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This blog is a place to read more about Mitto, our free online password manager, and how to more effectively use our service.  We highlight many of our benefits, and we also discuss topics related to password management. It is usually updated weekly.

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Thursday
Apr152010

Introducing the New Mitto Password Generator

DateThursday, April 15, 2010 at 9:37AM

For some time now, one of the most requested additions for Mitto has been a password generator. We’re happy to announce that the wait is over, and you can now use a password generator from within the Mitto bookmarklet to generate strong and unique passwords.

Location: “Make Password” Tab of the Bookmarklet

Password Generator in new Bookmarklet TabMany who regularly use the Mitto bookmarklet have probably already noticed the new “Make Password” tab. To use the password generator, visit any site that you’d like to generate a password for, click the Mitto bookmarklet, and then click on the “Make Password” tab. By default, there will be a random password generated for you, but you can always adjust the options (Letters, Numbers, Symbols, and Length) and regenerate the password. You can even use the bookmarklet to fill the generated password into the password fields on the page you are on by using the “Fill Form” button (this is a great option if your are in the process of creating an account or changing your password).

How do I know what a site’s password requirements are?

It’s not always clear what types of passwords are allowed on a site, especially when they don’t tell you up front. How long does the password have to be? Does it need symbols? Can you only use numbers? Is it case sensitive? etc… With our password generator, we’ve made it so you don’t need to know this information, because we know it for you. For example, when you use the Mitto password generator to create a password for the eBay website, Mitto already knows that eBay passwords must be between 6-20 characters long, and can be a mix of numbers, letters, and symbols. Therefore, the password we generate for you uses a strong combination of these options when it automatically creates a unique password for you.
 
Of course, Mitto doesn’t know the options and restrictions for every single site, but most of the popular  sites you frequent are accounted for. In the rare case where that information isn’t known, the passwords we generate will by default use a standard set of strong password options. In either case, you can always adjust the options and generate a password based on your own options.

We even remember the password for you to use later

Using a generated password to update an existing loginOne very cool and unique feature about the Mitto password generator is that once you’ve generated a password for a site, Mitto will remember that password so that when you go back to Mitto to update your password (or to add a new one) it will give you the option to use your previously generated value! For example, if I were to use the Mitto password generator to create a new password for my existing eBay account, when I went back to my eBay settings within Mitto, I would have the option to update my eBay password using the last password I generated with the Mitto bookmarklet. 

Using a generated password to add a new login

Also, if I accidentally close the bookmarklet while on the site, when I reopen it, it will automatically remember the last password I generated so I won’t be stuck if I generate a new password and accidentally forget to update it in Mitto.

One less excuse for not creating strong, unique passwords for all of your sites

For those of you who have been holding off on creating new passwords for each of your sites, you now have one less excuse. As always, let us know what you think about our improvements by leaving your comments below!

AuthorMitto Staff | Comments Off |
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Wednesday
Jan062010

New Mitto Bookmarklet will make your New Year's resolutions come true! 

DateWednesday, January 6, 2010 at 9:26AM

…well, at least the ones that have to do with organizing and protecting your passwords and online account information. Forgot about password protection when making your 2010 New Year’s Resolutions you say? For shame! You should know by now that using weak passwords, or even worse, using the same one or two passwords makes you extremely vulnerable. If you haven’t already, it’s time to use strong unique passwords for each of your online accounts, and having an easy and safe way to use them just got easier.

You see, we’ve been celebrating here at Mitto because we’ve finally reached an important milestone; and well… we have just the right New Year’s gift for you (and your passwords) - a shiny new Mitto Bookmarklet to make logging into your sites even easier and faster!

Now You Can Use The Mitto Bookmarklet To Log In

So what’s so cool about the new Mitto Bookmarklet? Well, you used to only be able to use the Bookmarklet to add new sites.  Now, the Bookmarklet is a fast and easy way to actually log into your sites. So now you have the option of going to the Mitto site to log in, or you can go directly to the site you want to log into, and use the Mitto Bookmarklet to be logged in right there! It’s very cool, and it will make logging in to your favorite sites even easier than before.

Now You Can Automatically Login To Many More Sites

Before the Bookmarklet, there were a handful of sites that you couldn’t one-click log into (such as Twitter, Facebook and some banks) but now all you need to do is go to any of these sites, use the Bookmarklet, and you’re logged in. With over 1500 of the most popular websites easily searchable and ready to add, it’s time to get the rest of your sites into Mitto and make your online life a lot easier. Remember, Mitto works with almost any site, so there are no more excuses for using the same weak passwords for online services.

When you get right down to it, the Bookmarklet allows you take advantage of all the security benefits of Mitto, in a new and more productive way. To get a real idea of how helpful the Bookmarklet can be, watch the new Bookmarklet Tutorial below.

