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Know\u00a0that sinking feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you realize that\u00a0something really important is nowhere to be found? That’s what we get\u00a0every time\u00a0we ask a client for\u00a0the password to his Macintosh, and the answer comes back, “I don’t remember.”<\/p>\n
No one knows better than we do how many passwords a modern computer user has to juggle\u00a0in the course of a day. Your email; your Facebook account; your banks; your photo collection; your credit cards; your pharmacy; hundreds\u00a0of websites; and perhaps even your home thermostat.<\/p>\n
The Mac OS does a reasonably good job of keeping track of (almost) every password associated with your life, by storing\u00a0them automatically\u00a0in a secure storage area called your keychain<\/a>. That way, it can guard them against loss, present them automatically whenever needed, and keep your online life as manageable as possible.<\/p>\n This keychain is secured by the one password that isn’t itself stored in the keychain: the password you use to login to\u00a0your Macintosh. That makes your Mac password, in effect, the one password that rules them all. Given that password, you can automatically or manually\u00a0look up any other password you own in that keychain<\/a>. Without that password, your entire digital life is toast. Having this\u00a0one password can\u00a0mean\u00a0the difference between having to pay\u00a0for one or two hours of repair\u00a0time, or many hours of repair\u00a0time plus many hours of your own time.<\/p>\n Sure you can. But if it were that straightforward, what would keep anyone who walked off with\u00a0your computer from “picking a new password” for it, and thereby gaining access to every bank account and credit card you possess?<\/p>\n Yes, there’s a straightforward procedure to force a new password onto a Macintosh account. But when you next log into it, you’ll\u00a0be notified that your keychain is inaccessible, because it’s still encrypted with your original password… which, of course, you still don’t know. With the old password, it would be a simple matter to unlock the keychain to encrypt it with\u00a0the new password. Without it, every other password you need\u00a0(and don’t remember on your own) is locked up forever.<\/p>\n The one feature undoubtedly responsible for more cases of “I forgot my password” than any other is the automatic login<\/a>. It’s seductive because it promises to make your daily online life easier, and does…\u00a0until your disk drive fails, or you fall victim to a ransomware or\u00a0tech support scam<\/a>, and you need non-trivial reconstructive work done on your Mac. At that point, not knowing your password (because it’s been months or years since you actually had to type it anywhere) is an extra kick in the ribs that you really didn’t need while you were down. (We are seeing much the same syndrome now occurring\u00a0among users of\u00a0iPhones and iPads\u00a0due to\u00a0the availability of\u00a0“Touch ID.” A password you never type is a password you soon forget.)<\/p>\n Our advice is never to enable\u00a0automatic login<\/em>. Computers get stolen; the kids and grandkids get into things they shouldn’t when nobody is around; and most importantly, typing in your password every time you log into your Mac is the best and most effective way to ensure you never\u00a0forget it.<\/p>\n (If you’re currently running with automatic login enabled, and realize\u00a0you have\u00a0indeed forgotten your login password, contact us for help before doing anything else, including disabling automatic login. We can ensure that the contents of\u00a0your keychain(s) are safe-stored for future accessibility before forcing your account to a new, known password.)<\/p>\n Our advice to our clients is that they\u00a0keep special track of three main passwords. With these passwords, you can recover most any other password you own. Just like you wouldn’t go for a drive without pocketing\u00a0your license, you shouldn’t go online\u00a0without having\u00a0a record of these three passwords\u00a0in a secure place.<\/p>\n (If you’ve enabled iCloud Keychain<\/a>, you\u00a0also chose a six-digit iCloud Security Code which you may consider recording somewhere, as it won’t be in your Mac keychain\u2014again, unless you put it there by hand. However, it’s not strictly necessary to have unless you’ve lost every other Apple device you own, as you can authorize any related activity from any\u00a0of your Apple devices.)<\/p>\n When we advise\u00a0keeping copies of this information in a secure place, that also implies having a single\u00a0place for the information, identifying which password is for what, and destroying obsolete versions of the passwords. As repair\u00a0engineers, we are too often\u00a0confronted with “records” consisting of multiple notebooks, index cards, and\/or sticky notes containing several dozen total passwords, most of which have long since been superseded by others, with\u00a0none of them identified as to account or function. To top it off, sometimes the working password is not even among them, having been recorded on an entirely separate\u00a0piece of paper located elsewhere. A little organization and records discipline can mean the difference between a smooth service call and locking yourself out of your digital data indefinitely.<\/p>\n We hope you’ll consider the tips presented here and choose to adopt\u00a0as many as possible in your own life, to keep your valuable data accessible to you while remaining secure from others.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Know\u00a0that sinking feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you realize that\u00a0something really important is nowhere to be found? That’s what we get\u00a0every time\u00a0we ask a client for\u00a0the password to his Macintosh, and the answer comes back, “I don’t remember.” No one knows better than we do how many passwords a modern … Continue reading The One Ring<\/span> “Can’t I just pick a new password?”<\/h2>\n
Regular visits to\u00a0the mental gymnasium<\/h2>\n
The Big Three passwords<\/h2>\n
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Exercise records discipline<\/h2>\n