Usability Views Article Details  home | timeline | recent | popular | e-reports | userati | books | about  Pictures as passwords (24 Sep 2004) Pictorial passwords need not rely on faces, however, as two Microsoft Research projects demonstrate. The first, called Click Passwords, replaces passwords with a series of clicks in particular areas of an image. The clicks need not be pinpoint accurate: the required accuracy can be set to between ten and 100 screen pixels. Darko Kirovski, the researcher who created the system, uses an image of 60 flags from around the world, which allows users to click either on a whole flag or on a detail of the flag. But any image can be used. The second system was developed by Adam Stubblefield, a research intern. While driving home from Microsoft's campus one day, he realised that cloud formations reminded him of real-world objects. By substituting inkblots for cloud formations, he could draw on decades of psychological testing using the Rorschach Inkblot test. In particular, if the same inkblot is shown to different people they will come up with different associations—and individuals tend to make the same associations even after long intervals. With Mr Stubblefield's method, users are shown a series of computer-generated inkblots, and type the first and last letter of whatever they think the inkblot resembles. This series of letters is then used as their password: the inkblots are, in other words, used as prompts. Article URL: http://www.economist.com/science/tq/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3171359 Read 53 more articles from Economist sorted by date, popularity, or title. Next Article: Science fiction? Not any more     This site is a labour of love built by Chris McEvoy