It seems that my account got hacked somehow. I can't confirm whether it was a service that I used which was detected as suspicious or not, but it was time to beef up security anyway. I'm going to guess it was from logging into a public library. No harm done that I can tell, but just to be sure I changed my password and revoked all access to my account across the board. I'm not new to all this as I've had my identity stolen before, and there's still some pretty jacked up things on my credit report because of this.

Anyway, tonight I found out that the google 2-step authentication process has been activated on my account so I enabled it immediately.

It takes a few minutes to setup first time, and that involved downloading Google Authenticator - Google for my iphone.

Now everytime I log in to a public station, I have a new password automatically generated on my iPhone off the application. It is a one-time use password which expires after use so it's always secure.

And for stuff that requires a fixed password? Well you can generate as many as you like for those 'legacy' applications or items.

Lose your phone? Well you can add a backup or two, plus have a list of one time use codes you can commit to memory or print out and put in a safe deposit box.

It's not brilliant, as may high security or high sensitivity applications use ever changing logins and passwords with a wireless dongle, but it's free here with your google accounts!