Forget almost all passwords

Forget all passwords.

Well, not exactly. Remember 3. For your phone, your computer if you have one, and for your password manager. If you use a PIN or some squiggly patterns on your phone, forget about it. Use a regular password instead; both iOS and Android allow you to set up a QWERTY keyboard so you can have an alphanumeric password. Your phone might occasionally ask for your password, but most of the time, fingerprint/face recognition will suffice.

Choose the longest passwords possible, perhaps a crazy sentence - a passphrase. At least 20 characters, even on your phone. On a computer, passwords really only make sense if you use disk encryption. If your Windows doesn't support it, consider something like VeraCrypt. On a Mac, you can use FileVault that is built in. Yes, it's a bit of work, but you know what else is work? Earning the money in your account, maintaining your online reputation, explaining to your relatives and possibly employers that their personal or business data may be accessible to the whole world. And post-COVID, it's almost certain that most people will have some work-related stuff on their personal devices. Maybe just the login to an email account you saved in your browser's keychain, right?

And a password manager is for your convenience, mental health, and safety. You'd want to have a password of around 30 characters or more there. As I said, come up with a crazy sentence, spaces included. Do not log into your password manager from devices other than your own. If you really have to, many of them can generate one-time access codes, etc.

Okay, so you have 3 passwords, an encrypted computer, a password instead of a PIN on your phone, you use a password manager, and all services have randomly generated login passwords known only to the password manager.

Now, print out the passwords from the password manager on paper in the format: service - login name - password. Seal it in an opaque envelope, label it "Open only if I die or am otherwise unavailable. Name and surname, date." and put it in a bank safe or give it to a trusted person, in a safe.

On your devices, check for Wi-Fi networks remembered without a password and delete them. Even a high school student can follow instructions to create the same network, and your device will happily connect to it. All connections can be recorded, and while most are encrypted, not all are. Simply by doing this, you increase the chance that you won't be an easy target wherever you go, plus a radius of about 20 meters.

Remember, you don't have to be impregnable, just significantly harder to compromise than another potential victim.

If you're interested in having me review your security practices, please don't hesitate to let me know.