Friday, October 30, 2009

Passpack - Free Online Password Manager

My previous post was about KeePass, a password manager that can be used to store all your online/offline account information. KeePass stores the database on your PC and this somewhat limits portability of the password database, if you need to access the account information when you are away from the PC where this information is stored. KeePass data can be stored on a CD or a USB flash drive and you can keep this with you to access the information anywhere. There are some issues with this method ->
  1. You could lose the CD or USB Drive containing ALL or MOST of your online account information, defeating the whole purpose of storing them in a database in the first place.
  2. You need to synchronize the database between your PC and the USB/CD everytime you either add an account or modify account information.
If you are concerned with these issues, I would recommend PassPack. PassPack is an online password manager. You need to create an account with a username and a password on their website and then you have to create something called a packing key. The packing key could be a long arbitrary phrase with mixed characters [make it tough for other people to guess] such as "mY f1rst Dog w@s a l@br@d0r and it's name was 8r0wny". The combination of your username/password and the packing key protects your online password database. Read more about PassPack's features here.

Concerned about your passwords being stored online? PassPack's website explains how the data is encrypted on your PC before it is transmitted to their servers. PassPack also went to great lengths to explain that since they are based out of Italy and their servers are in Switzerland [Swiss privacy laws are supposed to be very tough], you don't have to worry about your passwords being revealed due to some draconian legal wrangles.
Oh by the way, if you forget your packing key, you can kiss your password database goodbye. PassPack cannot recover your packing key if you lose it.

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