Picture Passwords More Secure than Text

Hugh Pickens writes "People possess a remarkable ability for recalling pictures and researchers at Newcastle University are exploiting this characteristic to create graphical passwords that they say are a thousand times more secure than ordinary textual passwords. With Draw a Secret (DAS) technology, users draw an image over a background, 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. 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. The "passpicture" is recognized 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 re-created exactly. The software has been initially designed for handheld devices such as iPhones, Blackberry and Smartphone, but could soon be expanded to other areas. "The most exciting feature is that a simple enhancement simultaneously provides significantly enhanced usability and security," says computer scientist Jeff Yan."

Meh.

[mingot (665080)]

I'd have to train myself to remember the strokes to draw something with the same movements and pen lifts. Sounds like a pain in the nuts to me.

Easier in Asia...

[by Anonymous Coward]

You say that, but it's EXACTLY what you have to do to learn kanji or kana... or hanzi, for the Chinese.

That's right, there's a proper way to write every one of the thousands of characters, right down to stroke order and placement.

Re:

[mingot (665080)]

I'll bet they'll just pick a character instead of drawing a picture.

Re:Easier in Asia...

[Nexx (75873)]

Not only that, but people who learn it the "wrong" way quite often write it the wrong way throughout their lives. I experience this a lot with my parents -- the stroke order they learned is different from the stroke order I learned, so anytime I watch them write, it looks a bit odd.

Re:

[fph il quozientatore (971015)]

Sounds like a pain in the nuts to me.

You say that, but it's EXACTLY what you have to do to learn kanji or kana... or hanzi, for the Chinese.

Therefore, learning Chinese or Japanese is a pain in the nuts. Nothing to see here.

And "shoulder surfing".

[khasim (1285)]

If you have to draw a picture to login, it's going to be very easy for people to see what you're drawing just by being near you.

With typed passwords that is a lot more difficult.

Re:And "shoulder surfing".

[Karl0Erik (1138443)]

Well, they could just cover the drawing in asterisks.

Oh, wait.

Re:And "shoulder surfing".

[megaditto (982598)]

Draw the goatse man. That'll teach them to spy on you!

Now if only I could figure out how to paste that troll's ascii in here...

Re:And "shoulder surfing".

[by Anonymous Coward]

here's the short version:

=8{O}8=

Re:And "shoulder surfing".

[TheGeneration (228855)]

Okay, so something like 99% of users are going to use happy faces for their drawn password. That'd be so difficult to crack.

Re:And "shoulder surfing".

[badran (973386)]

...And then get the password is too short error...

Re:

[fredklein (532096)]

it's far more difficult to watch someone's hand and imagine exactly how they typically draw a password.

It's not as difficult as you think. It's a standard magicians trick to secretly watch a persons hand/pen movements and then 'magically' re-create the drawing they made.

SHA

[h4rm0ny (722443)]

But on the subject of security, how would these passwords be stored? One nice thing with plaintext is that you never have to store anyone's actual password, only the hash of it. I suppose you could still create a hash of "1. stroke 47degrees 3%, 2, stroke 270degrees 22%" or whatever the password device spits out, but it seems to me that as this system requires a more sophisticated way of interpreting fuzzily matched movements, there might be problems with this approach or it could introduce weaknesses.

You could use some algorithm to simplify the users drawing, rounding angles (I punned! :D ), adjusting lengths, perhaps. But this would probably have the effect of narrowing the password space making it easier to crack the passwords. I'm not an expert in this area, I'd be interested to know if they've thought about this or if anyone else knows a bit more about it.

Re:

[mattpalmer1086 (707360)]

You miss the point - there is no single way of drawing the "same" pass picture - only more or less similar ways. The values in your XML file you talk about would be slightly different each time you drew the pass picture.

Since even only a single bit difference to a hash algorithm generates an entirely different result, this means you can't hash that file and expect it to match a hash of the "same" pass picture on the server, unless you draw the pass picture absolutely identically every time.

So how do you se

Re:Meh.

[wish bot (265150)]

Ordinary people have been doing this for hundreds of years. It's called a SIGNATURE.

Re:Meh.

