In the past few years, the emoji field has been keep innovating. You must have been noticed that emoji now actually have different skin color expressions, and even added some endangered mammals. But so far, few people have tried to apply ubiquitous emoji to the password field. Along with emoji becoming one of the fastest growing language, a British technology company launched the world’s first emoji password composition.
(Emoji password can also tell a story to your brain and help you remembering it.)
The “expression Password” allow consumers to use a combination of four expressions logging into a bank account rather than the traditional identification code or password. These four characters are chosen from 44 emoticons. The inventor of this technology (Intelligent Environments) company believes that this emoticon identification code (pins) are remembered easier than “digital” or “character” predecessors. Moreover, from a mathematical point of view, the digital code can only select 0-9 this 10 digits, while expression password, you can choose from 44 kinds of expression. If necessary, they can continue to increase the number of expression bank. As a result, the number of combinations of different expressions password will greatly exceed numeric code, which makes it more secure than traditional digital password. It also can prevent hackers from identifying common or easy digital code, such as birth date or anniversary.
According to the UK survey results over 1300 respondents showed that nearly a third of them have forgotten their passwords. While a quarter of respondents said, they used same passwords for all cards. In this situation, the company hopes to negotiate to any interested bank. These banks plan to bring this technology to their customers in the next 12 months.
They said the new emoticons safety technology can help people more easily remember different passwords. Studies have shown that human have better memory on image than words. Memory expert and inventor of Mind Mapping technique, Tony Buzan, comments “Expression password played a remarkable ability of human memory of the picture, this capability is rooted in our evolutionary history when the information in picture form appears, we can remember more information.” Because expression passwords are easier to remember, Tony also suggest that it would encourage people to come up with different passwords for different use, rather than use the same one on all platforms password.
David explained that they would target on people were born in 1990s and 2000s. During their research and development of this technology, they found out that now the younger generation are using new ways to communicate. The research shows that 64% of youths often only communicate with emoticons. Therefore, they decided to develop the world’s first ’emoticons’ security technology as a new generation of the password.
Although I don’t know will emoticon password take over traditional password’s place in future, it is still a very interesting idea and innovation. It expanded the field of password and very possibly will be adopted widely in various area. The shortcoming of this kind of password maybe easier to let other people see while you tying it. But in conclusion, I’m more than likely to try it out in my life. Are you interested in trying it out?
PS: Like sometimes it might be even easier to decode..such as…
: )
Reference
Cheryl L. Grady, Anthony R. Mcintosh, M. Natasha Rajah, Fergus I. M. Craik, “Neural correlates of the episodic encoding of pictures and words”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 95, pp. 2703–2708, March 1998
I think using emojis as passwords is a very interesting idea that I did not think of until reading about it, but I am also not surprised that this idea is in the works. Many people in my generation, even myself, use emojis in their daily conversations now. Not a lot of people talk on the phone anymore, so I think the emojis help show emotion and expression since you cannot actually hear the other person talk over text.
Where I do think this is a creative idea, I think it will be most useful for shorter pins, like for your bank, rather than using them for passwords on websites. Like what was said above, pin numbers can only use 0 through 9, and it is only 4 numbers, so guessing the combination would be easier than guessing a combination where there is over 40 different options. It is also very true that pictures are easier to remember than words or digits sometimes. It might also be harder to guess for others because you are going to either use emojis that link together and mean something that no one knows, or you will just select random ones that you will remember.
I think there is definitely some potential here, and I would be willing to try it out if the idea arises.
I love using emojis a lot, it is really so cool to have as part of password. I am surprised these popular cartoon expression can be in use. I believe it can enhance the strength of passwords with the use of 26 alphabets, numbers, and emoji. However, it requires the version to be united in all devices, otherwise it could not pervasive and may cause inconvenience. Moreover, computers have to be built in with emojis in order to successfully process with the accounts and some other smart phones might not have it built in as Apple may cause inconvenience for users.
I can’t say I’m surprised that people are considering using Emojis as security features. I recently saw a commercial for Dominos Pizza Delivery where you can text a pizza emoji and they’ll deliver a pizza to your door (I’m sure there’s some fine print somewhere in there). I would love to see emojis used in mobile security implemented as soon as possible. Rather than memorizing short terms or combinations of numbers, as you said, you can create stories to “reenact” via emoji. It would be interesting if Intelligent Environments increased the current bank of 44 emojis to all of the emoji images on our phones (skin color differences etc.). Would this possibly be too many options to create and remember passwords? Either way, I think this is a great idea that could promote more user safety among millennials.
It is surprising that Emoji has become an innovation in nowadays’ safety code. It was first used in chatting apps and in social medias. People can freely choose from 40 emoticons. More importantly, it gives more options for people to set a set of passwords to avoid the hacker from hacking the card information. The author also states that 64% of young adults communicate with emoticons. As the matter of fact, emoticons are widely used in devices and people can easily memorize the emoticons Numbers that people usually can remember are fairly easy. Therefore, why not try the emoji as passwords instead of boring numbers. People even come up with the idea of putting emoji in the front of the shirt to create a new design. These innovations do make our lives different.