WASHINGTON: You may soon be able to log into your smartphone with sweeping gestures or doodling by using one or more fingers.
Researchers from Rutgers University in the US have performed the first study of free-form gesture passwords for smartphones in the field.
Free-form gesture passwords allow people to draw a password of any shape with any number of fingers, researchers said.
The results, combined with previous studies, show that free-form gesture passwords are a serious alternative to text or other log-in methods, especially for mobile devices, they said.
Free-form gesture passwords are very suitable for touchscreens, faster to use, easy to remember and hard to guess.
“Preventing people from hacking into your smartphone is a major issue, and it becomes even more important because people carry their smartphones everywhere,” said Janne Lindqvist from Rutgers University.
“Getting access to somebody’s phone can give a lot of information about that person and make them vulnerable to lots of different kinds of attacks than can have financial and other repercussions,” said Lindqvist.
Previous work by other researchers found that text passwords and PINs were hard to use, easy to compromise and unsuitable for mobile devices. Their shortcomings include limited password space, susceptibility to “shoulder surfing” and slow entry, Lindqvist said.(Agencies)
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