Carleton University - School of Computer Science Honours Project
Winter 2017
Rehearsal Games to Improve Memory of Strong Passwords
Stephanie Thoumy
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ABSTRACT
Security on the world-wide-web has been a topic of discussion for many years. Though passwords are widely used, and more websites and software require the use of increasingly complex passwords to promote security, human memory capacities are at a stand-still. We find it easier to improve password security and memorization techniques because we cannot upgrade the brain to make strong passwords easy to create and remember. We explore a way to improve the memorization of a strong password in order to increase users’ security measures. Specifically, we aim to identify and fix a gap in the memorization of a strong, pseudo randomly generated password to encourage their use for user login information on sensitive websites such as banking, online shopping, etc. Typically, users choose easier, unsecure passwords to avoid a potential memory failure of a more complicated, but secure one. Influencing users to improve their password quality is a problem when the struggle of memorization seems like an unnecessary task. By simplifying memorization, the creation of a highly secure password seems achievable and a user’s login information becomes more secure and usable.