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I have a spreadsheet that contains passwords so I can access them from anywhere. I make sure I always access it using https. However, I'm concerned that someone may steal my gmail password and access it so I wanted to add another security layer. I wanted to encrypt the passwords/on the page using a formula that encrypts each value using a master password.

That is, I would have a field on the spreadsheet where I'd have to type a master password so that the passwords display correctly, otherwise they would display as garbage

Basically this is the idea

I would need two formulas:

Encrypt(pwd, masterpassword)

This formula would return the value that I would have to type into each of the password fields.

Cell Where the master password is

A1 = "MastrPWD";

Say I need to add a password of my xmail account which is set to "PAZZWD"

I would run the formula

Encrypt("PAZZWD", "MastrPWD")

which would return an encrypted value, say "BDUE45"

So in the line where I store my xmail pwd, I would set the formula of that line to be

B3 = Decrypt(A1, "BDUE45")

Then, I'd clear the field where my master password is set (A1), and even if somebody got access to my account, they still wouldn't be able to see the passwords unless they knew what to type into that master password field.

Hope this makes sense and somebody can help me

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closed as off topic by random Jul 1 '11 at 16:53

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2 Answers

up vote 1 down vote accepted

The problem is that even with a master password in place, it won't help one bit.

Google spreadsheet has build-in revisions, so as soon as you enter your password it will be stored as a revision. And if someone would access your spreadsheet they can simply look in the revision history to see what your master password is.

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That is true, thanks for the feedback. However, I don't want to give up just because of that. I only used typing the pwd into the spreadsheet as a suggestion. I'll have to do my encrypting somewhere else. I'll keep looking into it. I've learned about creating custom functions and think I should be able to achieve what I need – Juan Mendes Aug 2 '10 at 23:35

Not quite an answer to your question, but a work-around:

Google now offers two-factor authentication. If you enable it for your account it makes your password spreadsheet more secure.

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So I read a little bit about what 2FA means and I think I get it... but how does Google implement 2FA? – Juan Mendes Apr 2 '11 at 0:24

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