All the Cool Kids Have One

I spent $5 on this PayPal Security doo-hickey.

Now, whenever I want to login to my PayPal account, I enter my username and password and the six-digit number that the thingamajig generates when I poke it's button.

I wouldn't have bothered spending the $5 if it was only good for logging into PayPal-- the last thing I need is 7 different dongles hanging off my keychain for securely logging into different web sites. I did bother because the same device works for any web site that supports the OpenID standard. Not many do today, but I predict that over the next couple of years OpenID will become widely supported. If you're a geeky early adopter like me, check out https://pip.verisignlabs.com/ for details.

If you're not a geeky early-adopter, but you use PayPal more than twice a month or keep more than $1,000 in your PayPal account (the cash in my PayPal account is earning 5.2% interest right now, which is darn hard to beat), you should pay the $5 for the extra security.