[ILuvRamen (1026668)]

I could get that dolphin that they taught to paint (look it up) to sign my signature on a check and the bank would still take it. It doesn't even have to be words or letters. As long as someone scribbled my signature, they're not going to reject it so the check's good. Signatures aren't quite the same thing.
Now my 2 cents, I just design security systems that are so freaky and confusing that hackers just give up because it's too odd. The hacker or otherwise bad person just gives up and is like "wtf is it, broke or just haunted?" If someone made a software suite where you can design your own ridiculous security system with basically unlimited possibilities of whatever the user can dream up, people would have some pretty ridiculous security! Everyone here always complains about security through obscurity. You try opening a ridiculously large-bit-encryption archive file of mine when at the "enter the password" screen, you have to wave the cursor over the password field then type submit in it and click the exit button which reveals a crossword puzzle with only one valid word in it but you have to in fact click the squares so the highlighted letters form a smiley face then within 3 seconds, click on the password field then press tab three times which is the only wat to get you to the now unlocked, real invisible password entry box and type your password in stutter type (doubles of each letter followed by a backspace) and then press the red X in the top right to submit it and open the archive. You aren't getting into that archive! That's so screwy, someone would give up trying to figure out what the hell was going on in minutes. And good luck brute forcing it cuz that'll take all the computers on earth a couple hundred trillion years. Plus it's not that hard of a process to remember when you really think about it. It'd take someone who memorized it like 15 seconds tops to do it all and even if someone watched it, they'd have trouble remembering it or understanding it. They'd have to have a camera recording your keyboard and mouse synchronized with another camera watching the screen and also be able to guess the time requirements. Do all that with an incrementing password (like fishfish2 then next time it's fishfish3) at the end of it and they'd barely be able to solve it if you told them every step. Waaaaaaay better and more secure than drawing a picture on a low res grid.

Re:

[Web Goddess (133348)]

That sounds like a great password for a Fortress of Solitude, but probably not feasible for mere mortals. I can't decide if you are brilliant or insane.

Re:

[rossdee (243626)]

"If I had a horrible accident and became a quadrapole, I could still recite my password to someone if need be... good luck doing that with this kind of authentication."

I think you mean quadraplegic. According to Wikipedia:

A quadrupole is one of a sequence of configurations of electric charge or gravitational mass that can exist in ideal form, but it is usually just part of a multipole expansion of a more complex structure reflecting various orders of complexity.

Re:Meh.

[heinousjay (683506)]

That doesn't really change the original statement. It would indeed be a horrific accident that turned him into a quadrupole, and it would probably be hard to draw stuff afterwards.

Re:Meh.

[B3ryllium (571199)]

Sounds like a pain in the nuts to me.

You're doing it wrong.

Prior Art

[mlwmohawk (801821)]

The movie "Safe House" with Patrick Stewart had something similar.

I've heard this before

[ShawnCplus (1083617)]

From Article:

graphical passwords that they say are a thousand times more secure than ordinary textual passwords.

Someone a long time ago:

A picture is worth a thousand words

Why am I having nightmares...

[cLive ;-) (132299)]

...about drawing penises on goatse photographs?

That would be one way to keep things secure though - it's hard for someone to guess your pass picture if they can't bring themselves to look at the background... :)

I dont think so

[Pazy (1169639)]

I doubt this will really work, most people when they draw and write so it slightly diffrent each time. They may have to sit down and aim exactly and prepare which will take too much effort for most people. I doubt this will take off its the old security vs convenience. At this point ill take the convenience of a text password.

Sounds hard

[dontthink (1106407)]

I can't even consistently write my signature, let alone some arbitrary picture.

Re:

[webmaster404 (1148909)]

Not to mention how easy it would be to make a program to guess it, as most people wouldn't be able to totally reproduce it fully all the time, that means more tries it would allow. Plus, what if theres a flaw in Flash/AJAX/JavaScript/Canvas or whatever your drawing in? At least HTTPS is hard to break and HTML is rather secure.

Re:

[Feanturi (99866)]

I have the same problem with my signature. At one time, it used to be very consistant, and quite legible. Enough people remarked that it looked just like regular handwriting, so I started doing it much more quickly and carelessly since that appears to be the normal way of doing a signature. Now, no matter how I try, I can't make it quite the same way twice, except maybe the capitals. I generally don't get all the letters into the last name either, and which ones make it in changes from one attempt to the ne

That's a terrible idea!

[dkf (304284)]

I can't draw...

Normal signature

[LiquidCoooled (634315)]

A normal signature is a picture drawn in a certain fashion with a specific flow and strokes.
We have had signature recognition for a while.
Whats new?

Re:

[schmiddy (599730)]

Yeah.. different methods of signature recognition have been around for quite some time, and never really caught on. A friend just did his senior undergrad thesis on a survey of techniques for signature detection [slyengineer.net], and it's actually a pretty informative read. Long story short.. even the advanced models have too high false-positive rates, especially from skilled forgers who have time to practice copying your signature at home, or even casual over-the-shoulder copying.

The only real future use of this I see

Damnable Security!

[roguetrick (1147853)]

I wonder how many users will just end up drawing Stars, Hearts, and Smiley Faces?

Re:

[Enderandrew (866215)]

Exactly what I was thinking.

I have trouble drawing stick figures.

