Lockbox - keep your passwords out of your reach!

Hi guys and gals.

Jon, the developer of pluckeye, has just released a beautiful new web-application lockbox. This was in response to my request here.

Now you can use all of the parental control softwares on yourself, by yourself! Basically, when the filtering software asks you to set a master-password, you set a very strong password (which you definitely cannot remember), and store the password on Lockbox.

Anything stored on Lockbox can be be locked and unlocked. You can specify an unlock delay while the box is being created. What this means is that if you set an unlock delay of (say) 2hrs, the box will only be available 2hrs after you ask it to open. And in the meantime, if you change your mind, you can also lock the box again!

Let me give an analogy. Say you have a box of candies with you. Even though you have decided not eat candies anymore, whenever you have an urge, you still instantly (or perhaps after some struggle with yourself) open the box and eat a candy. Now what if I put a magic lock on the box which will only open the box 2hrs after you tell it to? Now when you have the urge, however much you decide, you can't get a candy instantly! You could tell the box to open, but the box will only open after 2hrs. In the meantime you would have cooled down and could tell the box to not open if you wanted to. That's what lockbox does with your passwords.

I use lock-box with the parental controls on my Mac. Basically I have created a new Administrator user, and have set parental controls on my own account. The password for my admin user is stored on Lockbox. Similarly, I have also set an Ipad restrictions password. I am using accountability2you software on all my devices, but you can also use filtering software like procon and pluckeye. Here is a large list of content-filtering softwares one could use.

EDIT:

I should mention Geringo and futureme too. However, conceptually these differ from Lockbox. Lockbox allows you to set a delay on unlock, while Geringo and futurme set a timed lock.

Let's go back to the box of candies and say you have decided to not eat candy for a whole month. Using Geringo you could lock the box of candies so that the box will only open after a month. That would do the job if you are sure that you won't need the box of candies anytime in the month. But what if your reason for having the box of candies, is to give some to little Bobby whenever he comes to sleepover at your house? Then Bobby isn't getting candies for a month now. However instead, having the "magical lock" with an unlock delay 2hrs prevents you from eating the candies at whim, while you still can plan to open the box 2hrs before Bobby arrives.

Concretely, I use lockbox with the password to my Administrator account. And I might need my admin password anytime must install an important software, or change some settings. Lockbox ensures my access to the admin password, not at whim, but deliberately.