzzzzz. It's easier to crack a 16 char phrase of mangled words than 16 random chars.