One Password

by Lyndir

— 1 —

Find the site that you need a password for by entering it into the search field.

While searching, previously used sites will show up along with a usage counter.
The counter indicates the amount of times you've generated a password for that site.

— 2 —

The site's password is now displayed.
Tap it to copy the password. Once copied, you can switch to another application and paste it into a password field.

To change the password for this site, tap the edit icon .

Below the password you can set the password type. Some types create a password for you, others let you choose your own.

If the site complains when you try to set or update the password, try changing the password type.

To create another password for this site, you can increment the password counter . This is useful, for example, when you've had to share the password with somebody else.

— F.A.Q. —

What is this thing?
How do I use it?

The idea of this application is that you change all of your passwords everywhere to a password generated by this app.

That's crazy talk.
Why would I do that?

Everybody everywhere uses passwords for authentication nowadays. The theory of password authentication is simple: It's a secret word that only you and the other party know. So, because nobody else knows your secret password, nobody else can log into your E-Mail or Twitter account with it.

That's fine and dandy in theory. In practice, it's an absolute hell. In modern times, people have hundreds of accounts on sites all over the Internet. So does that mean we're all remembering hundreds of secret passwords? No, of course not. That would be impossible. If you're like most people, you remember one or two passwords, and use those for all your sites everywhere.

So what, you say? Here's the problem: You're not the only one that knows your secret password. Each time your make an account with a site and tell them your secret password, they know it too! Nothing is stopping them from trying to log into GMail, Hotmail or Twitter with the same password and username you used to register with their own site. Even if you only give your password to sites you trust, all it takes is for one of those sites to get hacked and loose their password database. Those hackers now have all it takes to impersonate you. This is, in fact, so common, that it's one of the main reasons people's accounts are getting hacked or compromised nowadays.

This app solves the problem by letting you remember only a single password without requiring you to share the password with anyone else. Instead, the app creates secure passwords for use with whatever site or purpose you might need a password for.

Uh, so what if I loose my device?
I'm locked out of everything?

Absolutely not! In fact, generated passwords aren't even stored on your device. No, not in the cloud either. They're not stored anywhere! What that basically means is, if you grab the iPhone of the person sitting next to you and open this app on it with your own master password, it'll give you all your generated passwords. So, if you loose your phone or forget it, just borrow a friend's phone or get a new one, and you're back in business. No backups or restores needed.

That also means that, unlike all those apps that store your passwords or send them off to be stored on the internet, your passwords are much safer. Nobody knows about them. If your device is stolen, the thieves can't get at them.

I entered my master password on my friend's app. It just says Invalid master password and exits!

For your own protection and to avoid opening the app after mistyping your master password (and thus generating bad passwords for your sites), the app normally checks whether you're entering the same master password as the one you've been using before.

To open the app with a different master password, just go into your device's Settings, find Master Password's settings somewhere near the bottom, and flip the setting: Change my password. The next time you open the app, you can enter a new master password. Don't worry: you're not wiping your friend's passwords this way. All he needs to do to get back at his own passwords is flip the switch again and change back to his own master password.

Great, but that still means I need my phone to access anything.

Correct. However, remember that usually you'll only need to use this app once for each site. Imagine you're usually on your MacBook Air. You go to Twitter, it asks for your password. You get your phone out, start the app and generate the password for twitter.com. You copy the password manually by typing it out on your MacBook Air. You may notice that the generated passwords have been created such that they're fairly easy to copy. Once you log in, though, your MacBook will ask you to save the password in its key chain. Agree to that, and you won't need to bring up your phone again the next time you log in to Twitter.

If you're still worried, the app's homepage details the algorithm used to generate your passwords. There's also a Bash script that you can use to generate your passwords on any POSIX system (such as, your Mac). A Mac version of this app is also in the works so that you can easily get to all your passwords without needing to bring up your phone.

This stuff is gold.
I want one branded for our company.

Contact me directly for enterprise inquiries. I can provide branded clients and enterprise distribution if your company is interested in deploying this solution internally.