Log in, just don’t use a password
Scientists Training Computers To Recogise Owners By Touch Of Their Fingers
Somini Sengupta
Passwords are a pain to remember. What if a quick wiggle of five fingers on a screeen cold log you in instead? Or speaking a simple phrase? idea is far-fetched. Computer scientists in Brooklyn are training their iPads to recognize their owners by the touch of their fingers as they make a caressing gesture. Banks are already using software that recognizes your voice, supplementing the standard PIN. And after years of predicting its demise, security researchers are renewing their efforts to supplement and perhaps one day obliterate the old-fashioned password. “If you ask me what is the biggest nuisance today, I would say it’s the 40 different passwords I have to create and change,” said Nasir Memon, a computer science professor at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University in Brooklyn who is leading the iPad project. Many people would agree. The password has become a monkey on our digital backs — an essential key to our many devices and accounts, but increasingly a source of exasperation and insecurity. The research arm of the Defense Department is looking for ways to use cues like a person’s typing quirks to continuously verify identity — in case, say, a soldier’s laptop ends up in enemy hands on the battlefield. In a more ordinary example, Google recently began nudging users to consider a two-step log-in system, combining a password with a code sent to their phones. Google’s latest Android software can unlock a phone when it recognizes the owner’s face or — not so safe — when it is tricked by someone holding up a photograph of the owner’s face. The touch-screen approach of Professor Memon in Brooklyn works because, as it happens, each person makes the same gesture uniquely. Their fingers are different, they move at different speeds, they have what he calls a different “flair.” He wants logging in to be easy; besides, he said, some people find biometric measures like an iris scan to be “creepy.” In his research, the most popular gestures turned out to be the ones that feel most intuitive. One was to turn the image of a combination lock 90 degrees in one direction. Another was to sign one’s name on the screen. In principle, the gesture can be used to unlock a device, or an app on the device that safely holds a variety of passwords. Despite their resilience, passwords are weak, notably because their users have limited memories and a weakness for blurting out secrets. Most people need dozens of them, and they tend to pick ones that are so complex they need to be written down, or so simple they can be guessed. Recently, criminals have become adept at stealing passwords by sneaking malicious software onto computers or tricking users into typing them into an illegitimate site. Companies like Facebook and Twitter have sought to address the frustration with passwords by allowing their usernames and passwords to open the door to millions of Web sites, a convenience that brings obvious risks. A thief with access to a master username and password can have access to a host of accounts. Rachna Dhamija, a California computer scientist turned entrepreneur, sought to combat those weaknesses by breaking up the password. The user first logs in to the service that Ms. Dhamija built, UsableLogin, and signs in with her own partial password. Behind the scenes, the service verifies that the user is on an authorized device, and pulls the third piece from the cloud, generating a unique password for any Web site that the user wants to log in to — Facebook, for instance. In other words, one piece of the password rests with the user, another is stored in her device, and a third piece is kept online.
NYT NEWS SERVICE
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