Carleton University - School of Computer Science Honours Project
Winter 2021
Improving the Memorability of Pronounceable Passwords Through Phonological Similarity
Jake Bauer
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ABSTRACT
Password security is a fundamental problem that has plagued the computing industry since its inception. Having users memorize passwords has been an even greater challenge because a password that is effective, and secure for computing systems is generally not so easy for a human to remember. This project aims to lay the foundation of exploring if there is a relationship between a password being pronounceable and whether or not it is more memorable. In this project, a pronounceable password generator was created along with an artificial neural network designed to determine to what extent a password generated with the aforementioned generator is pronounceable. Additionally, the work was ported to Carleton University's MVP system for use in experiments involving real subjects as well as for ease of use by those looking to help train the neural network's model. There is still much work that can be done to improve not only the generator's ability to generate passwords that are less likely to be unpronounceable, but also with the artificial neural network to improve its guessing ability and to get closer to the point where it is providing as accurate of an evaluation as can be reasonably achieved.