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Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 18 Issue 04
Volume 18, Issue 04 Atari Online News, Etc. January 22, 2016
Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2016
All Rights Reserved
Atari Online News, Etc.
A-ONE Online Magazine
Dana P. Jacobson, Publisher/Managing Editor
Joseph Mirando, Managing Editor
Rob Mahlert, Associate Editor
Atari Online News, Etc. Staff
Dana P. Jacobson -- Editor
Joe Mirando -- "People Are Talking"
Michael Burkley -- "Unabashed Atariophile"
Albert Dayes -- "CC: Classic Chips"
Rob Mahlert -- Web site
Thomas J. Andrews -- "Keeper of the Flame"
With Contributions by:
Fred Horvat
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=~=~=~=
A-ONE #1804 01/22/16
~ Trump: Make in America ~ People Are Talking! ~ Fiebee Update News!
~ Password Manager Apps! ~ Iranian Hacker Freed! ~ LastPass Vulnerable?
~ Twitter Hit By Outages ~ AHCC v5.3 Is Released! ~ '123456' Tops Again!
~ ~ DARPA Neural Interface ~
-* Steam Gets 100 Atari Classics *-
-* "Doom" Co-creator Releases New Level *-
-* Leisure Suit Larry Coming to Colecovision! *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Well, it looks like we're going to dodge a bullet this weekend!
The snow that has been blasting parts of the south and
mid-Atlantic states will reach the southern shores of Massachusets
but probably won't reach me in the northeast part of the state.
After last year's winter, I am definitely not complaining! Let
our politicians in D.C. have a good dose of what many other parts
of the country experiences so they'll know what's it's like for
us!
If you've been affected, or will be some time over this weekend,
by this storm, I feel for you! Good luck, and stay safe and warm!
This week's comments are short this week. Keeping tabs on this
pending storm has kept me on edge the past few days; I'm getting
too old to have to deal with the likes of last year's winter
again! Even the "news" of Sarah Palin supporting Trump can't get
me to talk politics this week!
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
Firebee Update News
By Fred Horvat
Short column this week. I didn't do much at all with the FireBee
as much of my free time has been devoted to snow removal this
week. For 3 days straight I had .5î to 1.0î inch of snow per
hour. Thankfully it was the light kind because the temperatures
were single digits Fahrenheit during the snow fall. But it was a
two times a day removal process. Get up early before work to
clear snow so you can get out of the driveway and then all over
again when you get home from work. After 3 days it was a lot of
snow though.
When I did work on the FireBee I was researching how to install
SpareMiNT on the FireBee. SpareMiNT is FreeMiNT based on the
Redhat Package Manager (rpm). http://sparemint.org/sparemint/
There are a couple of sites that discuss this but the one I
settled on for now was at
https:///sites.google.com/site/probehouse/mint-os-for-atari
These pages go into far more than setting up SpareMiNT. It
gets into installing FreeMiNT, optimization, quicker booting,
backing, up and more. Highly worth the read.
AHCC v5.3
There is a new version available on my home page (see sig)
Changes:
January 21 2016
v5.3
Compiler:
Fixed a bug that prevented proper casting of constants
by explicit casting.
Fixed wrong code for casting the result of a comparison
to a float (e.g. R1 = R2 < R3 where all R's are floats).
Fixed a regression after v4.f
Wrong code was generated for comparing the address of
a array to zero (spurious, but must be OK).
Fixed an obscure error where AHCC crashed on extremely
large (more than about a 1000 ch's) string denotations.
A teeny tiny little bit of clean up.
Assembler:
Fixed a regression since v5 where register masks for movem
instructions involving D6 and/or D7 spelled in upper case
were wrong. (typo in defs.h)
Shell:
implement asinh & acosh in tiny calculator in console.
Editor:
Find 'word' did not reverse neatly. fixed.
Unselected ^I did not select anymore. Fixed.
Library ahccstdf:
Fixed bugs in pow, sinh, asinh, cosh, acosh and tanh.
