Keyboard Sound Aids Password Cracking

stinerman writes "Three students at UC-Berkley used a 10 minute recording of a keyboard to recover 96% of the characters typed during the session. The article details that their methods did not require a 'training text' in order to calibrate the conversion algorithm as has been used previously. The research paper [PDF] notes that '90% of 5-character random passwords using only letters can be generated in fewer than 20 attempts by an adversary; 80% of 10-character passwords can be generated in fewer than 75 attempts.'"

Comments

Re:Berkley != Berkeley

[stinerman]

It is actually a typo on my part, not caught by Taco. The paper in question is from the CS Dept of UC Berkeley.

Re:I think so

[drew]

Even without RTFA:
The article details that their methods did not require a 'training text' in order to calibrate the conversion algorithm as has been used previously.
(emphasis mine)

They are acknowledging that what you describe has been possible for some time, but what they have been able to achieve different.