Alkahest my heroes have always died at the end

July 19, 2006

Password security question

Filed under: Security — cec @ 11:00 am

I wonder if these folks have read the recent article in the NY Times regarding prosopagnosia?

The company Passfaces has a password replacement technology that uses the brain’s ability to recognize faces. The idea is that the user selects a set of faces. They are then presented with a series of options where each of their faces is hidden in a group of other faces. By correctly selecting their faces, they authenticate themselves. The company says that using Passfaces will reduce calls to a help desk because people can remember faces for years without seeing them. There’s a demo which allows you to test how easy the system is.

I have some general concerns with the amount of entropy in such a solution, but the article presents a different challenge. Prosopagnosia is a disorder (or perhaps just a condition) where the person is unable to recognize faces. The NY Times article notes that researchers have found that as much as 2.5% of the population has prosopagnosia. This suggests to me that they would be unable to use Passfaces.

Oh, and the demo? I went back to Passfaces about 6 months after I first set up their demo – easily within the 2 year timeframe they note. I didn’t recognize a single face. I wonder if I have prosopagnosia? 🙂

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