(error in common function _Exp).
--
Groeten; Regards.
Henk Robbers. http://members.chello.nl/h.robbers
Interactive disassembler: Digger; http://digger.atari.org
A Home Cooked C compiler: AHCC; http://ahcc.atari.org
=~=~=~=
->In This Week's Gaming Section - ëDoomí Co-Creator Releases New Level After 21 Years!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Leisure Suit Larry Coming to ColecoVision!
100 Classic Atari Games Headed to Steam!
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE Gaming Online - Online Users Growl & Purr!
"""""""""""""""""""
ëDoomí Co-Creator John Romero Releases New Level
After 21 Years: Here's How To Play It
'Doom' gets another level from one of the original creators of
the series John Romero. He says that it's his take of E1M8 Phobos
Anomaly, noting that it's a 'boss level replacement for E1M8 ...
22 years later.'
Porting it to unlikely platforms such as the Apple Watch and
Apple TV or even a virtual cabinet inside the game itself became
a trend, and at some point, it seemed like bringing Doom to
modern devices was the best thing to do with it ñ aside from the
modding, of course.
In other words, a new area from one of the original makers to
shoot up monsters and whatnot may have come across as something
unthinkable for some, but thanks to Romero, here it is.
Romero created the level using Doom WAD ñ the modding tool that
Id Software released way back in the 1990s ñ so that he would be
restricted to the same capabilities he would have had in 1993,
according to him. As for the time he took to build it, he says
that he spent two weeks during his spare time on it.
Calling it the E1M8B, he describes the level as his "boss level
replacement for E1M8 ... 22 years later," which is the eighth and
final map of Knee-Deep in the Dead, the first episode of Doom.
"After exiting the Computer Station you knew the worst was up
ahead. You still hadn't reached the place where the demons were
coming from. The steel door shuts behind you as you realize
you're there; you're at the Phobos Anomaly. Cracks from hell are
all over the place as seepage from the portal invades the entire
installation. Now it's time to find the portal and stop the
demons from coming through," the description of the level reads.
In an email conversation with Dean Takahashi of VentureBeat,
Romero shares some of his insights of the new level.
"As for the level, E1M8 was an obvious choice for me. Out of the
shareware episode of DOOM, E1M8, the boss level, was the only
level I didn't make. Sandy Petersen did an amazing job with the
original one with the very memorable Barons of Hell right in your
face at the end, of course," he says, noting that DoomBuilder is
his go-to tool to create the level.
To play it, the tool ZDoom or other similar software plus the
original Doom are required. Also, the new map is playable solo,
co-op or deathmatch. Interestingly, the original Doom paved the
way of deathmatch mode to the first-person shooter genre, which
has since become a standard for many other similar games.
Now, Romero is no longer part of the team that's developing the
series. Bethesda took over things this time around, and the
developer is all set to roll out a modernized take of Doom
sometime this year - yep, there are currently no specifics yet,
but Amazon "leaked" a possible release date just recently.
With the recent development, Doom seems even more unlikely to
die out anytime soon, not to mention that the dedicated gaming
community DoomWorld has been playing and modding the game for
over 20 years now.
John Romero Makes His First Doom Level in 21 Years
Doom creator John Romero says it had been 21 years since he made
a level for the game. However, that changed when he created his
own iteration of the classic E1M8 map.
The dev used a Doom level editor to create it, limiting himself
only to the "shareware assets." The original level was created by
Doom I and Doom II level designer Sandy Peterson. Romero included
the Dropbox download link for his version in a Facebook post.
Doom's fourth installment is said to release in Q2 of 2016, but
IGN reported that the date may have been leaked by Amazon France.
The company listed the game's release as June 30, though
Besthesda remains firm that they haven't yet set a date, saying
that "a variety of retailers have different placeholder dates."
Back in July, IGN went hands-on with Doom's multiplayer. Editor
Brian Albert was "sure game developers were running out ways to
creatively kill people in video games" until he experienced
Doom's multiplayer at QuakeCon.
