Child-Suitable Alternatives To Passwords?

An anonymous reader writes "Two months ago I donated my old PC to my little sister, who is 7 — I had promised she would get her own computer as soon as she can read and write properly. I then proceeded to answer her questions about how it works, as far as she inquired, and tried to let her make some choices when installing Debian (she can already use GNOME). As I explained password protection and encryption to her, I was pleasantly surprised when she insisted on protection measures being as strong as possible, so that no one else can screw with her computer. She knows that my younger brother has to endure strict parental control software that was installed on his machine without his consent. The significant problem is that she cannot permanently memorize abstract passwords, even if they are her own creation. I talked with a teacher who assured me that this is common at her age. My parents would probably be able to guess non-abstract passwords. What mechanism of identifying herself does the Slashdot crowd suggest?"

Comments

Kids do what adults do--they write them down.

[HikingStick]

I was shocked a number of years ago when I was moving some furniture so the floors could get cleaned behind the beds. There, under my (then) five year old's mattress, was a complete list of all of my (and my wife's) passwords. He had everything (from multiple machines): power-on passwords, logon passwords, email account passwords, merchant passwords--even our online banking passwords!

[No, they were not all the same. Some of them were quite complex, too, like 'ni*45FPN!ng'. I got to play "change-the-password" for a few hours that evening.]

I asked him how he got them: he shoulder-surfed us for every one of them. The reason he had them? He wanted to sneak down to the computer at 3 in the morning and play Spooky Castle.

That scared the snot out of me. Now, I know he may not be the typical kid, but it just goes to show that you really can't be too careful with your passwords.

As to the boy, I started encouraging him to use his powers for good. I teach network administration at an area college, so I started bringing him with when I had to configure the lab. He caught on quick, and was a huge help. He's just over 11 now, and while he's still one of the most tech savvy kids in the house, he has little interest in PCs (that might be a good thing). He'd rather spend time outdoors (even when it's thirty below zero) or with his pet cockatiel.

Re:Fingerprint Reader?

[KillerBob]

A fingerprint reader wouldn't work. Fingerprint reader software (such as the wonderfully open source ThinkFinger) map out a fingerprint by locating easily identifiable marks, such as swirls or dead-ends, and map their proximity to other easily identifiable marks. As this girl is seven its fair to assume that in a few more years her fingers will be twice their current size.

The fingerprint will be the same, but scaled up so all proximity will be lost.

The fingerprint readers we use in our computers at work read by proportional distance, not physical distance. If you define the distance between two key points at opposite ends of the finger as a distance of 100% and an angle of 0 degrees, the rest of the points are defined using those terms. So Point C may be at 23 degrees left, 15% distance, point D may be 16 degrees right, 4% distance, etc.

In that case, the fact that the finger grows larger over time makes no distance, because the points it's measuring are still in the same position, proportionally, just with a different scalar multiplier.