Comments on: Why use the Offline Version?

By: Ralph

Ralph — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 23:21:59 +0000

I use KeePass and Passpack more or less simultaneously. KeePass installs on a desktop or on a USB flash drive as part of the PortableApps package. Passpack is my primary password keeper and KeePass kept in sync with it. Yes, that’s more work, but that way I always have offline access to my passwords with completely different but also very secure software. KeePass is also free and has an even easier way to enter login names and passwords at sites, so I tend to use it day to day, with Passpack as the primary password keeper.

By: Paul

Paul — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 09:32:51 +0000

Another vote for a non GoogleGears version of Passpack. So I can have it with me in a USB stick without the need of more software. I will be traveling soon (for a few months) and using random computers that wont have GG installed. Besides even in my city, it will be handy to have a working version with me at anytime. Thank you.

By: Deltapi

Deltapi — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 10:19:17 +0000

The offline version is perfect so I can manage and verify my backup without going and looking for other tools (I do not know… let us say something like openSSL).

a plain text password database on my usb stick?? Dis I understand well?

p.s. yes a blog.passpack.com url with favicon would be perfect…

By: Hans Nordhaug

Hans Nordhaug — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 09:10:13 +0000

Just some thoughts:

1) The offline version is nice and user-friendly, but not really needed (unless passpack.com turns very unstable) – read on. In addition you need it on all computers you use (to be really safe) – you don’t know if you are at home or at work when passpack.com is down. (I’m using Passpack exactly to avoid having to install something everywhere.)

2) Any service, online or not, may have down-time. If you can’t live with that, you should have taken the necessary steps already – no offline version needed for that. Just export the plain text version of your database at Passpack. Store it on an USB stick or on your laptop, encrypted (twice if you want to) and you are safe. You might even store it on Gmail or some other online storage service (since it’s encrypted) … However, using the already encrypted version is better – read on.

3) What I would like is to have a backup option with the encrypted data in plain text format (in stead of Passpack format) using my two pass-phrases. Then, if the encryption is done with AES (as promised) we can unpack it with OpenSSL (which have support AES) or any other AES tool – see WikiPedia. Could we please get that extra backup option? (I know this might not be what most people want, but it certainly would be convenient for the advanced (*nix) users.)

PS! Maybe override the WordPress shortcut icon (favicon) – branding is everything …