Leisure Suit Larry, er Toby, Coming to ColecoVision
It is no great secret in the realm of retrogaming that there are
more than a few ìhomageî titles. Some are done with the
permission of the owners of the intellectual property, such as
Halo 2600, and others are more ìunder the radarî releases. Most
UTR releases are quite good and damn near lawsuit perfect
renditions of the original but on a new platform. We call these
ìBandit Gamingî releases, a carryover name from a site we
operated years ago (Video Game Cowboys if anyone is wondering).
Now, CollectorVision have started showing work in progress shots
of their homage to Leisure Suit Larry, the Al Lowe classic
adventure, called Leisure Suit Toby (for legal reasons the name
is changed slightly). Interestingly, Leisure Suit Toby is coming
to the ColecoVision console of all platforms.
Since this is a homage title the team at CollectorVision are
working closely with the source material. Take that to read, they
are recreating as much of the original adventure on the Coleco
console as possible. This includes the ìbabesî that Toby will be
interacting with throughout his adventure.
So far most of the screens are converted over to ColecoVision
resolution and color depth and work has begun on creating the
women. Character sprites are not in place yet so there are only
backgrounds available at this time.
Jean-Francois Dupuis, owner of CollectorVision Games, has stated
on AtariAge that he has been working on and off again with
Leisure Suit Toby since 2010. Release is expected next
Fall/Winter. No word if he means 2016 or 2017.
KHAN Games have done a Nintendo Entertainment System version of
Leisure Suit Larry but it was a completely new game. Larry and
the Long Look for a Luscious Lover was the title of KHAN Gamesí
version. CollectorVision are going for a direct port of the
original title.
100 Classic Atari Games Headed to Steam
Ready to re-live your youth, Atari nerds?
The company on Thursday announced plans to release 100 of its
classic games ó including Asteroids, Centipede, Missile Command,
Tempest, Warlords, and more ó as a single PC title with new
features and multiplayer capabilities.
Currently under development by Code Mystic (the same company
behind Atari's Greatest His for mobile devices), the so-called
Atari Vault will be available via Valve's Steam platform at some
point this spring, letting fans "relive the classic gaming
experience in the modern age," Atari said.
Featuring an "upgraded user interface," Atari Vault will boast
online and local multiplayer options, and Steam Controller
support for "significantly improved precision control" than you
had back in the day. Perhaps most exciting ó you will, for the
first time ever, be able to challenge other Atari fans from
around the world, and compete for bragging rights on Steam
Leaderboards.
Rest assured that the games will feature their original
soundtracks from the 70s and 80s, so you can jam out just like you
did in the old days. That's pretty much all we know at this point
(there's no word on pricing), but Atari plants to preview the
bundle later this month at PAX South 2016 in San Antonio, Texas,
so stay tuned for more.
We haven't heard too much else from Atari recently, but the
company several years ago teamed up with Microsoft to bring eight
of its classic games to the Web for free in HTML5. Head over to
the Atari Arcade to brush up on your Asteroids, Centipede,
Combat, Lunar Lander, Missile Command, Yars Revenge, Pong, and
Super Breakout skills before Atari Vault drops later this year.
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
Trump Promises He'll Force Apple To Manufacture in the US
There's going to be a lot of change in the near future.
Perhaps you are already hoping for it.
When Donald J. Trump ascends to the presidency - as Donald J.
Trump promises he will - the focus will be on making America
great again.
"We want to win, win, win," the leading Republican candidate
explained in a speech on Monday at Liberty University in
Virginia.
This will include long, sturdy walls, lots of expulsions and an
enormous tariff on goods coming in from, say, China.
But what might this mean for gadget companies? So many have their
products made in that country. Apple, for example.
Trump made a solemn promise: "We're going to get Apple to build
their damn computers and things in this country instead of in
other countries."
