[Cryptography] Of writing down passwords

[Mark Atwood]

On Sun, Sep 21, 2014, at 04:54, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> I've been poking around my ADSL modem, as one does, and amongst its 
> instructions (a Technicolor Gateway flogged as a Telstra T-Gate), I found 
> the following, well, I dunno...
> 
> I quote from The Book of Words, chapter "Protecting Access to the 
> Technicolor Gateway", verse "Default password":
> >   Choose a password that your[sic] can easily remember or write it down.
> > Or write it down...  Umm, OK, and this is Australia's national carrier?

For devices and boxes, such as racked machines, routers, switches,
internet'd "things", and home routers, I absolutely do write down the
random password I set on the device.  And then I securely tape the paper
that has the password written on it, along with all the other key
configuration and identification for that device, *TO* the device.

Once someone has physical access, they p0wn it anyway, so I might as
well instead make life easier for whoever is going to maintain or
reconfigure it, especially when that whoever is likely going to be
"future me".

-- 
Mark Atwood <me at mark.atwood.name>
+1-206-604-2198