Communications of the ACM
Seven Ways DARPA Is Trying to Kill the Password
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is funding research at institutions working on desktop and mobile authentication technologies. For example, a project at the New York Institute of Technology seeks to assess micro movements and oscillations in the user's hand to determine the identity of the user when using a smartphone. The technology tracks such things as touch-burst activity, which occurs when a user performs a series of touch strokes and gestures, and the pause between those touches and gestures as users consume content.
SRI International hopes to exploit accelerometers and gyro sensors already inside smartphones to identify the unique characteristics of users, such as their stride length, body balance, and walking speed. Other sensors can determine such physical characteristics as arm length, proximity to others, and whether users are texting or doing other activities.
Li Creative Technologies is developing a voice-based system designed to unlock a mobile device. Users are prompted to say a passphrase, and the software monitors if the phrase is correct and if the actual user is the person saying it. Meanwhile, the University of Maryland has developed a system to track how people use their PC, including how they organize windows and resize them, their work patterns, and mouse movements.
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