Currently, Apple only manufactures its Mac Pro in the US
(specifically in Austin, Texas). On its jobs creation Web site,
Apple insists it's responsible for creating and supporting 1.9
million US jobs, as of the end of 2015. It also claims that
"thirty-one of the 50 states provide parts, materials, or
equipment to make Apple products."
The optics, however, aren't optimum. It may well be that the
cardstock for Apple's beautiful letterpress cards comes from
Wisconsin, but the image of hundreds of thousands of Chinese
workers toiling in difficult conditions in China to make
iPhones is more powerful.
It's not entirely clear how Trump would strong-arm Tim Cook.
Would he turn up in Cupertino, storm into Cook's office and
talk to him about New York values? Would he summon him to
Washington or merely send him an iMessage?
Cook has suggested that China's vocational schools actually
produce more of the kinds of skilled workers needed for high-tech
products. "I mean, you can take every tool and die maker in the
United States and probably put them in a room that we're
currently sitting in," Cook said in an interview with
"60 Minutes" last month. (CNET and "60 Minutes" share a common
parent, CBS.) "In China, you would have to have multiple football
fields."
Or would Trump hold a special edition of "The Celebrity
Apprentice" to make all major US CEOs compete for their jobs?
(In order to survive week by week, they'd have to find new ways
to market the Trump brand, as well agree to make every product
in the US.)
Trump did say that he'd strong-arm Ford CEO Mark Fields by
telling him he'd charge a 35 percent tax if Ford continued to
manufacture in countries such as Mexico. Presumably, Apple would
also be subject to such a draconian sanction.
Oddly, Trump also said he's a "free-trader." However, he doesn't
seem to believe American companies should be free to manufacture
wherever they choose. "Free trade is good. But we have to do it
[force them back to the US]. Or we won't have a country left,"
he said, undramatically.
His comments about Apple came within a minute of his roughly
50-minute speech ending. But Trump isn't alone in believing that
Apple would gain from manufacturing solely in the US.
Immediately after the words about Apple, Trump said he wasn't
merely going to make America great again, but "greater than ever
before."
Some might believe that, should he win the election, Trump will
be the Beltway Berlusconi, though Mr. B didn't quite make Italy
great again. Others might muse that he says many truthful things
about the way government operates (or doesn't) today.
What's interesting is that Trump how appears to be, well,
thinking different. In 2012, he was promoting his book, "Crippled
America." Then, he said that he lamented Apple's presence in
China.
Trump said: "We have to bring Apple - and other companies like
Apple - back to the United States. We have to do it. And that's
one of my real dreams for the country, to get ... them back. We
have a great capacity in this country."
It seems that this particular dream may involve persuasion that
is less silver-tongued and more brass-knuckled.
I wonder if it will work.
Twitter Hit by Sporadic Outages in Many Parts of Globe
Twitter said on Tuesday its social network was suffering ongoing
outages on computers and phones and it was working to resolve
issues which have been widely reported across Europe, the Middle
East, Africa and North America.
Both Twitter's web and mobile services began suffering outages
concentrated in northern Europe around 0820 GMT, with smartphone
users receiving the warning: "Tweets aren't loading right now."
Users from Scandinavia to Saudi Arabia to South Africa reported
outages. India and Russia also suffered performance issues,
according to a Twitter technical site.
Intermittent breakdowns later spread to the United States and
Canada in the early part of their working day.
Sporadic disruptions continued at 1420 GMT, six hours after they
first began to spread.
"Some users are currently experiencing problems accessing
Twitter," a statement on the company's Twitter status website has
read for several hours (http://status.twitter.com/).
"We are aware of the issue and are working towards a resolution."
A company spokeswoman had no further comment.
Services had been restored for some affected users, only to fail
again later. Some Twitter features continued to operate normally
for some users, while others suffered disruptions, according to
Twitter's developer website.
The on-again, off-again nature of the outages meant that the
hashtag #twitterdown was trending as a topic while Twitter was
down for many other users.
