Rhythm-based Authentication
These days we are surrounded by things that require passwords. Everything from our Facebook accounts and smartphones to the locks on our homes require some combination of letters, numbers and symbols to be entered before we are authorized. On top of that, it is recommended that they are different from each other, making them very difficult to remember.
"If it’s not usable, it’s not secure."
- Jared Spool
However, passwords that are difficult to remember are also difficult to use. Thus, they are very likely not secure as many users try to find workarounds to simplify the authentication process.
“[The traditional password is] a classic example of a security measure that’s both hard to use and relatively ineffective.”
- Josh Ben-David
Typing text-based passwords can be cumbersome on mobile, especially when they include special characters. Furthermore, there are often many restrictions on the length and type of characters that must be used in passwords, making the process of choosing a password complicated [1].
For this reason we are suggesting using rhythm based authentication as an alternative to traditional text-based passwords. Rhythmic patterns have been used to identify people for decades. According to research from 1895, telegraph operators could be identified by their distinctive way of keying Morse code messages [2]. Furthermore, it is shown that most people are able to connect specific songs or rhythms to memories to a much larger extent than they can with texts [3]. Rhythm-based passwords are also easy to use as users can input them simply by tapping a single button instead of typing.