6 ms·

Low tech: I put my secret manager password in a physical journal that is locked in a fire proof, water proof vault and hidden somewhere only my partner and myse

Low tech: I put my secret manager password in a physical journal that is locked in a fire proof, water proof vault and hidden somewhere only my partner and myself know where it is. I use a password manager. Everything else goes in the password manager.

rcxdude 7mo ago
In general whatever kind of backup plan you have for when you die could also work in this scenario, you may just need to think harder about anything that you do not want have revealed when you die.
munk-a 7mo ago
Alternative - my partner and I (and also two other close contacts) have password managers that contain each of the other one's secret. This was less an effort to help with the memory loss scenario and more of an effort to deal with death and access to services (especially to cease subscriptions and the like). In a lower trust scenario you could probably use a lawyer as a broker of the secret (potentially even as part of a will).
- rcxdude 7mo ago
  Password managers like bitwarden also have emergency access features which can do this, with the caveat of trusting them to enforce the requirement of access only being granted after a notification to the account holder is not denied in some time period (but unlike the lawyer you're not trusting them with the secret directly)
  - spockz 7mo ago
    Apple has this thing called Legacy Contact which allows the same but then built in to the whole Apple account. This includes devices as well as the iCloud ~~and attached keychains. Granted, it is another hoop to jump through compared to presharing keys with each other.~~ It would be nice if your Apple account could be unlocked with some other keys as well apart from the primary one, but I guess that is what Apple calls the “Legacy Contact Key”. Edit: okay so the keychain is excluded from this. So back to storing each others passwords in eachothers keychain…
  - eljojo 7mo ago
    I didn't know about bit warden doing this until today! I definitely have to look closer into it, been using 1password for more than a decade and I keep being disappointed. I'd definitely like off-sourcing this to someone instead of building it myself
- eljojo 7mo ago
  this is honestly a very pragmatic solution. the amount of life-long relationships i've seen vanish overnight has got me to reconsider my choices when it comes to single points of failure. I like the idea of the lawyer, unlike normal people, they like sticking to their promises.
- kwanbix 7mo ago
  So if you and your partner die, whoever is part of your family is fck.
  - wafflemaker 7mo ago
    Bitwarden allows a quite large number of emergency contacts. There are two rules: 1. You need to be a paying customer when setting up. 2. The other person needs to have a Bitwarden account.
maurycyz 7mo ago
This. A physical safe provides something that you can't do digitally: It's hard, but not impossible to get in without credentials. On the internet, it's either: Public for anyone in the whole world, or impossible to recover if anything goes wrong.
- kylehotchkiss 7mo ago
  I've broken into Physical Safes using nothing more than a drill with a half inch bit (I was young and didn't want to drag myself to harbor freight to sacrifice a more suitable tool). Enough boreholes and I had access. In hindsight, looking harder for the key would probably have been fruitful.
  - 0cf8612b2e1e 7mo ago
    Nothing says you cannot trivially encode the paper password. Those in the know understand that you need to append “BoomShakalaka”, replace “A” with “Q”, or some other super simple modification to what is recorded. Maybe the NSA would be willing to brute force the infinite variations from that starting seed, but it is still effectively locked for mortals.
    - mathstuf 7mo ago
      I've thought about making a "word search" and embedding the passphrase in it using a pattern (e.g., a subset of a Knight's tour, a space-filling curve overlay, or some other sampling algorithm).
      - unsnap_biceps 7mo ago
        https://www.passwordcard.org/en https://www.passwordcard.org/en I used to keep a password card in my wallet and had a pattern I would use.
    - Dylan16807 7mo ago
      If you add an explicit reminder to check the email where you explained the modification, then the idea seems solid. Tough at that point put half the password on paper and send the other half to a whole bunch of trusted people.
repiret 7mo ago
This is what I do too, but be warned about “fire proof” - a fire that results in the total loss of your house will create enough heat for enough time that fireproof gun safes and smaller fireproof lockboxes will be destroyed, or even if not, their contents will get hot enough to combust anyway. A bank safe deposit box offers a different security profile that’s probably more robust against fire because banks burn less often than houses. It’s probably not practical to really be robust against fire without being buried several feet deep.
- eljojo 7mo ago
  do you store stuff in a bank? could you tell me more about it? my account gives me access to one for free and been meaning to put a yubikey there for a while but never have
  - deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
  - cyberax 7mo ago
    I do. I have a small safe deposit box in my local branch for about $1 a year. It's great if you want to store some documents. But don't expect _real_ security. It's guarded by a minimum-wage employee, and the keys are usually laughably insecure. Banks know this, so they cap their liability for the loss of the deposit box at around $1000. So don't even think about storing gold bars there, like they do in movies. There _are_ companies that provide safe storage for high-value items, but they are pretty exotic.
    - eljojo 7mo ago
      that's... a really good perspective to have, thanks for sharing!
  - nightshift1 7mo ago
    Safe deposit boxes are not safe. There are many stories of peoples stuff going missing. ex: https://www.cbc.ca/news/safety-deposit-box-protection-1.7338220 https://www.cbc.ca/news/safety-deposit-box-protection-1.7338... https://archive.is/www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/business/safe-deposit-box-theft.html https://archive.is/www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/business/safe-...
eljojo 7mo ago
sometimes simpler is the best. I am always on the move so vaults don't jive well with me. my concern would be for something to still happen to it, too. I'm trying to go by the principle of not putting all my eggs on one basket.
tempestn 7mo ago
I'd advise sharing that knowledge with one trusted person outside your household too, especially if you and your partner have dependants.

