Dedicated computer for online banking

[Katsmeow]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ERD50 Yes, that's possible, but maybe I overstated it a bit when I said "simple keys". I would use something relatively complex for the KEY#1 and KEY#2, but still easy to remember like a mnemonic for a phrase that I would know. Some examples: KEY#1 might be WhTkNtDaH245 (We have Three kids Named Tom dick And harry. 2-4-5 is the letters in the first 3 words) KEY#2 might be MfIciV273 (My favorite Ice cream Is vanilla, then #'s) Combine Key#1 and Key#2 with your unique code for that institution to make up the entire password.

I have different ways for doing passwords depending upon how important they are and whether I need to personally remember the passwords.

For a few passwords I have a system like the above.

For passwords for sites that it really doesn't matter I have a common password that I use for all of them and then part that individualizes it for the site.

For the other sites, I want to use unique passwords to each one but I really don't have to remember those passwords.

What works for those and stores most of the rest is Roboform. It can generate random strong passwords based upon the criteria I set (you tell it what special characters and length for example), then it generates a random password. I don't have to remember it. Instead I just have to remember my master password to Roboform. It is like one of those that ERD50 suggests but has some special characters as well.

I feel comfortable with this.

As far as online banking the only sites that really really matter to me for security are my bank and where I have my money (most Vanguard). Those I have strong passwords for and don't use anything even close to those passwords anywhere else. More to the point I log in to those accounts every business day so I would notice if anything untoward was happening.

[jebmke]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ERD50 Maybe you mean this as a good thing - if nothing is stored, maybe that is more secure? But if not, the Ubuntu flash drive can be set up with persistence. I've done it before, and it is very handy for adding whatever utilities you want, configuring the setup, adding a few docs you may want handy, etc. I forget how it was done exactly, IIRC it was either an option during install, or just a choice of which file to install. But it was easy, I didn't jump through hoops or have to do any terminal commands or anything. -ERD50

Yes, actually I have two bootable flash drives. One is non-persistent. The other I use with some tools to break back into a Windows machine if it fails to boot (I support about 50 laptops for TaxAide).