Re: Wiki access policy

Bill Frantz wrote:

> [email protected] (James Graves) wrote:
> 
>> This is definitely a concern.  I'm still worried that even requiring an 
>> account to edit is too much a barrier to entry.  But I have no way to 
>> easily measure that.
> 
> I can testify that it is a barrier to contribution.  I promised
> almost a year ago to have a go at the KeyKOS entry in Widipedia.  I
> kind of think that if I make major contributions, I should do it
> under some stable name, which means an account.  On the other hand,
> I haven't set up an account for reasons that aren't justifiable, or
> even admitting to description, although I assure you they are quite
> real.

I think it in part has to do with managing yet another username / password.

Since we are all good netizens, we will use a different password for 
distinct sites to prevent someone who breaks into one site from 
accessing our other accounts.

So if you 'get around' to the extent that I do, it wouldn't be unusual 
to have over 100 of them.  Most of these aren't terribly security 
critical, like my New York Times login.  Conferences, blogs, developer 
sites, stupid little routers, wiki passwords (I have at least 6 of 
these), etc.  They do tend to accumulate.

Ah, but how to keep track of them?  The thought of adding yet another is 
a little bit depressing to many people I suspect.  I can only keep about 
20 different ones memorized and that's if I use them regularly.

The only answer right now is to write down the username and password 
somewhere.  Some people write them on a piece of paper stashed in the 
wallet.  But admit it, you feel guilty about doing that, for a variety 
of reasons.

I think the best solution is to encrypt them.  I use this GPG plugin for 
VIM to automatically decrypt / encrypt files while editing them:

   http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=661

Very handy.  I keep a copy of the file on a flashdrive... which I'm not 
too worried about losing.

James

P.S. Isn't obj-cap security supposed to fix all this?  :-)