MetaKey

It’s extremely bad practice to use the same password on multiple sites. This is a shame because it’s something just about everyone does (including me). If any of the sites you use your password on get hacked, the perpetrators can steal your credentials and use them to hijack your accounts on other sites.

It’s pretty easy to disregard the risk as “something that will never happen to me”. The reality was recently driven home to me when Facebook informed me that my password had been stolen off another site and dumped onto some dark corner of the internet.

That said, our bad practice is easy to justify. Who can remember a g0bbl3dyg00k string for every site they use? I have enough trouble remembering the 3 or 4 passwords I use.

I expect I will continue to risk my cyber security. On the off chance that I don’t, I wrote a MetaKey: a simple tool to generate many strong passwords.

Here is how it works: when you need a password, type in a name for the password and your ‘metapassword’. MetaKey will use the name and your metapassword to generate a strong password.

If you ever need the password again, just select the name you entered (it remembers all the names you’ve used) and your metapassword again. MetaKey will generate the same password.

A few notes:

• Your metapassword is never saved; if you forget it, you are well and truly boned.
• Your password names are saved and will sync between devices.

Download:

• Windows (This link seems to be on the fritz. Just search MetaKey in the store it comes right up.)