US Releases Iranian Hacker as Part of Prisoner Exchange Program
The United States has freed 4 Iranian nationals (including one
Hacker) and reduced the sentences of 3 others in exchange for the
release of 5 Americans formerly held by Iran as part of a
prisoner swap or Prisoner Exchange Program.
The Iranian citizens released from the United States custody
through a side deal to the Iran nuclear agreement.
Iran released five Americans, including:
Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian
Former U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati
Student Matthew Trevithick
Christian pastor Saeed Abedini
Pastor Nosratollah Khosravi-Roodsari
The United States pardoned seven Iranian nationals, including:
Nader Modanlou
Bahram Mechanic
Khosrow Afqahi
Arash Ghahreman
Touraj Faridi
Nima Golestaneh (Hacker)
Ali Sabounchi
"These individuals weren't charged with terrorism or any
violent offenses. They are civilians, and their release is a
one-time gesture to Iran given the unique opportunity offered by
this moment and the larger circumstances at play," President
Barack Obama said Sunday.
"And it reflects our willingness to engage with Iran to
advance our mutual interests, even as we ensure the national
security of the United States."
However, among the released Iranian nationals was the hacker who
attempted to steal military secrets from a U.S. company.
Nima Golestaneh, a 30-year-old Iranian man, was extradited to the
United States from Turkey last year after being suspected of a
hacking attack against American defense contractor Arrow Tech
Associates.
In October 2012, Golestaneh successfully broke into the servers
of the Vermont-based aerodynamics company, which builds
ballistics prediction and testing software, and then plundered
its databases in an attempt to steal software worth millions of
dollars.
Federal investigators tracked Golestaneh down to Turkey and then
extradited to the U.S. last year to face trial on charges of wire
fraud, unauthorized access to computers and money laundering.
However, Golestaneh was pardoned by the United States and sent
back to the Islamic Republic before being sentenced.
It is believed that Golestaneh was part of Iranian increasingly
active hacking team that, according to American officials, is
targeting both United States infrastructure and defense
companies, as well as the email systems of the Las Vegas Sands
casino.
The prisoner swap comes just a few days after the Iran captured
and released 10 United States sailors in the Persian Gulf.
DARPA Looks To Implant Computer To Interface Directly with Human Brain
A new DARPA program aims to develop an implantable neural interface
able to provide unprecedented signal resolution and data-transfer
bandwidth between the human brain and the digital world. The
interface would serve as a translator, converting between the
electrochemical language used by neurons in the brain and the ones
and zeros that constitute the language of information technology.
The goal is to achieve this communications link in a biocompatible
device no larger than one cubic centimeter in size, roughly the
volume of two nickels stacked back to back.
The program, Neural Engineering System Design (NESD), stands to
dramatically enhance research capabilities in neurotechnology and
provide a foundation for new therapies.
ìTodayís best brain-computer interface systems are like two
supercomputers trying to talk to each other using an old 300-baud
modem,î said Phillip Alvelda, the NESD program manager, in a
statement. ìImagine what will become possible when we upgrade our
tools to really open the channel between the human brain and
modern electronics.î
Among the programís potential applications are devices that could
compensate for deficits in sight or hearing by feeding digital
auditory or visual information into the brain at a resolution and
experiential quality far higher than is possible with current
technology.
Neural interfaces currently approved for human use squeeze a
tremendous amount of information through just 100 channels, with
each channel aggregating signals from tens of thousands of neurons
at a time. The result is noisy and imprecise. In contrast, the
NESD program aims to develop systems that can communicate clearly
and individually with any of up to one million neurons in a given
region of the brain.
Achieving the programís ambitious goals and ensuring that the
envisioned devices will have the potential to be practical outside
of a research setting will require integrated breakthroughs across
numerous disciplines including neuroscience, synthetic biology,
low-power electronics, photonics, medical device packaging and
manufacturing, systems engineering, and clinical testing. In
addition to the programís hardware challenges, NESD researchers
will be required to develop advanced mathematical and
neuro-computation techniques to first transcode high-definition
sensory information between electronic and cortical neuron
representations and then compress and represent those data with
minimal loss of fidelity and functionality.
