Passwords are the bane of every computer, mobile phone and internet user’s existence. We need them for pretty much everything: for banking, for social media, and for accessing our data. Using the same password for everything is not only a security issue, but may not even be possible, thanks to different rules for each site that requires one. PINgrid is a new high-tech password system that thinks that passwords should not only be more secure against hacking, but also simpler for users.
Internet users may soon have a secure solution to the modern plague of passwords, in which they can use visual patterns or even their own body parts to identify themselves. Developers at the world’s biggest high-tech fair, CeBIT, say that one of the biggest frustrations of having a smartphone and a computer is memorizing dozens of sufficiently airtight passwords for all their devices and accounts. “The problem of passwords is that they are very weak, they are always getting hacked, and also from a user point of view, they are too complicated, everybody has 20, 30, 60 passwords,” said Steven Hope, managing director of Winfrasoft from Britain, the fair’s guest country this year.
