Computer: Security: Password
passwordReminder.com   (+5, -2)  [vote for, against]
Leave password reminders with hints only you understand

An online password reminder.

The entrance to the site is via a series of questions which you know the answers to. (Rather than a password which can be forgotten).

Shows list of sites and their password requirements + forgotten retrieval methods.

You can also leave messages with a hint to someone who cares about you, so that when you cannot get to the web, and you want them to retrieve your emails etc, they can.

Another possibility besides hints is to have the actual password available on the site, and you can decide who to send it to via email (with a callback utility).
-- pashute, Oct 05 2009

Can you give some examples of the sort of questions you mean? It's not clear how this differs from current "mother's maiden name" sort of systems.
-- tatterdemalion, Oct 05 2009


"Damn! What was the name of that password reminder site?"
-- hippo, Oct 05 2009


Is there a "Forgot Your Password" feature for this site?
-- Jscotty, Oct 05 2009


// Is there a "Forgot Your Password" feature for this site?
You send email to bakesperson and ask to have it reset.
-- jutta, Oct 05 2009


No.. when I said "This site" I was referring to the OP's site. Or were you just being facetious? But I had to bun it simply because this just makes sense. Whenever I call up the phone company or any of my utility providers, the person on the other end has ways of intuitively knowing that it's me or that when I am calling on someone else's behalf, I have permission to do so.
-- Jscotty, Oct 05 2009


This idea confuses me, as the only thing that confuses me more than trying to remember passwords is trying to operate the reset function.

For this reason, I keep all my passwords on a sheet of paper I constantly re-mail to myself, so I always have a backup.
-- BinaryCookies, Oct 07 2009


So your idea is to create a giant web-accessible repository of sensitive data accessible via questions that could be socially engineered out of unsuspecting users? Perhaps for stuff like email passwords (although, as others have noted, this adds little that isn't already done by the big providers), but certainly not for the password to anything else!

[-] for the same reason I don't like big governmental IT stores. Somebody will hack it and then you're buggered.
-- DocBrown, Oct 19 2009


er. NO!
The site does not know your password at all! I'm proposing a place that only stores a hint YOU will understand.
And the access to this site is via answers to questions rather than a password.

There are three ideas that it seems I must clarify better for the fishy guys:

a. The hint: If your password for myspace is Myname2102
you could write a bad hint:
Myspace hint: 'my name with a capital letter then my birthday as written in Europe'.
A better hint would be: "Whos there Born when one word".
Even better would be: "me then".
Or: "the usual but without year and with capital".

b. Integration: It has to be integrated into the browser, so that when storing/changing a password you'll see / can edit the hint or hints so they work for you. This is much better than remembering "What school did you first learn in" er did I write it this way or that... And then waiting for the email, and then usually having to reset it. All I want is a reminder for MY BRAIN, and then I'll be able to remember it there.

c. Site entry: If (IF is a question, because I may not want to bother when only reading the information) I wish to protect the info from being read by everyone, and when I want to edit the information, the site will not have a password, but rather use the "question" list as authentication. Asking enough simple questions (what's the last digit of you home phone, what's the first letter of your mother's name, what's the last letter in your family name, and a whole bunch of other suggested questions which you can choose to use or not, or just have your own questions made up, and you can test yourself before logging out, that you will definitely remember all the answers, and to what level - exact writing or soundex etc, then you are free to enter this site without having to remember a password!

OR as suggested above: There WOULD be a password, but it comes with a publicly available hint question when you enter your email.
-- pashute, Nov 02 2009



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