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

@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

@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