Microsoft Wants To Give You A Rorschach

Preedit writes "Microsoft has set up a website that uses inkblot images to help users create passwords. The site asks users view a series of inkblots and write down the first and last letters of whatever word they associate with each inkblot. Then they combine the letters to form a password. Microsoft claims it's a way to create passwords that are easy to remember but hard to crack. But a word of warning, the story notes that Microsoft is collecting and storing users' word associations."

Comments

Slight problem with this approach

[Enlarged to Show Tex]

This method will not create passwords that are strong enough. A truly strong password should have at least three of the following, if not all four:

Uppercase letters
Lowercase letters
Numbers
Non-Latin characters (i.e. symbols)

Every password I use has at least three, even for free-registration-required sites...

Re:Slight problem with this approach

[TubeSteak]

A truly strong password should have at least three of the following, if not all four: Only if there's a maximum character limit on the password.

Or are you going to tell me that
"atrulystrongpasswordshouldhaveatleastthreeofthefollowingifnotallfour"
is not a strong password?

I'm not suggesting everyone should use such a long pass, but what's so hard about implementing passphrases instead of passwords?

Reusing the password

[Culture20]

"Nothing prevents a user from learning a strong password on Inkblotpassword.com and then reusing it at other sites," Microsoft's researchers said.
Common sense might.