How did Wired magazine miss 1Password?!?!
Good lord...how did Wired magazine not include 1Password on its list of best password managers? Someone at Agile needs to call April Glaser and send her a free license. (http://www.wired.com/2016/01/you-need-a-password-manager/)
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@DATElliott as your post was about 1P generally, as opposed to a specific problem with 1P for Mac, I've moved it to the Lounge from the 1P for Mac forum.
Stephen
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Perfect. Thanks, Stephen. Sorry about that.
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That was about as lame an article as one could imagine. It was pretty much a filler story, having no depth whatsoever. The article purports to be a selection of "good" password mangers, and then places LastPass as the top of the list, and then disclaims how it "was hacked recently, so if you’re in need of high-level security, always be sure to do your research".
What the heck? Doesn't this disclaimer essentially impeach the article, imploring the user to go elsewhere to find password manager research and recommendations worth considering? Phooey.
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Hi @DATElliott,
Thanks so much for bringing this article to our attention. It's so great to see that we have a passionate user base who are keeping their eyes open and advocating for us. We'd love to chat with April about this post. :)
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Thanks all for your enthusiastic support.
Although I am as disappointment in the omission of 1Password in that article as anyone, I wouldn't want to see it turned into a source of anger. So let me put things into more positive terms.
Gratitude
I don't want to second guess how April Glaser constructed the list of password managers to include, but I am gratified that she made the point that "you need a password manager."
When you subscribe to a lot of different services, you’re usually also forced to generate a lot of different passwords. This is actually a good thing. After all, your bank information is likely linked to many of accounts, as well as your purchase history, media browsing habits, and a slew of other private information that you’d prefer protected.
But if you’re the kind of person who constantly resets passwords and usernames, or worse, recycles the same password you’ve been using for the past seven years, it’s time for a serious upgrade. You need a password management tool.
There are an enormous number of people who don't use any kind of password manager. They just reuse the same two or three passwords everywhere. Even if the article fails to mention us, it helps to spread the word about the importance of using a good password manager.
Sympathy
It is notoriously difficult to write articles comparing password managers. First of all it is because the consequences of different security architectures are typically not visible to the user, and few writers fully understand these, it is very very unlikely for anyone to meaningfully compare security.
When the academic community compare password managers, they pick one or perhaps two potential threats and compare how the different password managers deal with those specific threats. But nobody does a comprehensive comparison. But when journalists make comparisons they look at check boxes.
There are a exceptional technology journalists who make a strong effort to get this kind of thing right. But I literally meant "exceptional". Perfectly fine technology journalists are not going follow up on and report such subtle issues.
An example
For example, a journalist making a comparison might note that 1Password doesn't do 2FA for unlocking, and so may report this negatively. But a more sophisticated analyst will look at the threat that 2FA is supposed to defend against, and will report that 1Password doesn't face those particular threats while others may need to use 2FA as a partial mitigation.
Although that is just one example, it is the kind of thing that does illustrate the difficulty in writing comparisons for the general public.
Our task
We can't rely on technology journalists to do our job for us. We also need to make it easier for journalists to find and understand the relevant information. So we must make an effort to explain these sorts of subtle issues. We will continue our efforts in this.
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A perfect response! Thanks. This is why I like you guys so much!! (oh, and 1Password, of course)
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Hi @DATElliott,
I'm glad to see that you appreciated our Chief Defender Against the Dark Arts' answer here. Thanks for your kind words about 1Password - we're here if you have any other questions or concerns. :)
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