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Inkblot Passwords

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the i-see-a-walrus-humping-a-turkey dept.

TechnoPope writes "Microsoft Research a new way to get users to not only develop, but remember more secure passwords can be achieved through using inkblots. Because of how the human brain works, you can show the same pictures to different people and almost always come up with different passwords. What's even crazier, is that people generally are able to remember the complex passwords. Sounds like a major breakthrough in security."

4 of 590 comments (clear)

  1. build a better inkblot by deke_2503 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's nice, but the inkblots could use some work. If you look closely, they all look basically similar in construction, with the only differences being the color and size of the shapes. They also are all symetrical along a vertical axis. A little more randomization would be nice I would think.

  2. The problem with this approach by Dr.+Bareback · · Score: 5, Insightful
    One of my college professors actually outlined a similar scheme several years ago. But (as he admitted) it had a fatal flaw: the keyspace was too small. In other words, it is not hard to assemble a list of under 50 possible passwords or two-letter combinations that describe a given inkblot.

    The other flaw (which is less serious) is that this strategy is only effective when the user has to remember a small, finite number of inkblots. If a user is forced to memorize a few hundred inkblots to cover the dozens of passwords he needs on a daily basis, this mnenomic technique loses its value.

  3. Re:Microsoft Research? by Wabin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The sad thing is, MS has long had a good research department. They hire very bright people and pay them a lot. But bright people with great ideas and great research doesn't mean that any of that good stuff will ever make it into production code. Marketing drones and codemonkeys do a good job of stopping that. If only people would listen to the real eggheads.

    Ah for Plato's republic of philosopher kings... of course, it didn't really work out on the Simpsons...

    --
    Most exciting phrase in science: not "Eureka!" but "Hmm... That's funny..." -Asimov (abridged for \. limits)
  4. Re:Strong passwords? by tazan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If my alphabet was only one character I could remember a password hundereds of characters long. It would be the strongest password ever.