Password Which You Don't Have to Remember

Submitted by Duncan Asiedu on Sat, 07/21/2012 - 11:06pm.
Duncan Asiedu's picture

Nowadays it seems like hackers are becoming proactive in their attempts to steal precious information from unsuspecting victims. Just around this time last year, tech giant Sony's information database was broken into by hackers and thus compromising the passwords of thousands of Sony users. Furthermore, earlier this year, hackers were able to penetrate into the database of online shoe retailer Zappos and retrieve the personal information of millions of its users. These incidents thus beg the question of what's the most hack proof way to store a password.

Technology researchers from Stanford, Northwestern and SRI International recently developed a system which stores a password in which you don't have to remember. They achieved this by creating a sort of game which requires a user to precisely press keys according to a various mix of sequences. Once you've mastered a particular set of sequences, the system records the average time in which it took you to complete those sequences. Finally when you are about to log into an account, you are given a mixed samples of sequences in which you've mastered and if you solve it in correlation to your average time, you'll be granted access to your account. If an outside individual tries to solve those same set of sequences, they would naturally take longer to solve them and thus they won't be able to access your particular account.

What are your opinions on this method of entering a password?



Oumar Soumahoro's picture
Oumar Soumahoro Says:
Thu, 07/26/2012 - 9:29pm

Interesting blog Duncan. This seem to be a system that will definitely end account hacking since it is one of the major problems we face in our society. I also agree with Costa, in his argument that hackers will find a way to get over this system, because it is a profession for them, unless these companies are working permanently to avoid them getting over it.


Costa Lales's picture
Costa Lales Says:
Mon, 07/23/2012 - 8:43am

This will stop hackers at first, but I think eventually hackers will be able to crack the sequences. Although it does seem that it will be much more difficult to crack then passwords, I still believe hackers will learn how to crack them with time.


Mingoro Fanny's picture
Mingoro Fanny Says:
Mon, 07/23/2012 - 7:50am

I really think this is a great method suggested. This would help prevent hacking throughout the world. There are so many hackers hacking passwords around the world; stealing personal information and money. This method should be able to stop many of these criminals and lower the rate of password hacking.