I’ve moved my “saved passwords” from Google passwords to 1Password. In other words, I’ve moved my secret password vault from Google’s business into 1Password. For this I am paying them $36 per year.
Google had password management in Chrome early on, and introduced cross-platform password management in 2015’s Smart Lock. I’ve been a content user for a while.
Even so, the password manager didn’t quite work – I couldn’t use it as a general vault for other items like bank routing and account numbers. I used other mechanisms for those, and I wanted to consolidate. I also wanted an easy way to generate random passwords.
I hesitate to put all the keys to my castles on Google’s cloud. I trust that Google is incentivized to keep my data safe: a security breach would be an existential threat to their business. I also believe their engineers are really, really good at what they do.
Even so, my passwords are accessible to a logged-in laptop or phone user. The mobile phone in particular is a key weak point. The Federal government, especially under the Trump Republican administration has been forcing citizens to unlock their phones during customs checkpoints.
It’s not that I’m Haley, David Haley drinking shaken not stirred, it’s that I like the idea of protecting my preciouses, I mean my secrets. Including (maybe especially?) from the government. Why should a customs agent have access to my bank account passwords?
Google’s Smart Lock offers no easy way to brick its own access while traveling. 1Password offers travel mode to reduce the device’s access to passwords. Will I use it next time I travel? We’ll see …
https://lifehacker.com/googles-new-smart-lock-is-the-password-manager-for-the-1710352668 https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/02/a-nasa-engineer-is-required-to-unlock-his-phone-at-the-border/516489/ https://support.1password.com/travel-mode/
https://unsplash.com/photos/BYm1kkFasEI https://unsplash.com/photos/UiGsP8TvOJQ https://unsplash.com/s/photos/utensils?orientation=landscape