If you're holding your breath waiting for passwords to go away, we suggest a long exhale. Despite the increased use of biometric log-in devices such as fingerprint readers, plenty of systems still rely on passwords, and they won't disappear anytime soon.

In fact, as people conduct more of their professional and personal business online, it's not unusual for someone to have 10 or more log-in accounts, sometimes with different user names in addition to different passwords.

The large number of accounts creates a security conundrum. A set of passwords strong enough to withstand hacking would be impossible to memorize, yet writing them all down compromises security.

Several years ago, Mandylion Research Labs introduced a password-management token called ebp lite. It stored existing passwords and log-in names and randomly generated new, strong passwords according to user-defined parameters. The drawback was that entering data was time-consuming and tedious.

Mandylion has solved that problem and created an enterprise-level product with its new Policy Master 2.0, which consists of a token, cradle and management software. The software allows administrators to input and manage the passwords on a PC then download them onto the token.

The token, which fits on a key chain, has four arrow keys and one round Enter key in the center, with a small, monochrome LCD that displays log-in records. Each record includes an identifying name along with the user name and password.

Users can control access by a five-keystroke sequence Mandylion calls a personal finger authentication pattern. You can create your own pattern using the four arrow keys, and Mandylion suggests changing it often.

Using the arrow keys, users scroll through a list of log-in records until they find the one they need. Then they type the password into the computer.

The scrolling process is simple but slower than we would have liked, especially for a device that can hold so many records. When you need to access, say, the 25th record, scrolling speed makes a big difference.