Page 74 - Hard Goals

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Obviously, the latter is the better choice. Only Bob is not
only more likely to use the former, he’ll probably also use it on
every one of his accounts (e-mail, credit cards, banking, Face-
book, and so forth).
Researchers in this study looked at a few different ways of
helping people develop and remember more complex, secure
passwords. Study subjects were asked to develop a number
of better passwords (they had to be at least eight characters
in length and have at least an uppercase and lowercase let-
ter, a digit, and a special character). This type of password
might seem diffi cult to remember, but subjects were also given
memory-assisting tools including image-based and text-based
mnemonic techniques.
For the image-based mnemonics, subjects were taught how
to look at a picture, pull out personal details, and turn those
details into a password. For example, a woman with a picture
of her boyfriend might look at it and say, “I date Matt.” From
there she can create a password such as EyeD8M@tt. That’s a
pretty uncrackable password that would also be really easy for
her to remember (unless, of course, she dumps Matt anytime
soon).
You can probably already guess where this is headed. The
image-based mnemonic group signifi cantly outperformed the
text-based mnemonic group. Their passwords were more com-
plex, and thus less crackable, and whether after 10 minutes or
a week, they took less time to remember their passwords. They
also needed fewer attempts to remember them and had fewer
forgotten passwords.
So what do we need to know here? Basically that anima-
tion—imagery, visuals, pictures, images, and the like—is essen-