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Solving Password Overload

It is incredible the number of web sites that a person might go to that require registration and log in.  For each such web site that might mean keeping track of

• User Name
• Real Name (or the one you gave them)
• Password
• Email address

If you are like me, you might have different email addresses that you use for different purposes.  Pretty soon, it becomes mind-boggling to keep track of which web site uses which user name, which password, and which email. Previously, I had been keeping the information for each web site in a text file.  But I have also been nervous about the fact that a plain old text file is not secure.

Personally, I like using tools-at-hand to solve problems.  Keeping track of this type of data can be done very easily with a spreadsheet. Many people use Microsoft Excel and those who don’t use Excel can get OpenOffice’s Calc for free. Both enable you to save a file which is encrypted with a password.  When that is done, you will have to enter the password when you open the spreadsheet.  [Tip: Keep that password in some other place.]

I created a spreadsheet with the following column headings:

• Type – Financial, Software, Blog, Wiki, etc.
• Title – Name of the web site
• Web site – The web site address
• User Name – user name you used when setting up account; also know as login name; some web sites have you log in with your email address
• Password – um, password?
• Email – your email address
• Notes – notes about the web site

From there I can sort or filter on any of the columns.  If you haven’t learned to sort and filter, features that are available in both Excel and OpenOffice Calc, it is well worth the time to learn.

Email Address Tips

In addition to having your primary email address, I suggest having two additional email addresses.

1) The first additional email address would before subscribing to email lists or websites where there is a concern that it might generate an unknown quantity of undesired email.

2) The second additional email address would be for use on commercial websites where you place orders and they need an email address to send confirmations.

Here is a suggestion for creating an email name. When I first created a Gmail account (Google’s email), I used gregsteward (at gmail.com). Within a few minutes I started getting spam. I had heard that spammers have dictionaries of names in a database and that they automatically spew forth spam to email addresses constructed from those names. Spammers were already sending spam to gregsteward (at gmail.com).

That’s when I came up with gs777bs (at gmail.com, and hotmail.com, and aol.com). I use my gmail for my primary account and I use the other two for the above mentioned purposes.