How to Add the Bookmarklet To Your Browser

We have tutorials for adding the bookmarklet to different browsers. Because the procedure can be slightly different for each, please watch the video that corresponds to your browser to see how to install and use the new bookmarklet.

Firefox/Chrome/Safari: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWc4v3rtHgc
Internet Explorer 8: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7S-sbHkUuw
Internet Explorer 7: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NVq4D-cGqg

Give Your Friends The Gift of Safety That Costs Nothing

So now that the new year is here, maybe there are some people who you didn’t get a gift for or maybe you just feel like giving another gift without breaking the bank. Surprise your friends by telling them about Mitto, and you will give them a give that costs you (and them) nothing but saves them from the perils of badly managed passwords.

AuthorMitto Staff | Comments Off |
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Thursday
Mar192009

The Benefits Of Password Sharing

DateThursday, March 19, 2009 at 4:13AM

Why would anyone ever want to share their passwords? Actually, the need to share passwords is much more common than you may realize. Let’s take some simple examples:

  • You may need to share a wireless internet password for your apartment so that each roommate can have access.
  • Your family has a Netflix account and each of you need to know the password to log in.
  • Online photo album – sharing pictures that requires a password.
  • One roommate is in charge of paying the cable bill and sets up an online account to do that. Your other roommate is in charge of paying the gas bill and sets up an online account for the apartment. You are in charge of paying the electricity bill for the apartment, so you also set up an online account. However, if one of you is out of town, the others will need the account information if they need to log in and pay the bills.
  • At work, everyone needs to know a common access code to get into the building that changes every week.

Right now, if you wanted to share the above passwords, you would need to manually devise a way of doing that (send out an email, write it down somewhere, etc.). This becomes even more challenging when you use different passwords (because you don’t want to use the same password to your bank account as the password you give your friend’s to access your Netflix account) or you need to change the password (because now you have to tell everyone you updated the password).

Mitto gives you an organized, convenient, and secure way to share passwords with people you trust. Here are some of the benefits of using Mitto’s password sharing feature:

  • You know who has access to what passwords
  • If you change the password, it gets updated for everyone. They will always have access to the most up-to-date password. This is great, for example, for businesses that need to change passwords when someone leaves the company (to prevent unauthorized access or sabotage by disgruntled employees).
  • You can use strong, separate passwords with these accounts without worrying about needing to remember them. Strong passwords make it more difficult to guess a password, and even if one of these accounts is breached, none of your other accounts are vulnerable.

Access Levels

Right now, you can give your trusted friends (who must have a Mitto account) three levels of access to a login/password:

  • View Only (which means they can see the password and use the one-click login if it is available)
  • View and Edit (same as above, but they can also update the password)
  • View, Edit, and Share (same as above, but they can also re-share it with other Mitto users)

Best Practices

When you un-share a password in Mitto, we strongly recommend that you change the password for that service, and then update that in Mitto. This way, you are not vulnerable if the person who you had previously shared it with remembered or stored the password.

We are continually improving our features, so if you have feedback as to how we can improve our sharing feature, please let us know.

AuthorMitto Staff | CommentPost a Comment |
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Wednesday
Mar182009

Mitto's New Top Login Subscription Feed

DateWednesday, March 18, 2009 at 4:16AM

One of Mitto’s core features is the ability to log in to many websites, simply by clicking on one of the One-Click login links. This gets even better now that you can access these links from anywhere that allows you to add an RSS feed, such as iGoogle, Netvibes and your browser’s Live Bookmarks.

Top-Logins Feed Tour



Secure

When we first started working on this feature, I was skeptical about its security implications. After its implementation I’m convinced its totally secure. The subscription feed simply generates links that will redirect you through Mitto to your service. So, if your not logged in to Mitto, the link won’t work. Very secure.

Another note related to security - the feed only lists the name of the sites you are logging into, and not the usernames. This is for two reasons:

  1. If the content is accidentally found, nothing linking that list of sites to you can be uncovered from it - keeping your identity private.
  2. The way it connects to the server, it’s impossible for the server to decrypt that information.  So, if the feed is discovered, and someone finds a way through our multiple layers of security to execute arbitrary code on our servers, they are still out of luck trying to break into your account. Not that we expect anyone gain that level of access to our servers, but all of our security is multi-layered like this just in case.

Get Creative

Since the Top-One Click logins feed is essentially an RSS feed, you can use it anywhere you access your RSS feeds usually. The options are limitless, giving you the opportunity to come up with a solution that suits your workflow.

Feel free to give us some feedback about this. Have you used it, and liked it? Is there something more we can add? Let us know.

AuthorMitto Staff | CommentPost a Comment |
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