i've been implementing small digital security upgrades lately and one thing really bothers me: the possibility of forgetting one of the few passwords i actually need to remember (say, to my password vault)

what brought this to mind was a friend of mine (late 30s) had a stroke last year and suffered extensive memory loss; she lost many passwords and even knowledge of having accounts on various websites

i'm trying to decide if i need a backup (fun question: would i remember it if needed?) and what a safe form for that might be

@alyx this is why my password is an underlined book passage, if my physical device is already accessable they probably already have it, but if i cant remember it myself i can look it up. I have clues in case i forget, but its pretty obvious to anyone who would know me

@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