It's tax time again and this year I needed to register with Revenue Canada, complete with user name, password and security questions. They have the usual warnings about not writing down the password etc.

It started with a bank card and a password many years ago. Then, a pass-phrase for telephone banking and a password for on-line banking. Add email, Ebay, Paypal, on-line pricing with a wholesaler, company accounts, credit cards, gas card, amazon, web sites and so on. My total count is about 70.

Many have unique requirements, just to keep me honest. Some need a capital letter and others a non alpha-numeric character. It might be a maximum or minimum number of characters. Some require regular password changes and even keep track so I can't re-use an old password. Even my bank announced a security breach and made me change my password.

Then, a few customers have security codes for their doors and I have a box of keys with cryptic addresses so they can't be easily used if they get stolen.

I'm getting confused in my old age and I can't remember all my passwords.

Does anyone have a good method for remembering user names, passwords and security questions, without writing them down?

No, but there are secure ways to store your passwords and programs are written for such. I won't mention the method that I use but it amounts to storing my passwords under a secondary password. Encrypting a word file with passwords in can work, but do not do so if you keep a couple of backups for then someone can do a comparitive file code break.

My current main password is written in code and taped next to my monitor. So much for security, my opinion is to much security becomes non-security.

I keep mine on a 3x5 card next to my computer. If someone is in my house, the crap on my computer is the least of my worries.
At work I did the same thing but the numbers and letters were all shifted one character away. I would reject any computer generated password with a 9 or a Z

I have always thought that unusual, random or frequently changed password actually decrease security.

At home, I have 2 passwords that apply to almost everything that I do and they are not written down anywhere.
At work, I have 9 different passwords with 3 of them requiring changing every 60 days. I am not the only one in the office who keeps a post-it handy that lists them all. If there was a way to memorize them I would tear up that note and pitch it in the trash...as long as I never know what I last changed it to I'll need to keep my cheat sheet around.
Besides, if someone steals your password how many people (other than IT) think that the crook will wait 4 months before using it?? Do they really think that constantly requiring you to change to passwords will help? Or does it just give them a sense of power to make us poor minions do their bidding?

BTW; by way of homoring the Marx Brothers, I think that every password should be "swordfish".
LOL

Work office PC password requires a 30 day change cycle. I just change the numerical part, and don't have it written down anywhere. I found out yesterday that any individual can only log-on to three (3) PCs at any one time. Don't know the logic behind that, but I'm not an IT guy.

My laptop has the same password for over a year, I see no reason to change it. I put a password on my 'old' laptop, as my wife was concerned about someone stealing it. I got to my class at Vo-Tech, cranked up the laptop....and you guessed it....could not remember the darn password!!! Grrrrrr!!!

The passwords to log on to various sites are, for the most part are all the same. ECN password is what Bill generated for me a long, long time ago.

As to encrypting a list as SABrown said....not for me!

I hear the newest technology requires a thumb print. It'll be way better when kidnappers just need your thumb to steal your money!

I think the only passwords I have truly memorized are the one for my computer BIOS at boot up and for the actual password manager on the computer. Other than that, everything is encrypted and I have to retrieve it from the password manager. Unless I had abilities like the Rain Man, I don’t know how else I would memorize and manage the hundreds of various passwords I have.
If I was looking to try a free password manager program, I would probably try Roboform for a while to get used to having one.

I have 40+ user names and pwords to remember. I work for the FAA (as my main job) and have 15 (or so) pwords there and then various web sites (electrical, homebrewing, email, etc.) Most of the sites have the same (or similar) requirements: 2 caps, 2 lower case, 2 numbers and 2 special characters. I try and use an abreviation of the website in caps or lower case followed by "pword," in caps or lowercase, followed by two numbers enclosed by two special characters. If I went to a freecell website, my password might look like this: FREEpword$01$ or Austin Homebrew: ahsPWORD$01$, etc. For places that require you to periodically change your password, just increase the number by 1: FREEpword$02$, etc. It's still a PITA with increasing years and decreasing brain cells, but this makes it a little easier....

You use google chrome and save the pasword forever.

there are several good iphone apps and various web applications which let you store passwords safely. What I recommend is using a different password for every account you have, this way, if one gets hacked, they dont have your passwords for everything. Just a safe practice that has helped me before. good luck