Portable and secure password and PIN storage

One thing is certain, pretty much any web site that you use regularly has some form of membership or registration requirement to access further features. From the big web sites such as facebook and MySpace, through news sites, down to your local pizza delivery business, to allow maximum interactivity and convenience, a username and password will be required. It goes without saying that if you do any form of online banking, a login is required and a damn good (unique) password to boot.

All web browsers as far back as I can remember have some form of built in password manager. This mighty convenient functionality means we can sign up with a new web site, then forget about having to remember our password whilst the computer does it for us. This is all well and good until we:

• Buy a new computer and start accessing the web
• Try and access a web site from someone else’s computer
• Register multiple accounts with the same web site
• Use Internet banking sites, which for obvious reasons prevent browsers from storing our passwords

At the same time as registering these accounts, we should also be using a different password for each in case of the event that someone decides to access our online precences and is successful at guessing a password.

So what options are there available to help us recall all these various usernames and passwords, but without having to remember every single one ourselves?

Well, there are many software based solutions including KeePass, Access Manager and Comodo i-Vault to name but a few, however being software solutions this means you need the computer with the software installed on it when you need to recall a password. For those who don’t swap machines regularly, such a solution probably suffices, but keep in mind what would happen if your computer died a sudden and unexpected death and you did not have adequately recent automatic back-ups made.

A solution that I have been using for more than 4 years now and that has proved invaluable, is a Palm PDA device with a piece of secure and free software installed on it called STRIP.

STRIP (Secure Tool for Recalling Important Passwords) is a free piece of software available for download from identicentric.com. Not only does STRIP allow secure storage of web site and computer login credentials, it can generate random passwords for you and can also be used to store credit and debit card PIN numbers. In fact, if you can think of a situation where any kind of textual authentication is required, STRIP will more than likely be able to store it in a logical way for you.

The 256 bit encrypted portable database of categorised passwords is accessed by simply having to remember and enter in one password. I also have a separate and different password for accessing my Palm in general, so in effect my password and PIN numbers are doubly protected.

The beauty of this set-up is that it is completely portable. Whether I am at home or out of the office, my Palm Tungsten E fits conveniently into my pocket or bag and no matter where I then access the Internet from and what account I want to login to, if I can’t remember the password off the top of my head, my Palm can.

Palms, referred to as Palm Pilots by some because that’s what the second generation of the PDA was called, come in all shapes and sizes, and whilst the new models can set you back a few hundred, the older models can still handle STRIP. In fact it was using a Palm Vx (released circa 1999) with its green and black LCD screen that I was first introduced to this excellent way of storing multiple passwords and account information. I’ve just had a quick look on eBay where I bought a second and third Palm Vx from a couple of years ago and they are still available, going for just a few pounds (or dollars) each.

And what should happen if you lose the Palm device? Well hopefully aside from the inconvenience of having to purchase a new device, nothing too bad. Palm devices are easily backed up and synchronised with your computers using the free software that accompanies them or is available for free download via their web site. Palm Desktop and HotSync Manager allow you to easily backup your device at the touch of a button, and in not too many steps more, restore your device or a new one with previously saved data, which includes your STRIP database.

Whilst I started out using Palms just as portable password and PIN storage devices, I discovered there is more to them than that. The most recent devices allow you to send email and surf the Internet, whilst new and old devices a like come with a vast array of software available for all manner of purposes and there’s a lot of quality free Palm software available too.

Palms are a good investment and not only just for password storage.

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