“Muscle memory is a great way to recall your master password-until your muscles forget”

You’ll be well aware that I’m a password manager evangelist. I’ve used them forever, and when I’m asked for the one thing I’d recommend when it comes to improving data security for the average person, that’s my answer right there. Which is all well and good, but password managers require that you still need to remember, or indeed know, one password: the master that unlocks the application and grants access to all the others.

All those other passwords, in my case, exceed 25 characters (unless the service or account in question is stupid enough to still restrict such things) and are randomly complex. Or should that be complex in their randomness? Whatever, the point is I couldn’t tell you what my Twitter password is on pain of death because I have no idea. I couldn’t tell you what my master password is, either. Not unless I had a keyboard in front of me, at which point my muscle memory kicks in (as I mentioned in a recent column). I know the first half a dozen characters of the password, start typing them and then my fingers go into autopilot and complete the rest.

Muscle memory is a great way to recall