rcxdude 7mo ago

In general whatever kind of backup plan you have for when you die could also work in this scenario, you may just need to think harder about anything that you do not want have revealed when you die.

munk-a 7mo ago

Alternative - my partner and I (and also two other close contacts) have password managers that contain each of the other one's secret. This was less an effort to help with the memory loss scenario and more of an effort to deal with death and access to services (especially to cease subscriptions and the like). In a lower trust scenario you could probably use a lawyer as a broker of the secret (potentially even as part of a will).

rcxdude 7mo ago
Password managers like bitwarden also have emergency access features which can do this, with the caveat of trusting them to enforce the requirement of access only being granted after a notification to the account holder is not denied in some time period (but unlike the lawyer you're not trusting them with the secret directly)
- spockz 7mo ago
  Apple has this thing called Legacy Contact which allows the same but then built in to the whole Apple account. This includes devices as well as the iCloud ~~and attached keychains. Granted, it is another hoop to jump through compared to presharing keys with each other.~~ It would be nice if your Apple account could be unlocked with some other keys as well apart from the primary one, but I guess that is what Apple calls the “Legacy Contact Key”. Edit: okay so the keychain is excluded from this. So back to storing each others passwords in eachothers keychain…
- eljojo 7mo ago
  I didn't know about bit warden doing this until today! I definitely have to look closer into it, been using 1password for more than a decade and I keep being disappointed. I'd definitely like off-sourcing this to someone instead of building it myself
eljojo 7mo ago
this is honestly a very pragmatic solution. the amount of life-long relationships i've seen vanish overnight has got me to reconsider my choices when it comes to single points of failure. I like the idea of the lawyer, unlike normal people, they like sticking to their promises.
kwanbix 7mo ago
So if you and your partner die, whoever is part of your family is fck.
- wafflemaker 7mo ago
  Bitwarden allows a quite large number of emergency contacts. There are two rules: 1. You need to be a paying customer when setting up. 2. The other person needs to have a Bitwarden account.

maurycyz 7mo ago

This. A physical safe provides something that you can't do digitally: It's hard, but not impossible to get in without credentials. On the internet, it's either: Public for anyone in the whole world, or impossible to recover if anything goes wrong.

kylehotchkiss 7mo ago
I've broken into Physical Safes using nothing more than a drill with a half inch bit (I was young and didn't want to drag myself to harbor freight to sacrifice a more suitable tool). Enough boreholes and I had access. In hindsight, looking harder for the key would probably have been fruitful.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 7mo ago
  Nothing says you cannot trivially encode the paper password. Those in the know understand that you need to append “BoomShakalaka”, replace “A” with “Q”, or some other super simple modification to what is recorded. Maybe the NSA would be willing to brute force the infinite variations from that starting seed, but it is still effectively locked for mortals.
  - mathstuf 7mo ago
    I've thought about making a "word search" and embedding the passphrase in it using a pattern (e.g., a subset of a Knight's tour, a space-filling curve overlay, or some other sampling algorithm).
    - unsnap_biceps 7mo ago
      https://www.passwordcard.org/en https://www.passwordcard.org/en I used to keep a password card in my wallet and had a pattern I would use.
  - Dylan16807 7mo ago
    If you add an explicit reminder to check the email where you explained the modification, then the idea seems solid. Tough at that point put half the password on paper and send the other half to a whole bunch of trusted people.

repiret 7mo ago

This is what I do too, but be warned about “fire proof” - a fire that results in the total loss of your house will create enough heat for enough time that fireproof gun safes and smaller fireproof lockboxes will be destroyed, or even if not, their contents will get hot enough to combust anyway. A bank safe deposit box offers a different security profile that’s probably more robust against fire because banks burn less often than houses. It’s probably not practical to really be robust against fire without being buried several feet deep.

eljojo 7mo ago
do you store stuff in a bank? could you tell me more about it? my account gives me access to one for free and been meaning to put a yubikey there for a while but never have
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
- cyberax 7mo ago
  I do. I have a small safe deposit box in my local branch for about $1 a year. It's great if you want to store some documents. But don't expect _real_ security. It's guarded by a minimum-wage employee, and the keys are usually laughably insecure. Banks know this, so they cap their liability for the loss of the deposit box at around $1000. So don't even think about storing gold bars there, like they do in movies. There _are_ companies that provide safe storage for high-value items, but they are pretty exotic.
  - eljojo 7mo ago
    that's... a really good perspective to have, thanks for sharing!
- nightshift1 7mo ago
  Safe deposit boxes are not safe. There are many stories of peoples stuff going missing. ex: https://www.cbc.ca/news/safety-deposit-box-protection-1.7338220 https://www.cbc.ca/news/safety-deposit-box-protection-1.7338... https://archive.is/www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/business/safe-deposit-box-theft.html https://archive.is/www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/business/safe-...

eljojo 7mo ago

sometimes simpler is the best. I am always on the move so vaults don't jive well with me. my concern would be for something to still happen to it, too. I'm trying to go by the principle of not putting all my eggs on one basket.

tempestn 7mo ago

I'd advise sharing that knowledge with one trusted person outside your household too, especially if you and your partner have dependants.