How secure are your saved passwords?

[Keitsu]

As you know several web browsers have the ability to store saved passwords so they can auto-log you in. How easy is this though?

Graywolf has been telling me to use Mozilla and said that Chrome isn't very secure. I was led to believe that chrome was secure since when it syncs information (if you choose to) they say it's encrypted.

so... I decided to hack my own Chrome with a few tools that I had and searched though some various files that Chrome has stored on my computer.
http://www.howtogeek.com/70146/how-secure-are-your-saved-chrome-browser-passwords/ (this tells you about chromes option to view passwords)

Though this I found that all you need to view stored passwords though Chrome is the windows login to the computer your currently logged in to. Which can easily be hacked anyway... You don't even need to do this as there are various tools to retrieve chromes stored passwords.. This just makes me think that security is a major problem still and the people who make these programs aren't doing enough to make them secure.

Oh well. Time to try out Mozilla ^.^

[Aloneness]

Honestly they're only secure as your computer ... if someone can gain access to your computer they're going to be able to get to your passwords pretty easy regardless of the browser. If someone was seriously going to hack it for the information instead of just destroying it or turning it into a botnet they'd be able to get your password regardless of you browser choice. 

[Keitsu]

Ok. it appears the Mozilla uses the same feature but without having to enter the password of the person logged in. I went back to using chrome because when I imported the bookmarks all the favicon broke and weren't updating properly.

[Aloneness]

Ok. it appears the Mozilla uses the same feature but without having to enter the password of the person logged in.

If your talking about a master password ... Mozilla has that, but yeah use what ever browser you like best for the internet. Most of what people tell you about browser is biased based or trend based, most of what companies tell you about there browsers is just marketing. What works for you is what works for you... for me that's Fire Fox, all ways have used it probably always will because it does it's job just fine and even though it's gotten a bit heavier since it first game out my computer is plenty powerful enough for it to not matter in the slightest. It's performance difference is like .06 seconds compared to chrome so I don't see that as a good enough reason to switch.

[GrayWolf448]

i just use firefox because it's easier on my computer less cpu...

[Keitsu]

i just use firefox because it's easier on my computer less cpu...

Google chrome runs pretty smoothly on my computer. It takes 1-8% of my CPU and takes up 674,231k of memory while typing this message, looking at emails and watching anime (So 3 tabs and running extensions).

[Aloneness]

Google chrome runs pretty smoothly on my computer. It takes 1-8% of my CPU and takes up 674,231k of memory while typing this message, looking at emails and watching anime (So 3 tabs and running extensions).

That's not very good, in the memory department... I've got FB, dA, GJ, and CodeAcademy open on FF and I'm only running 235,588K

[Weisseman]

I was once told that saving any passwords is as good as not having it. Regardless of how well it's stored they no long need it for accessing the account if it's saved. So from that stand point that encryption argument is moot. However it does stop/slow down finding out what the password is with the hopes of compromising other accounts. If you save an email password then it doesn't matter as they can reset them (good reason not to save email passwords at least).

While it's convenient I don't think it's a good idea to be saving them at all as it's negates their purpose.

[Aloneness]

About the only way to really be "safe" is use an extremely obscure operating system, that's built off of a random no name kernel. However good luck with anything of yours being compatible but at least it'll be safe... The whole illusion of Macs being safer then PC's is an example of this. Why because on a macro scale, no one uses Macs, so people who write viruses aren't going to waist there time on a minority OS, instead they're gonna try and get as much bang for there buck when it comes to there virus. Personally if I wrote viruses I'd make them specifically for Macs as i hate the company on more than one level and would aid in any way to there downfall, but that's just me (Not that I do, nor do I condone it, but still using it as a example to display my dislike in Apple). Secondly the people that right more complex viruses generally target companies, which again is dominated by PC's and in some cases a few flavors of *nix which generally are used to run servers, databases and what have you using OS's such as Red Hat, etc.

So moral of the story safety in the computer world = ambiguity

[GrayWolf448]

just dont save passwords... after that it only matters what browser you like more.

firefox is just a nice low power browser that i can run on this computer with steam and minecraft open. last time i used chrome it could barely run this and minecraft... also i dont really like having google things installed onto my computer.... most likely would be crawling around my hard drive :/

[Jacoby Quinn]

all my passwords are saved in a notebook...I encrypt them myself using a few different ciphers and I run it through 3 different book ciphers, it is entirely un crackable unless you know the books


I even made sure A character frequency analysis won't work

[Aloneness]

all my passwords are saved in a notebook...I encrypt them myself using a few different ciphers and I run it through 3 different book ciphers, it is entirely un crackable unless you know the books


I even made sure A character frequency analysis won't work

Entierely uncrackable ... nay, only harder to crack.

[Kobuk]

all my passwords are saved in a notebook...I encrypt them myself using a few different ciphers and I run it through 3 different book ciphers, it is entirely un crackable unless you know the books


I even made sure A character frequency analysis won't work

The NSA knows everything.   

[Acton]

I never save them they are written in a book an not in in English  and contain combination of worlds and numbers

[Jacoby Quinn]

all my passwords are saved in a notebook...I encrypt them myself using a few different ciphers and I run it through 3 different book ciphers, it is entirely un crackable unless you know the books


I even made sure A character frequency analysis won't work

Entierely uncrackable ... nay, only harder to crack.

out of all the books that exist? cracking them via notebook is uncrackable unless you have an army of people willing to run it through until they find the exact process...

[Aloneness]

out of all the books that exist? cracking them via notebook is uncrackable unless you have an army of people willing to run it through until they find the exact process...

Sorry to crush your hopes and dreams of false security, but computers are a world of never say never because, you can do just about anything with them. Like my networking professor says, the only network that's safe from the outside, is one that doesn't exist on the outside, because no matter your counter measures the simple fact that it exist means that it's hackable. As this conversation is starting to walk along the line of unethical computer usage though, I'll conclude with this, you could make your own Kernel, your own OS on that Kernel, your own Encryption book, using the muddiest code in the world in the process, however at the end of the day, give someone enough time, resources, and drive and they'll be able to hack it.

[Old Rabbit]

I think passwords do more to keep local users or family out of your files than
anything else.