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Exchanging Pictures To Generate Passwords

Posted by timothy on from the worth-a-thousand-words dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes "Today, Ileana Buhan, a Romanian computer scientist, is presenting her PhD Thesis at the University of Twente in the Netherlands. She is using biometrics to protect confidential information when it is exchanged between two mobile devices. This is a very innovative approach to security. Buhan's biometric application will generate almost unbreakable passwords from photos taken by the connected users. Here is how it works. 'To do this, two users need to save their own photos on their PDAs. They then take photos of each other. The PDA compares the two photos and generates a security code for making a safe connection.'"

6 of 123 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Been done before by MoFoQ · · Score: 5, Funny

    and how they had to have this cyborg dolphin with cracking it...

    so...if the dolphins go extinct....then it'll be secure?

  2. I preferred shake to sync by aj50 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I preferred the shake to sync method where two phones would be held together and shaken randomly. Both phones take accelerometer measurements and use the pattern they were shaken in as a shared secret.

    --
    I wish to remain anomalous
  3. Re:Oh Dear by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    What if the photo is based on Bob or Alice's genitals?

    For many people (fewer every year it seems), this would be a pretty good way to ensure a secret picture.

  4. Security challenge!!!! by gandhi_2 · · Score: 5, Funny
    If you "lose" your picture, you can always "reset" your picture or have it emailed to you.

    Just upload the following:

    A picture of your highschool.

    A picture of your first pet.

    A picture of your first car.

    --
    THL phish sticks
  5. Everybody missing what is important by rossz · · Score: 5, Funny

    It looks like everybody is missing the most important part of this article. The computer geek in question is a SHE!!!1!!!!~

    We need photos.

    --
    -- Will program for bandwidth
  6. Re:Oh Dear by yvesdandoy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Face pictures would be the public key and genitals ones the private one !

    Problem solved. :))))))))))