To accelerate that integrative process, the NESD program aims to
recruit a diverse roster of leading industry stakeholders willing
to offer state-of-the-art prototyping and manufacturing services
and intellectual property to NESD researchers on a
pre-competitive basis. In later phases of the program, these
partners could help transition the resulting technologies into
research and commercial application spaces.
Security Expert Warns LastPass Could Be Vulnerable To Phishing
If you use any kind of password manager, you likely trust that app
quite intimately. Using it, you likely feel a bit safer from
phishing attacks than users who enter their passwords on a
per-site basis. If you stumble across a fake Facebook login page,
LastPass, for example, wonít do its thing. The popular password
manager app, however, is not invincible. No password manager is.
As demonstrated by security expert Sean Cassidy at the recent
ShmooCon security meetup, users of password managers should be
mindful as well. Perhaps the caveat would apply even more to
password manager users; If somebody loses one password to a
phishing attack, their trouble is with that particular service.
If somebody is duped into entering their details for a fake
LastPass pop up window, as shown in the main image, every
password they have falls into the wrong hands. Essentially,
their digital life is now somebody elseís to control until they
can take serious steps to wrestle control back.
Using what he called LostPass, Cassidy presented a fake LastPass
popup window that looked remarkably similar to the real thing.
Because LastPass uses a master password that a user must enter
each time they access a site that requires LastPass to enter
their password for them, getting that one password could expose
a userís entire digital fingerprint, so to speak. Using a similar
setup, a phishing attack could dupe a user into entering their
details and feed them to an outside source. Next thing they know,
their bank account could be dry and their Facebook account could
be posting scams from all over the web.
LastPass representatives were quick to point out, of course, that
this is not a vulnerability with LastPass in particular. Phishing
attacks in similar and various forms have been around for a very
long time. Cassidy was emphasizing, instead, how easy it would be
for a userís entire password book to fall into the wrong hands.
It is always best practice to exercise caution on the web, but
password manager users in particular should be careful. If you
use a password manager, memorize the login screen very carefully
and keep a picture for reference if needed. If any details are
off, including the URL if applicable, you should report the page
in question to the password manager appís developers at once.
ë123456í Tops Yearly List of Most Common Passwords (Again)
Youíd like to think that we humans are getting progressively
better at using these computer things as the years pass. But a
quick scan through 2015's list of most commonly used passwords
will smash and set fire to that bit of optimistic thinking.
For a fifth straight year, the secure phrases ì123456î and
ìpasswordî were the most-used and second-most-used passwords by
Interneters in North America and Western Europe, according to
SplashDataís annual ìWorst Passwordsî ranking.
The company, which develops password management software, uses
aggregations of leaked passwords as sample sizes to determine
the most popular security phrases in circulation. Though ì123456î
and ìpasswordî have been the most abundant among the millions of
leaked passwords analyzed yearly by SplashData since 2011,
security expert and author Mike Burkett (whoís collaborated with
the company on its annual lists) has had the passphrases marked
as No. 1 and 2 on his ìWorst Passwords of All Timeî list since
2005.
Other worst passwords on SplashDataís latest list were ìqwerty,î
ìfootball,î ìdragon,î and ì111111.î
Read the entire 2015 ranking below:
123456
password
12345678
qwerty
12345
123456789
football
1234
1234567
baseball
welcome
1234567890
abc123
111111
1qaz2wsx
dragon
master
monkey
letmein
login
princess
qwertyuiop
solo
password
starwars
Scary, but at least weíre beginning to see some horribly insecure
Star Wars passwords in the mix! (Next best thing to horribly
insecure Spaceballs passwords.)
Seriously, though: If your password is on the list above, do
yourself a favor and change it now. And if you canít come up with
a secure password on your own ó something more complex than
ìmonkeyî ó this 11-year-old girl will sell you one for two
dollars.