Re:Damnable Security!

[insertwackynamehere (891357)]

I smell pictionary attacks!!

Imagine pictures of common passwords/objects being drawn everywhere on the screen at different rotations and scales in rapid succession.. or just a brute forcer which didn't even make legible images 99% of the time

2 characters.

[Kaenneth (82978)]

Or you could add 2 alpha-numeric characters to an existing text password, for more than 1000 times security.

Re:2 characters.

[Dirtside (91468)]

Adding two alphanumeric characters (a-z, A-Z, 0-9, for 62 characters) would increase the keyspace by a lot (a factor of 3,844, to be precise), but it doesn't increase overall security by that much except against brute force attackers. It certainly doesn't make it a thousand times harder to shoulder-surf, or keylog, or social engineer, or...

Re:

[QuoteMstr (55051)]

I'm a skeptic, but at least it has the social engineering thing going for it.

"Hey, Susan. I'm Bob from IT. We're doing a company-wide password security survey, and I need to get yours down. Can you let me know what it is?"

"Well, hi Bob. It's sort of a dopey-looking antelope with horns and big teeth."

"Ah. Thanks." *click*

More Secure?

[56 (527333)]

It seems to me that this would drastically increase the security of passwords from attack by machines but would make them more susceptible to attack from humans.

There are only so many places to start drawing your password on a picture and a human would recognize that. People would probably draw birds in the sky and dogs on the ground, right? Also, I would guess that people would make linear leaps with their pictures: someone will draw a bird, and not a fish, in a picture of a tree.

That said, I'm not saying that this isn't a worthwhile endeavor, just that it wouldn't necessarily be as secure as it looks at first glance.

Easy dictionary attack

[Doppler00 (534739)]

How many people will use a picture password of a stick man, tree, or a happy sun?

As nice as this sounds...

[John Pfeiffer (454131)]

...the reality is that this story should probably be tagged 'security through never-being-able-to-access-your-stuff-again'

Two serious problems

[adminstring (608310)]

1. An artistically-inclined person looking over your shoulder might be able to draw your image about as well as you can. With a conventional keyboard password, I can block the keyboard with my body so others can't see what I'm typing, and I can pretend to press keys that aren't in my password so even if they can see, they are thrown off. There is less you can do to block a screen you have to look at to draw properly.

2. Some people's hands shake when they've had too much caffeine, most people's fingers get stiff when they've been out in the cold, and some people have degenerative diseases which make typing a one-letter-at-a-time proposition. Drawing would be very difficult in all of these circumstances. Perhaps this is why TFA says that 5% of users couldn't recreate their image within three attempts a week after first coming up with it.

I don't think this technology is going anywhere any time soon.

New password == old password?

[Rodyland (947093)]

8==D

Who'd have guessed you could use the same password in both systems?

Re:New password == old password?

[VGPowerlord (621254)]

Password isn't long enough.

And that's from the graphical login system! :P

DDR Passwords

[iago (4917)]

At least my idea for a Dance, Dance, Revolution password authentication scheme is still intact.

Patent pending, patent pending, patent pending.

Been there. Done that.

[Kainaw (676073)]

If you remove the background picture and the act of displaying what you draw to everyone within eye-shot, I've already done that at http://shaunwagner.com/index.html?page=Projects%2FJavascript%2FMouse+Password [shaunwagner.com]

Does it work? No. It is far too difficult to draw the same image twice without seeing what you are drawing. If you can see what you are drawing, so can everyone else - then they can draw the same image.

minimum requirements

[PineGreen (446635)]

Oh no:

Password too simple. Password must be at least 8 strokes with at least one diagonal one and one wiggly one.

Massive Cocks

[sqldr (838964)]

I can already see the movie scene where they crack the chief of the FBI's laptop by guessing his pictogram.

Stacey: Try drawing a massive cock..

Arnie: I'm in. Lets get to work

Re:

[dreamchaser (49529)]

You didn't read carefully enough. You draw whatever picture you want. The background image is just to give you a frame of reference so you know where you started.

It still sounds like a bad idea to me for the second reason you mentioned. I do not see this as being any more secure than enforcing strong passwords. I can see it maybe being useful for touch/stylus devices, but that's a different matter than overall security.

Re:

[JackieBrown (987087)]

Will we need to draw a new picture every 90 days?

Re:I don't belive it.

[Rob Simpson (533360)]

Yes. Also the picture will require at least one instance each of cross-hatching, scumbling, and stippling.

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

You draw whatever picture you want. The background image is just to give you a frame of reference so you know where you started.

I think most people will associate the same things to the same background (eg. flowers->bee) resulting in even less combinations... also, the universe of "drawable things" is smaller than the universe of words, and that is smaller than the universe of pass...