Drawing Secrets
Scientists have developed a program that lets users
draw their passwords, relieving them of remembering
complex alphanumerical codes; technology could
also help dyslexics
IDG News Service
Today, the use of passwords is commonplace in
everything from mobile phones to ATM machines and
computers. But in the wake of growing concerns about
traditional
weak passwords created from words and numbers,
scientists have been developing alternative software
that lets the user draw a picture password, known
as a graphical password.
The software, which uses pictures instead of
alphanumeric characters, has been initially designed
for devices such as mobile phones, but could soon be
expanded to other areas.
Many people find it difficult to remember a password,
and so choose words that are easy to remember and
therefore more susceptible to hackers, explained
Dr Jeff Yan, a computer scientist at UKs Newcastle
University. However, the human mind has a much
greater capacity for remembering images.
Computer scientist Dr Jeff Yan (above), with his
student Paul Dunphy, shows their new program,
Background Draw a Secret (bottom), that allows users
to
draw pictures as passwords
Along with his PhD student Paul Dunphy, Yan has used
technology known as Draw a Secret (DAS) a
graphical password scheme where users draw their
secret
password as a free-form image on a grid and improved
on it further.
In DAS, the user draws an image, which is then encoded
as an ordered sequence of cells.
The software recalls the strokes, along with the
number of times the pen is lifted.
By super-imposing a background over the blank DAS
grid, the researchers have created a system called
BDAS: Background Draw a Secret.
This helps users remember where they began their
drawing, and also leads to graphical passwords that
are less predictable, longer and more complex.
The BDAS software encouraged people to draw more
complicated password images, for example with a larger
stroke count or length, which were less symmetrical
and didnt start in the centre. This makes them much
harder for people or automated hacker programs to
guess.
For example, if a person chooses a flower background
and then draws a butterfly as their secret password
image onto it, they have to remember where they
began on the grid and the order of their pen strokes.
It is recognised as identical if the encoding is the
same, not the drawing itself,which allows for some
margin of error as the drawing does not have to
be recreated exactly.
In essence, this is a very simple idea as its
intuitive, said Yan. It may take longer to create
the password initially, but its easier to remember
and more secure as a result.
In the tests, 95 per cent of BDAS users were able to
repeat what they had initially drawn, even a week
later.
Yan added that the creations were very much dependent
on the participants artistic ability.
Most people drew simple everyday objects such as
cars, cups and houses, although one participant did
write their name in Persian script, he said.
The most exciting feature is that a simple
enhancement simultaneously provides significantly
enhanced usability and security, concluded Yan. Its
certainly
true that a picture is worth a thousand words in this
instance.
He now plans to carry out further research into how
easily the BDAS system can be used by people who
traditionally have difficulty with textual systems,
such as those with dyslexia.
Save all your chat conversations. Find them online at
http://in.messenger.yahoo.com/webmessengerpromo.php
To unsubscribe send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the subject unsubscribe.
To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please
visit the list home page at
http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in
