Pictorial Passwords

Stone Rhino writes: "No longer do you need to remember passwords. Now, thanks to graduate students at Berkeley you merely need to pick out the right pieces of abstract art. There is a story on it at the New York Times. However, there is a problem with it that I see: 5 images from a set of 25 means 53,130 potential combinations. This would be much easier to crack by brute force than a standard alphanumeric password with its billions of possibilities and millions of likely choices." Maybe you have to get the sequence of images correct? If so there are some six million combinations, still weaker than a optimum password but probably stronger than the passwords most people choose (usually their significant other's name). There's another article on passwords in that same NYT edition.

Comments

Similar to Passface

[rodbegbie]

A year or so ago, I found this little beauty: PassFace Technology -- Give it a try. You click on people's faces to get in.

What was interesting was that in finding that URL, I went back to the site for the first time in over a year, and was able to log-in no problem. I remembered my combination of faces.

There's definitely something to this technology!

rOD.

Re:Similar to Passface

[tswinzig]

A year or so ago, I found this little beauty: PassFace Technology [realuser.com] -- Give it a try. You click on people's faces to get in.

What was interesting was that in finding that URL, I went back to the site for the first time in over a year, and was able to log-in no problem. I remembered my combination of faces.

There's definitely something to this technology!

Unless you're face blind.