Emergency Kit practices
Comments
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Don't mean to hijack this thread, so apologies in advance but I wanted to ask you a question @Corey_C. I've seen you a lot around the forums and you're really knowledgable.
I have some confusion over the emergency kit and I wanted to ask what your setup is like, do you print it out? Where do you store it? I don't have a safe btw.
Do you write your own master password on the emergency kit?I'm not sure what the best course of action is for me, it's kind of confusing for me, I want some sort of contingency plan if I were to forget my MP or switch phones later this year.
I have an individual account btw through 1Password.com so I don't have access to some of the great recovery features.
Thanks!
Ali
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Hey @AskAli :)
I've split this off into it's own thread so as to not disturb the original poster as it is an entirely separate topic.What do I do with my Emergency Kit? Well first off, I wouldn't take this as gospel or anything. I'm just another user like you and what I do isn't the greatest either. I don't have any sort of safe or deposit box or whatever either. Yes, I've printed off my Emergency Kit. I store it where I keep my other important documents. It's not the most secure thing in the world, but it's what I can do. You could also keep it on an encrypted USB flash drive.
Whether or not you write your Master Password on your Emergency Kit depends on a couple of factors. For one, if you expect that you could possibly forget it, then yes, write it down. For another, having it written means that, in the case of an emergency, one of, say, your relatives, could access your account. It all depends on your own comfort.
I also, personally, have the benefit of multiple devices and being part of a Family Plan. As long as I still had access to one of the devices, I can gain it back on the others and in the unlikely case of completely losing access, one of my family members could assist with recovery.
Anyway, that's me. I'm not sure what anyone else does or what AgileBits recommends or even if I could recommend what I do for others. But maybe that helped somehow?
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Hey @AskAli -- that's a great question, and @Corey_C did a great job of answering. I've very little to add, except to underscore that if you have an individual 1Password account, you would probably want to write your Master Password down on the printed copy of your Emergency Kit, because if something were to happen to you, and your loved ones know where to find that, they'd be able to access your 1Password account if necessary. If they don't have both the Secret Key and the Master Password, there will be nothing we can do for them, as we don't ever have either of those secrets.
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Ah I see, in that case, I'll write mine down. I'm not very good at remembering passwords, hence why I use 1Password!
And yes! That helped a lot. I wish I could reap the benefits of a family account as an individual, I suppose I could enroll in one but just not invite anyone but I'm missing out on the other benefits I suppose. A lot of you guys here have family accounts. I really want the account recovery, it's very nice, and being able to share logins is also great.
But my parents aren't tech-savvy at all and don't see the point of a password manager to be quite honest, they're very "typical" when it comes to passwords, very simple easy to guess and shared passwords among accounts.
I perhaps could get a family account with themor my fiancé anyway even if they don't ever use it? I would still have access to the account recovery benefits etc. then.0 -
@AskAli - welllll, if you sign up for a 1Password Families account, you'd be paying more than you would for an individual account. Not a LOT more -- in fact, two individual accounts adds up to more than one 1Password Families account's cost, and you can put up to five family members on your 1Password Families account. But yes, it would allow you to designate your fiancé or parents as Family Organizers, which would allow them to recover your account if you forgot your Master Password. However, if your family members don't actually USE 1Password on a regular basis, I'd worry that it'd be you having to recover their accounts, not the reverse. I'd also worry that if the time ever came that they needed to recover your account, they wouldn't remember their own Master Password! It's up to you, of course, but I certainly agree that Account Recovery is a wonderful feature. :)
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Allow me to differ a bit here. :)
I think it's a bad idea to write down your Master Password on your Emergency Kit. If you do that and it gets stolen, you've just handed that thief absolutely everything he needs to mess with your digital life. You're basically offering the bad guy a guide to hacking your life.
So my advice is to write down your Master Password some place else. Heck, even keep it in the same place as the Emergency Kit as long as it's not obvious that they are connected.
Just my 2 cents. :)
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Indeed, the physical location and security of the Emergency Kit are something you should consider as well. However, we recommend writing the Master Password in your Emergency Kit because for most people, it's the easiest place to find it later. If someone forgets their Master Password, they may also forget where they wrote it down if they have two places to remember, one for the Secret Key and one for the Master Password. Choosing a place to store things is entirely up to you in the end, though. :)
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Ah I see, thanks guys! What've I've done, or what I think will work best for me is, I have a copy of my secret key written on a slip of paper that I now store in my wallet, as a backup I have two copies of my emergency kit printed out. On one, everything else is whited out except for my secret key and in the same place is another with everything else whited out except for my master password.
If someone were to find it, they wouldn't know what it was for, as the sign in ID or the words 1Password aren't even visible, it's only the numbers. Only trusted people I've explained this too and myself will know how they relate.
And my email and sign-in ID is known by my family so should something happen to me they can access my account.
The slip of paper in my wallet with my secret ID is simply for convenience should I need to sign in on an unauthorized device or new phone.
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I'll chip in here and say that there's no Official AgileBits Approved Solution™, mostly because each person's needs and use case will be different. So the following isn't a "recommended solution," but I have heard of a number of users actually having their Emergency Kit written down on a blank scrap of paper they keep in their wallet, purse, etc. The theory on this being: YOU will know what it is, and it will be available to you anywhere you need to sign into a new device...but anyone else who happened to come across it, via purse or wallet theft, etc, would likely not have much idea what it's for.
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Fair enough. I think that’s suffice enough for me though.
It’s all individual. That’s why there are options and settings in apps, to cater to everyone’s different needs.
It’s good for my needs, it’s interesting to see other people’s methods and such.0 -
:):+1: Likewise!
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:+1: :)
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