Numerical security may soon be a thing of the past when swiping shapes take over the safety of your mobile phone.
Finland’s Aalto University along with Rutgers University are researching the possibility of the use of a finger to draw a shape that will ascertain the identity and they call the process “free-form gesture authentication.” Following tests, it was discovered that a doodle was as fast and easy to remember as a passcode.
Rutgers assistant professor Janne Lindqvist states that they are quick to set up and use. The paper co-written by him will be presented at the ACM-CHI conference in San Jose, California. The research has taken two years in a lab and now it is time to try it in every-day life. In all 92 students participated in the two-week long trial, where they logged into a total of 8 fake accounts. It took 22% less time to log in and 42% to set up. Users chose hearts, stars and squares for their shapes.
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It was not all good news however as there were 50% more mistakes made when inputting. This was early on, and it was noticed that things improved and it was a matter of adapting to the new process.
It is yet to be determined as to whether or not a hacker would manage to break into a phone using gesture-based security over time. The way the shape is swiped could be the answer to hacking, but users must be accurate.
