We all know that passwords should be changed regularly to reduce the value to an attacker and that they should be stored in ways that they can not be easily compromised which is why generally people are encouraged not to write passwords down.

The reality is that the human brain can only retain so much information and the less often you use something the more likely it is that you will forget it.

This is true regardless of how memorable your password happens to be.

This is especially true for passwords used in key management ceremonies. Imagine being there when the first keys were generated for the first root CA on the Internet, this is a key that will exist for decades and the implications for loosing access to this key are huge. More over the passwords involved in these ceremonies do not bellong to an individual, they belong to an organization.

For these reasons key management ceremonies use password record forms; I have attached an example form to this post for your reference.

These forms once filled out are stored securely, how securely being dependent on the security needs of the scenario. For example if the password was associated with a share in a Shamir Secret Sharing scheme (M of N set of keys) one would transport and store them securely in facilities geographically distributed under lock and an dual lock control scheme.

Periodically these stored values are retrieved and changed, as part of a process to ensure continued access to systems and keys is possible.

While not something the average person needs to deal with it is relevant to those doing paper key management for large amounts of Bitcoin, important DNSSEC keys or maybe keys embedded into some device that has been mass produced.