PassHue: Introducing analog authentication

Abstract

Authentication, particularly in the mobile environment, has still failed to capture many useful types of human mental ability. In this paper, we present the concept of analog authentication, an idea revolving around the use of continuously variable information to authenticate users. Analog authentication shifts the memory task from pure recall to estimation, and taps into fundamental human intuition for differentiating items along a continuum. We design PassHue, a color-based analog authentication scheme, to demonstrate the memorability, usability, and security advantages that analog authentication can offer. Our in-the-wild user study demonstrates that PassHue can achieve average login times under 1.7 s, and remain memorable over a period of 2 weeks.