It's really no different, so I think there must be some human biased thinking at play. Except the password manager requires a central or synchronizing computer system, while the in-head key derivation approach requires no such thing.

The trade off is that pass mgnrs give more convenience, but have slightly more failure modes (not knowing the master password, not having access to the synchronization or master vault, not wanting to log into a pass mngr on a potentially compromised computer when you only need a single password you are willing to sacrifice) while the in-head approach has a single one: not remembering the derivation method.

ETA: both are sensitive to sites changing names or URLs. But password managers more so (requiring extra searching and clicks) while in a mental key derivation context, you would probably remember "oh, it's protonmail." without explicitly needing to distinguish "login.proton.me" from their old URL. But, that does make the key derivation approach slightly more susceptible to phishing. Not seeing the password autofill at least gives mental pause.

Plus, username needs to be stored as well sometimes.

Public figures likely have their passwords individually scrutinized when their accounts are found out.

Synchronizing is easy, put it in a network share or Dropbox/google drive/iCloud. If for some reason it’s inaccessible, keepass/dropbox will synchronize any local changes the next time you open the manager while you’re at home. This is a solved problem.

Simple, I don’t trust a cloud service to keep the data secure, and I don’t trust myself to self host and keep the data safe (and not get corrupted) while simultaneously getting that data on all devices and synced.

The flaw of password managers is that you don’t know the passwords you’re using for your sites. That is, if the data was lost, you’d have to do an account recovery, which for some sites is fine, for others it can be a nightmare though.

Alongside this, it is a hard problem to have to simultaneously get all of these copied-pasted passwords on each device without inherently putting them on the Internet (albeit with a password in front of them). Given a threat model of password managers being inherently valuable targets, data going in and out of them is inherently vulnerable for when an exploit is inevitably found.

I’m not saying any of these problems makes mental hash algorithms or rotating passwords better, but password managers do have inherent flaws that make them still an unideal tool.

Also, I find it ironic in the modern day that a simple sticky note next to your computer is probably one of the better solutions to password management, if people invading your physical space isn’t part of your threat model (which is usually the case).

It's typically a 5-minute process, which I know because services regularly force password resets quite often.

> …I don’t trust a cloud service to keep the data secure.

Fair enough, there are definitely shady SaaS vendors. My password manager is a SaaS with a long history (2006), which has no access to my account passwords or Secret Keys and could not reset or recover them for me if I asked. I'm personally satisfied with that.

Have you considered the benefits? For example, I know I currently have 1,161 account logins on various sites/services, 278 of which have "fantastic" passwords, and 144 which have "fair" passwords that I should really go back and update (surely from my pre-password-manager days). I know there are 5 accounts that now support 2FA, and many more which now support passkeys. I know when I've last used each so I can easily close old accounts, which I gradually do.

That kind of awareness/security hygiene enablement would be tough (if not impossible) to replicate manually.

I don't have "real" social media accounts to begin with, so my life won't be ruined even if someone cracked all my passwords. Mostly it's just accounts for various online shops I've used during the years. I really don't care if someone hacks those. And access to my bank is pretty much worthless if you don't have my phone and the pin code sheet too. Well I don't have big money in bank anyway, so the crime doesn't pay well in any case.

Is this satire?

Some fancy password manager service can be attacked by anyone with a network connection or the budget to buy the company. And there's an actual incentive to attack the password service because it doesn't just have parent's passwords, it has many passwords.

I think the only downside to the sheet of paper is that people with physical access are probably more likely to be specifically interested in you, and therefore willing to put in the effort to figure it out. But they'd probably figure it out anyway if they're that interested (install a keylogger or camera or something).

For sure, but hopefully folks are using solutions where the provider can't decrypt their data, much less attackers.

Have you ever had to hope that your lined paper wasn't going to fuck you over?

(keepass2/keepass xc are more user-friendly and free, strongbox is another good front-end for keepass files as well.)

Maybe they don't want to be relying on a random third-party for all their passwords?

Rather than getting them to sign up for a password manager, what about getting them to install a password manager? I use https://www.passwordstore.org/ - it encrypts your passwords with GPG, and shares the storage via a Git repository for synchronisation between different machines.

Exactly, they'll be a memory in 10 years. https://fidoalliance.org/passkeys/

I think it would be like suggesting people give their life savings to their unreliable neighbor to hold on to. It might be safe, and might be secure, but at the end of the day they are being asked to bet everything on something they don’t find to be reliable.

In the end, perception is reality and I can’t say I entirely disagree with the perception. I use a password manager, but unless you are running the infrastructure and backups yourself, which a normal person isn’t going to do, you are at the mercy of “corporations” that we know to make mistakes, have data breaches, lose data, change their policies on a whim, break the law, and even cause people’s deaths, all while suffering few if any consequences.

I’d say the average person’s hesitancy toward using a password manager is probably pretty justified, even if it would be far more secure.

It’s because password managers are annoying at the worst possible times. The dread of “oh god… this device doesn’t support my password manager/im only going to log in once here, so I have to carefully type out random numbers and letters” is not fun.

Examples: office zoom meeting room tablet. Standalone VR headset. Smart TV. Trying to share an account for video streaming. (Solved by that being mostly impossible now) The wifi password every single person will ask you for when they’re at your home.

That sucks. People immediately imagine those scenarios when you bring it up to them.

every service on my TV pops up a big QR code for your second device (a phone) to access and log in with

iphones prompt you to share the password when your iphone using friend tries to connect to a wifi network you are on

Regarding VR, hm knowing an Apple Vision Pro will be connected to my icloud account makes me know I wont have to do that stuff. Other standalone headsets I wonder how or if they solve that problem. My Playstation VR headset dual renders on screen so the qr code solution is already there.

Another factor is inconvenience. On the road, most passwords are out of reach for me now. In a way I prefer it that way, I prefer to not be glued to my phone. As a compromise, there are a few passwords in a note taking app on my phone ;)

Let's not pretend like password managers are a silver bullet.

I will sync via icloud or another encrypted backup at my discretion

But everything convenient did something dumb

What if I don't have access to the password manager at some point but I do need to log into some website? I.e. visiting friends house, forgot my phone at home but I need to log in my banking app to do a transfer? Or visiting a foreign country, someone steals my papers and my phone and I need to login to mail at a public cafe to let my family know I am well.

what I typically would do in both of those scenarios is a password reset. I would know my email password and do a password reset of everything else and get that in my email.

privilege escalate on yourself.

realistically, I’ve been at Apple Stores multiple times where I needed to login manually to my icloud account while my phone was being RMA’d. nothing to remind you there.

Also, here's why people don't want to use a password manager:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/02/lastp...

So yes, I was too dismissive. Given the nature of "security", I think it's impossible to have a silver bullet of secure + easy.