Pico is a password replacement system currently under development at the University of Cambridge. The Pico project’s strap line is: No more passwords! But is that right, should this really be our goal when designing new authentication schemes?
Category Archives: Authentication
The value of better user authentication
User authentication is a pain. As technologists it’s only natural for us to consider how we can remove than pain. However, technologists putting on the hat of an entrepreneur should be considering whether they are entering the Blue or Red Ocean before considering the blue or red pill [3].
Passwords 2015 call for papers
The 9th International Conference on Passwords will be held at Cambridge, UK on 7-9 December 2015.
Launched in 2010 by Per Thorsheim, Passwordscon is a lively and entertaining conference series dedicated solely to passwords. Passwordscon’s unique mix of refereed papers and hacker talks encourages a kind of cross-fertilization that I’m sure you’ll find both entertaining and fruitful.
Paper submissions are due by 7 September 2015. Selected papers will be included in the event proceedings, published by Springer in the Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) series.
We hope to see lots of you there!
Graeme Jenkinson, Local arrangements chair
Why password managers (sometimes) fail
In a paper the Pico team are about to present at the Passwords 2014 conference in Trondheim, we introduce our proposal for Password Manager Friendly (PMF) semantics. PMF semantics are designed to give developers and maintainers of password managers a bit of a break and, more importantly, to improve the user experience.
For the details of the PMF proposal please read my post Why password managers (sometimes) fail on the Lightbluetouchpaper blog (the blog of the Security research group at the University of Cambridge).
0303
0303 – the PIN of the guy in front of me in Boots at the weekend. All your secrets are belonging to me.