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Tactile Passwords vs Shoulder Surfing
holy_calamity writes "Entering passwords using a tactile interface would remove two of the main vulnerabilities of using keyboards and alphanumeric passwords say UK researchers. They're using sequences of tactile icons on a VTPlayer tactile mouse instead. Shapes are displayed using the 16-pin tactile displays under the user's fore and middle fingers. As well as being almost impossible for anyone else to observe, tactile passwords can't be guessable in the same way as many conventional ones, they say. A video shows it all in action." Not that the video really helps explain it very well.
No wonder that the video does not help to explain it very well. TFA says "it is almost impossible for anyone else to observe"
Being bored at work, I took up using the Dvorak keyboard layout. My passwords however retain the same unconcious keyboard patterns as they did on a standard keyboard. Without even thinking of what my password is I can type it. For a while I didn't even know my own passwords were... this proved to be a problem when i had to check email and wasn't at my computer. But it definately ends the shoulder surfing for passwords.
I ended up typing my passwords a few times in notepad and memorized the gibberish that is my password now. Other than that I'd have to be trying to know what my fingers are pressing when i go into password mode.
Yeah but can Superman properly identify a Kitten?
Collector's Edition
using it on Automatic Teller Machine machines?
good god it's brilliant!
they could be connected via Network Interface Card cards!
- MM
Let's just put small DNA testers on each PC.
Then all you have to do is stick something in the hole to donate a blood sample.
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Stupid people breeding has lead us to the current government
-- I am the NRA, enough said...
I dread to think what the "tactile" password for a pr0n site would be like...
As a radio amateur (old school, 20 words per minute Morse), I would be very happy to key in my password entirely on the "J" key.
Fiat Lux.
You sir are correct, this is the way to go when creating a password.
Me, I have yet another layer of protection : my keyboard is labelled in standard French Azerty, but I use a french Dvorak layout (I have no need to change the labels since Dvorak layouts are designed for touchtyping).
It's very funny when the co-workers try typing stuff with my keyboard :) For example, this is "Hello, World!" typed as if my keyboard was Azerty :
(funnily enough, that's also "Hello, World" in Gaelic. Ba-da, dum.)