Passwords in use in a university timesharing environment
Computers and Security
Using personal photos as pictorial passwords
CHI '05 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems
An experimental time-sharing system
AIEE-IRE '62 (Spring) Proceedings of the May 1-3, 1962, spring joint computer conference
User interface design affects security: patterns in click-based graphical passwords
International Journal of Information Security
Proceedings of the 23rd British HCI Group Annual Conference on People and Computers: Celebrating People and Technology
So long, and no thanks for the externalities: the rational rejection of security advice by users
NSPW '09 Proceedings of the 2009 workshop on New security paradigms workshop
A closer look at recognition-based graphical passwords on mobile devices
Proceedings of the Sixth Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security
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Passwords are a good idea, in theory. They have the potential to act as a fairly strong gateway. In practice though, passwords are plagued with problems. They are (1) easily shared, (2) trivial to observe and (3) maddeningly elusive when forgotten. While alternatives to passwords have been proposed, none, as yet, have been adopted widely. There seems to be a reluctance to switch from tried and tested passwords to novel alternatives, even if the most glaring flaws of passwords can be mitigated. One argument is that there is not enough investigation into the feasibility of many password alternatives. Graphical authentication mechanisms are a case in point. Therefore, in this paper, we detail the design of two prototype applications that utilise graphical authentication mechanisms. However, when forced to consider the design of such prototypes, we find that pertinent password problems eg. observation of entry, are just that: password problems. We conclude that effective, alternative authentication mechanisms should target authentication scenarios rather than the well-known problems of passwords. This is the only route to wide-spread adoption of alternatives.