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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?"
I guess picking the right pictures in a list in the proper order would be a good idea....I think I saw something like that posted on slashdot in the last year.
Would a fingerprint reader be suitable?
Teach her to use passphrases, something like 'My favorite food is steak'. This is something that's easy for her to remember and also hard to break just from the sheer size of the password. When she's old enough, she'll figure out how to make hard passwords on her own; just give her a few suggestions about capitalization, numbers and symbols.
Have her make a pattern on the keyboard that she can remember. I've actually had a number of PIN codes that I didn't actually remember apart from the pattern they make on the numeric keypad.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
Please don't use "umm" or "err" or "erm".
Why on earth should a 7 year old be able maintain privacy on a computer that can serve as a portal to many nasty things?
What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
I would suggest the parents have the root password, and their child can ask them to reset her password when she forgets.
Parents guessing the password of a seven year old is ridiculous, is this a serious question ?
You were an only child, right?
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Seriously, she's 7?!
I have two daughters around the same age. They share a computer that we gave them for xmas. They have their own accounts, with their own passwords and my wife and I maintain the Administrator account. I could not fathom them having an Internet-accessible computer without us having full control over it.
Am I missing the point ? Because when I read:
"My parents would probably be able to guess non-abstract passwords"
it sounds to me like you're trying to keep a 7 year-old's parents off of a computer she uses when they have every right (and reason / responsibility in this day in age) to know what their young child is doing on a computer.
Of course I am all for teaching kids how to be security conscious and protect their private data. But it's a fine balance. Parents need to keep themselves in the loop in order to, you know, be effective parents.
With phrases like "She knows that my younger brother has to endure strict parental control software that was installed on his machine without his consent" and "My parents would probably be able to guess non-abstract passwords" you are clearly trying to undermine your parents. I know that children, though you don't give your age, usually think that they know better than their parents, but guess what: it isn't usually true! I hope that your parents are smart enough to take your sisters computer away if you succeed in locking them out.
For instance, in high school I listened to Tomorrow Never Knows off of the Revolver record by The Beatles nonstop. Since I know every lyric of that song, I might pick the opening line: Turn off your mind, relax and flow downstream Which would render the password: Toym,rafd Not a bad password, in my opinion. You could do the same with the opening line of a book, quote from a movie, TV show or even a line from a poem. All of these things are very memorable and produce hard to break passwords.
My work here is dung.
...like, "My parents are responsible for me." Or, "I live under their roof, so I play by their rules." Or, "My brother is an asshat."
And yes, I'm a parent.
I have a seven-year-old child who needs to drive around town in a car, but has problems getting the keys. Is there anyone on Slashdot who has suggestions on how to open, start, and operate a car without keys and otherwise make it so easy even a seven-year-old can do it? Thanks! Signed, A Responsible Human Being
"provides a simple solution we ordinarily remember? done!"
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.
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
You can't take the sky from me...