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Verifying a User By Following the Movements of Their Mouse

Posted by samzenpus on from the tracking-the-pad dept.

Harperdog writes "Tom Jacobs has a very cool little story about an Israeli research team introducing a novel way of verifying a computer is being operated by its rightful user. Its method, described in the journal Information Sciences, 'continuously verifies users according to characteristics of their interaction with the mouse.'"

9 of 101 comments (clear)

  1. Index/Evidence by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Is it indexical? Yes. Is it evidential? No.

    Translation: unreliable.

    1. Re:Index/Evidence by JasterBobaMereel · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Lots of false positives and negatives make the system constantly alerting and having to be manually checked .... i.e. annoying and people get used to just accepting that it is always warning ...

      A system that is constantly flagging alerts is next to useless ...it is only marginally better then alerting all the time ....

      --
      Puteulanus fenestra mortis
    2. Re:Index/Evidence by Hillgiant · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Pro tip:
      Before you do something illegal on your computer, switch to your non-dominant hand to maintain deniability.

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      -
  2. And then get locked out... by Lord+Lode · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And then get locked out if you come from cold weather outside and cold hands somehow make you move differently...

    1. Re:And then get locked out... by jones_supa · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Then you would get a screen which requires some additional authentication to solve the situation, and after that disable the mouse protection for a while (so that your hands can warm up).

  3. Not persistent enough. by Xtense · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I see several potential problems with this kind of identification. One of the biggies is switching hardware and the other - potential hand injuries.

    Changing mice is the biggest issue, i think. Every mouse has a different shape and ergonomy, so it is being used differently by the same user, especially during the adjustment period. This also doesn't take into account the potential precision differences of the mouse. Plus, switching to an entirely different control scheme, like a tablet or trackball, screws up any tracking attempts.

    The other problem is hand injuries - from a simple finger cut to advanced problems with nerve or bone structure. In addition to slowing down the usage, tracking movement will show an entirely different schemes of usage. This one hits especially close home to me, since having recently developed numbness and coordination problems in my dominant hand due to a relapse of Multiple Sclerosis, i now struggle to use a mouse at all and have almost completely switched to a thumb-operated trackball.

    This identification method might be useful in highly integrated/high-security environments, where employees seldom change, or for protecting single-user terminals, but the hand injury problem trumps these uses, too.

    --
    "We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams [...]."
    1. Re:Not persistent enough. by tinkerton · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "potential problems" can mean different things. Who needs permanent identity verification? This could be a niche product, so scenarios where you get locked out each time you start gaming could be irrelevant. In that case dramatic mouse changes requiring retraining wouldn't happen frequently either.

  4. Re:Trackball by Chrisq · · Score: 4, Insightful

    but really telegraph operatos could tell who was sending in the 1800's. it took us long enough.

    Remember this for when someone starts trolling a patent

  5. Re:for now.. by JasterBobaMereel · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you can sneak into someone's office and use their computer at all, then detecting people by mouse movements is the least of your worries

    Your staff leaving their computer unlocked, their door unlocked, and their office unattended, and no-one noticing are much worse security issues ...

    --
    Puteulanus fenestra mortis