" I've been in the software business for almost 40 years,"

Software, not security.

"I suggest you study texts on encryption, and maybe read the technical details of how a good cloud-based password manager like LastPass actually works"

https://blog.lastpass.com/2015...

That's all I fucking need to know. A piece of paper holding my passwords is more secure in my wallet than my passwords are with LastPass or KeepPass. I also have the ability to actually defend my stuff if someone tries to take it, whereas someone hacks your shit and it's gone, you're fucked. By the time you realize it, it's too late, they've made off with your stuff.

"Your super-whiz-bang method still requires a password, it seems"

Good authentication requires everything, including a password. We could switch to biometrics, you're fucked because there are any number of ways to get around that, including taking your head off. With a password added for second verification (or third verification, in this case) taking your head does me no good unless I was able to get the password from you before hand.

"How do you hash the passwords for your sites? Still using MD5?"

You silly noobs using hashes and salts. Nowdays smart people embed that information in an image file, good old steganography. You think you got a password database? Enjoy the cluster of hentai you just downloaded. Get past the fact that there's information inside the image? Good luck decrypting the white noise format used to encode it. Unless you have used my server software, you aren't going to be able to do much with it.

" within 5 to 10 ft of the charger."

My god the amount of power you'd waste just to get a usable bit of power several feet out is staggering.

Not to mention - you'll kill your devices faster because wireless charging makes more heat - which kills batteries.

Stick with a wire.

"Rolodex sits on your desk, open to any snoop that happens to walk past while you're not at your desk."

Given how socially-inept the majority of you geeks are, that shouldn't be a problem, should it?

Because nobody would want to interact with your social ignorance in the first place.

" Hint: you can't use an air gapped machine on the internet you moron."

Yes, you can. Do you even know what PROTOCOL is? Do you even know about SNEAKERNET, n00b?

" You can't fix stupid, no matter what you use."

That's exactly why many don't have a backup.

"Obviously you have limited experience or familiarity with password managers. LastPass, among others, keeps your encrypted passwords "in the cloud", so that they are accessible even if your local disk "takes a dump"."

That's EXACTLY WHY I don't use it. Keep my passwords on SOMEONE ELSE'S COMPUTER?!?!?! That's FUCKUP NUMBER ONE of security.

" If you can come up with an authentication scheme better than passwords that you can get every online service to use, then please let us know."

Same fucking one I got my bank to switch to - same one that I've used on my anime forums for over a decade. Picture/your custom caption/password. Same fucking one I've been telling people on /. about for YEARS. Spammers haven't beaten it, hackers haven't beaten it (because it's actually more than two-factor auth) and even in the case of being hacked, you would still need the matching image file (which resides on another server and is accessed by a constantly-changing encrypted variable for filename so you can't just rip it) to make the phrase and password usable.

I've been at this game almost 30 years. When are you n00bs ever going to catch up with the basic security of things like Air Gaps and separated content passwords, which have been around since, well, PROHIBITION?

"Some of us don't game, and only need "good enough" graphics to drive the display manager requirements"

Okay, here's your 256KB GPU RAM. Have fun!

"or wanting the newer GPU 5-10 years down the road"

At the current pace of technology, it is very likely that 5-10 years down the road your system won't even support/have the new bus slot the newer GPUs will require. That's including the current-gen of processor we are now discussing. PCI express is going to go away with direct processor interconnects on an interposer. Soon we will be at the point I predicted in my teenage years, where we have a closely-linked multi-socket motherboard, and all we do is replace the primary processors. RAM, Audio, Networking, all will be self-contained. CPU with 128GB RAM on-die? GPU with access to the same memory on the same interposer? Multiple sockets on a single motherboard (which is in and of itself just a large-scale interposer...)

And likely 5 years after that, my little dream will die out to someone with a better idea.

" this CPU is able to beat last generation dedicated GPUs"

To boot, no, bullshit, and I proved this in the AMD spreadsheet performance comments from yesterday/day before. This new i7 processor can't even match a 9800GTX+ in single-precision FLOPs.

So, no, it isn't even beating GPUs from SEVEN GENERATIONS ago.

"Horseshit. Video cards are special purpose items these days "

I guess you haven't heard of GPGPU. Well, given your UID, not a surprise.

" The output from the NVIDIA chip gets piped through the Intel chip, as the Intel chip is the only one attached to the display."

"There's also a mild performance reduction with the Optimus solution."

So, here I sit on a desktop system with both discrete GPU (GTX 260 Core 216) and an Intel IGP, triple-monitor setup.

I absolutely fucking hate when the system renders on the GTX yet insists on displaying through the monitor attached to the Intel IGP. We're talking a no-shit measured 50% drop in framerate - FOR DOOM I/II ON THE ZANDRONUM PORT.

I can only imagine the shit performance Optimus provides, and that is why I've explicitly avoided buying laptop systems using Intel/nVidia with Optimus.

"A real "Password Manager" would be even better - if I find one that I trust, and I'm comfortable using. I haven't found it yet . . ."

Ever try a Rolodex?

BTW, Mr. Anon coward, that password in plain text - 8 nonillion years to crack. Done up with numbers and symbols like I posted, it's 252 undecillion years.

So, yes, adding numbers DOES significantly increase bitwise entropy. By a few orders of magnitude.

"Why does it need numbers in it? This does not significantly increase bitwise entropy, but forcing me to think of a phrase that has numbers in it has suddenly reduced my space of possible phrases from hundreds to a handful"

Y0ur br@1n 0bv10u$ly d0e$n't w0rk.

"Do you have a citation for that Mr. Scraps of Bad Security on Paper?"

Every fucking government agency that uses a fucking AIR GAP like a REAL PROFESSIONAL.

Which you are obviously NOT.