Here is my solution to impose order in numerical chaos.
I am setting up an Internet World-Wide Web site. One section of my Home Page is "Personal Information Bank" in which I have a file called "Account Numbers". I list all the account numbers in my life in this file. The file would be encrypted and authenticated, meaning that one needs a unique username and a password to view the encrypted file and a secret key to decrypt the file.
The main purpose of placing such a file on-line on the Internet is to allow me to access the numbers when I happen to be anywhere in the world without physically carrying plastic cards or a piece of paper which I consider are more of a security risk. Moreover, organising the numbers in a single place would facilitate emergency situations such as hospitalisation and death. I am also placing my own "Medical Record" file on the Internet for medical emergency. My company (HyperInfo Canada Inc.) is working on the development of intelligent agents to automate the transactions so that my own medical record would be under my control instead of being scattered all over the place without my explicit knowledge.
To remember passwords, I pick one 4-digit number as the "core", denoted by "XXXX". I then use it for PIN of all credit and debit cards. Most banks these days allow the customers to pick their own PIN number. For computer passwords that I can pick, I use a 2-letter code as a prefix, followed by a special character (e.g., "#") before the 4-digit core number.
Here is an example of Account.html file. All account numbers have been changed, of course. "#" denotes the presence of a plastic card, while "*" denotes the presence of a key.