Creating Strong Passwords, and Using Apps To Help Remember
It became official again this week: We are awful at passwords.
Year after year, studies show that many people still rely on
passwords that are so weak that even a 5-year-old could crack
them.
According to a study released this week by SplashData, a developer
of password-management software, consumers continue making the
riskiest choices with passwords by consistently using overly
simple ones: ì123456î and ìstarwars,î for instance.
I am no better than the rest of you. The password-management app
Dashlane recently ran a security audit of all my passwords ó and
what it found was ugly. It revealed that out of my 70 passwords,
I had reused the same one 46 times. Twenty-five of the passwords
were flagged as being particularly weak, or easy for a hacker to
crack.
In my shame and embarrassment, I put together a guide of best
practices for passwords and tested some tools that would help
manage them.
Hereís what it boils down to: To have the safest passwords
protecting your digital life, each password should be unique and
complex. But since memorizing 70 unique and complex passwords is
nearly impossible, we also need password-manager programs to keep
track of them all.
Password managers are a type of app that locks passwords in a
vault and allows access to them with one master password. I tested
three popular password management services ó LastPass, Dashlane
and 1Password ó for several days. All were similar, with 1Password
standing out as the most cleanly designed (and least annoying)
password-management tool.
I began by cleaning up my password hygiene, spending 2 Ω hours
logging in to all 70 of my Internet accounts and changing each
password, one at a time. Following the advice of security experts,
I created long, complex passwords consisting of nonsensical
phrases, lines from movies or one-sentence summaries of strange
life events, and added numbers and special characters. (Samples:
My favorite number is Green4782# or The cat ate the CoTTon candy
224%.)
Then I turned to the password managers, which store your passwords
and make them accessible with a master password. Naturally, your
master password should be rock solid. So for each of the three
apps, I created a complex master password and jotted those down on
a piece of paper. After a few days I memorized those passwords and
threw away the paper.
I recommend 1Password for several reasons. The app consistently
and automatically detected whenever I logged in to websites or
created new passwords to ask if I wanted to add a password to the
vault.
When logging in to a site, I clicked on the 1Password icon in a
browser or opened the app on a phone, entered my master password
and selected the service I wanted to log in to in order to plug
in the password. (1Password can be set up to require the master
password after a certain amount of time, say five minutes, if you
donít want to keep entering it; on iPhones it can be configured
to unlock the vault with your fingerprint instead of the master
password.)
Of the password managers I tested, Dashlane was the most
frustrating because it nagged me with too many questions. After
I used Dashlane to log in to TicketWeb to order movie tickets,
the app asked if I wanted to save a copy of the receipt inside
its vault. In the process of doing that, it froze the browser and
I lost access to the Web tickets for a moment.
Also, whenever I created a new password, Dashlane sent
notifications asking if I wanted the app to automatically
generate passwords for me ó which was not my preference.
Dashlane said the app was proactive about notifications partly
because it was designed for users who may not be technically
savvy.
The third app, LastPass, was less annoying than Dashlane, but in
multiple instances it did not detect when I was logging in to a
website to add the password into its vault. That required me to
manually create a new password entry to add to the vault.
Each of the apps offers the ability to share password vaults
across multiple devices ó smartphones, tablets and computers.
Wireless synchronization for passwords is a necessity: You donít
want to be locked out of a service on your smartphone because
you left your laptop containing all your passwords at work, for
instance.
What distinguishes the password-management apps is how they share
your passwords among different devices, and how much they charge.
Dashlane is initially free and hosts its own cloud server to share
passwords across your devices, but it costs $40 a year to use the
cloud service.
LastPass is also free upfront; it offers the ability to share
passwords across devices for $12 a year.
The app 1Password came out on top because it offered the most
value for the money. For a one-time payment of $50, you get a
license to use 1Password on a computer. You can use the core
features of 1Password on iPhones or Android devices free ó if
you want to unlock extra features, like the ability to store
serial numbers for software licenses, it costs $10.
=~=~=~=
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