@alyx found it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_sharing

@alyx oh wait...your latest toot, how do you verify that you are you, to recover some sections of the splitting...fuck.

@LottieVixen :)

there may not be a perfect solution

thank you for the link though, reading.

@alyx ah ha found the software i was thinking of http://point-at-infinity.org/ssss/

@alyx probably the safest thing to do is write down the password to the password vault and then store that in a safety deposit box. you can't amnesia your keys away...unless you forget where you put them...

@morae can't law enforcement access that easily?

@alyx oh yeah, good point.

@alyx also depending on the type of memory loss, you might be able to recover it from a song!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vwigmktix2Y

@alyx This is equally fun and scary to think about...

@nire can you clarify this part?
"if my physical device is already accessable they probably already have it"

does they mean adversaries?

@alyx like, if they can access the house where my device is stored enough to brute-force the password from the books i have, there are enough tools at their disposal to get the passwords

@alyx even if thats outright kidnapping and torture, but if its the state they def. can just clone and crack it

@alyx so physical objects that are still obscure + have a lot of entropy is a useful thing for a master password, or in my case, the recovery password which still requires other things (key files, etc) that are on removable media that i take with me

@nire mm. so a book can be called obscure and full of entropy?

it would seem book passages are prone to brute-force / dictionary attacks

i should give key files more thought; i have been hesitant to rely on something else i could lose...

@alyx if you are going for the middle of a passage in the middle of a chapter in the middle of a book, its hard to dictionary attack

@alyx I have an actually secure password. this is mildly less secure, but can be used for recovery when combined with the other bits, I forget how to impliment that in keepass but its one of the addons. But its hard to brute force because there are so many words within it

@alyx and unless you know the actual part of the book, or that its even from a book, its pretty hard to find in the room of anyone who is or has been a student

@alyx but if you know its in one of your books, even if you've lost the ability to remember which one, its easy enough to go through and try all of your marked passages that fit the bill

@alyx I did this mostly because we have a family history of brain cancer

@nire knowing a secondary pw is in one's library feels like a big "if" for a memory loss scenario, at least to me

but you know yourself and it seems like you have a pretty secure system that works for you, so, rad.

(ugh, sorry to hear about the cancer history)

@alyx nah its fine. its just one of those things where you can have the actual hints in things but still have it be impossible for people to find without the domain knowledge of knowing you -- combining it with people you know, from a verified source (you) can probably get the result, while also requiring the other things be inserted. But its better than a random string for the figuring it out, but so would writing it down and putting it in a safety deposit box, the problem is the state can access those

@alyx but you can combine the two such that the clue in the SDP only makes sense to your family, or you, or w/e

@alyx especially if it uses a different part of the brain than language, since strokes/etc
often affect one domain but not the other