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  • Buying Worldcon memberships

    From Mike Van Pelt@21:1/5 to Keith F. Lynch on Thu Aug 19 21:57:08 2021
    In article <sccen0$2hi$1@reader1.panix.com>,
    Keith F. Lynch <kfl@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
    I have too many online accounts already.
    I can only memorize so many passwords.

    I passed that point years ago. So, I use LastPass,
    and let it generate strings of gibberish for passwords
    and keep track of them. If I were making the choice
    today, I'd proably pick the open-source BitWarden.

    I only have a handfull of passwords memorized --
    the LastPass password, my email password, and the
    password to my SSH key.

    --
    Mike Van Pelt | "I don't advise it unless you're nuts."
    mvp at calweb.com | -- Ray Wilkinson, after riding out Hurricane
    KE6BVH | Ike on Surfside Beach in Galveston

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Paul Dormer@21:1/5 to Pelt on Fri Aug 20 12:01:00 2021
    In article <sfmk3k$vg7$2@dont-email.me>, mvp@shell.calweb.com (Mike Van
    Pelt) wrote:


    I passed that point years ago. So, I use LastPass,
    and let it generate strings of gibberish for passwords
    and keep track of them. If I were making the choice
    today, I'd proably pick the open-source BitWarden.

    I've been using the Kaspersky password manager for a few years, although
    there was a report recently that their random password generator is not
    as random as one might like. (There was a recent upgrade, but they don't
    say if they've fixed this.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Keith F. Lynch@21:1/5 to Mike Van Pelt on Sat Aug 21 19:55:13 2021
    Mike Van Pelt <mvp@shell.calweb.com> wrote:
    Keith F. Lynch <kfl@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
    I have too many online accounts already.
    I can only memorize so many passwords.

    I passed that point years ago. So, I use LastPass, and let it
    generate strings of gibberish for passwords and keep track of them.
    If I were making the choice today, I'd proably pick the open-source BitWarden.

    I don't trust deterministic algorithms to make random passwords. I
    make passwords, one character at a time, by placing seven pennies in
    a small box, vigorously shaking it for several seconds, then taking
    the pennies out without looking at them, placing them in a row, and
    reading off the pattern of heads and tails as an ASCII character.
    (If the character isn't valid in a password, I simply try again.)

    And I certainly don't store passwords online. Storing them on paper
    would be far more secure than that, if the paper is always in my
    pocket.

    However, it turns out that my Chicon account doesn't need a password.
    Chicon sends me HTML emails with a login link whenever I want to see
    if they've received my check yet. The login link is buried amongst
    numerous other links. And it's both MIME-mangled and much too long
    to either cut and paste or retype. Not to mention that it's run by "Mailchimp," an email marketing company, so I had of course long since
    blocked all Mailchimp emails as spam.

    I've found that the best way to deal with it is to locate the login
    link, discard the rest of it, manually un-MIME it, turn it into a
    proper web page, upload it to my public website, and then load it from
    a graphical browser. Neither convenient nor secure.

    The good news is that they finally received my check, 32 days after
    I mailed it. That's an average of less than one mile per hour. It
    would have been faster for me to walk the whole way from Virginia to
    Chicago, hand it to them, then walk home. I wonder how the Post Awful
    carried the letter. No train, plane, automobile, bicycle, pack animal,
    or pedestrian is that slow. Maybe they had a turtle carry it.
    --
    Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
    Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Tim Merrigan@21:1/5 to kfl@KeithLynch.net on Sat Aug 21 13:00:43 2021
    On Sat, 21 Aug 2021 19:55:13 -0000 (UTC), "Keith F. Lynch"
    <kfl@KeithLynch.net> wrote:

    I wonder how the Post Awful
    carried the letter. No train, plane, automobile, bicycle, pack animal,
    or pedestrian is that slow. Maybe they had a turtle carry it.

    The sent it the long way round, going south and a little east from
    you?

    --

    Qualified immuninity = vertual impunity.

    Tim Merrigan

    --
    This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
    https://www.avg.com

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Paul Dormer@21:1/5 to Lynch on Sun Aug 22 15:57:00 2021
    In article <sfrln1$mrk$1@reader1.panix.com>, kfl@KeithLynch.net (Keith F. Lynch) wrote:


    The good news is that they finally received my check, 32 days after
    I mailed it.

    There was a bit in the paper recently of a letter taking over 32 years to
    be delivered:

    https://www.timesandstar.co.uk/news/19491031.royal-mail-delivers-goods-vic arage---32-years-late/

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Keith F. Lynch@21:1/5 to Paul Dormer on Sun Aug 22 17:52:07 2021
    Paul Dormer <prd@pauldormer.cix.co.uk> wrote:
    kfl@KeithLynch.net (Keith F. Lynch) wrote:
    The good news is that they finally received my check, 32 days after
    I mailed it.

    There was a bit in the paper recently of a letter taking over 32
    years to be delivered:

    https://www.timesandstar.co.uk/news/19491031.royal-mail-delivers-goods-vicarage---32-years-late/

    If my check had taken that long to get to Chicon 8, I wonder if they
    would have treated it as a membership to Chicon 11.

    32 years ago this month I attended Noreascon 3 and bought a membership
    to Chicon 5.
    --
    Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
    Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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