Microsoft Turns To Inkblots For Password Generation
Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) thinks the fact that no two people look at an inkblot the same way can be used to help generate more secure computer passwords.
The company has set up a Web site that shows users a series of Rorschach-style inkblots -- of the sort used in psychological profiling -- and then asks them to write down the first and last letters of each word they associate with the pictures.
Ultimately, the users are asked to combine the letters into a password. Microsoft hopes the approach will help overcome a major flaw inherent in systems that ask users to make up their own passwords: those that are difficult to crack are hard to remember, and those that are easy to remember are also easy for hackers to guess. "A century of psychological literature indicates that inkblot associations are intimately personal, and our own user studies verify that users almost always describe the same inkblots quite differently," Microsoft researchers note on the project's Web site -- inkblotpassword.com.
