The Interplay between Humans, Technology and User Authentication: A Cognitive Processing Perspective

This paper investigates the interplay among human cognitive processing differences (field dependence vs. field independence), alternative interaction device types (desktop vs. touch) and user authentication schemes (textual vs. graphical) towards task completion efficiency and effectiveness. A four-month user study (N=164) was performed under the light of the field dependence-independence theory which underpins human cognitive differences in visual perceptiveness as well as differences in handling contextual information in a holistic or analytic manner. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of results revealed that field independent (FI) users outperformed field dependent users (FD) in graphical authentication, FIs authenticated similarly well on desktop computers as on touch devices, while touch devices negatively affected textual password entry performance of FDs. Users’ feedback from a post-study survey further showed that FD users had memorability issues with graphical authentication and perceived the added difficulty when interacting with textual passwords on touch devices, in contrast to FI users that did not have significant usability and memorability issues on both authentication and interaction device types. Findings highlight the necessity to improve current approaches of knowledge-based user authentication research by incorporating human cognitive factors in both design and run-time. Such an approach is also proposed in this paper

Modelling the security of recognition-based graphical password schemes

Recognition-based graphical passwords are a suggested alternative authentication mechanism which have received substantial attention in research literature. The literature often presents new schemes, usability studies or propose countermeasures for specific attacks. Whilst this is beneficial, it does not allow for consistent comparison of the security of recognition-based graphical password schemes. This thesis contributes a proposed solution to this problem. Presented in this thesis are models for estimating the number of attacks required before success for four aspects of the security of a recognition-based graphical password scheme. This includes two types of guessing attacks and two types of observation attacks. These models combine to provide an overall metric of the security of recognition-based graphical password schemes. Attacks to be incorporated into the metric were established by reviewing the literature and establishing the scope and context. The literature review allowed extraction of the variables of a recognition-based graphical password scheme which represent the scheme. The first aspect examined was that of guessing attacks. The first guessing attack considered was random guessing, the model for this aspect was an adaption of the frequently reported mathematical model. The second guessing attack was a newly proposed attack which prioritised images from more popular semantic categories e.g. animals. The model for this attack was constructed as a further adaption of the random guessing model based on the success rates for the attack which were established by simulations which incorporated user selected images. The observability attacks modelled were shoulder surfing and frequency attacks. The observability attack models were constructed by simulation of the attacks for a wide range of potential configurations of the recognition-based graphical password schemes. A mathematical model was fitted to the resulting data. The final metric combined these models and was evaluated against a list of metric requirements established from relevant literature. The metric results in a consistent, repeatable, and quantitative method for comparing recognition-based graphical password schemes. It can be directly applied to a subset of schemes which allows their security levels to be compared in a way not possible previously. Also presented are details on how the metric could be extended to incorporate other recognition-based graphical password schemes. The approach detailed also allows the possibility of extension to incorporate different attack types and authentication contexts. The metric allows appropriate selection of a recognition-based scheme and contributes to a detailed analysis of the security aspects of recognition-based graphical passwords

Digital Interaction and Machine Intelligence

This book is open access, which means that you have free and unlimited access. This book presents the Proceedings of the 9th Machine Intelligence and Digital Interaction Conference. Significant progress in the development of artificial intelligence (AI) and its wider use in many interactive products are quickly transforming further areas of our life, which results in the emergence of various new social phenomena. Many countries have been making efforts to understand these phenomena and find answers on how to put the development of artificial intelligence on the right track to support the common good of people and societies. These attempts require interdisciplinary actions, covering not only science disciplines involved in the development of artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction but also close cooperation between researchers and practitioners. For this reason, the main goal of the MIDI conference held on 9-10.12.2021 as a virtual event is to integrate two, until recently, independent fields of research in computer science: broadly understood artificial intelligence and human-technology interaction

Recent Advances in Signal Processing

The signal processing task is a very critical issue in the majority of new technological inventions and challenges in a variety of applications in both science and engineering fields. Classical signal processing techniques have largely worked with mathematical models that are linear, local, stationary, and Gaussian. They have always favored closed-form tractability over real-world accuracy. These constraints were imposed by the lack of powerful computing tools. During the last few decades, signal processing theories, developments, and applications have matured rapidly and now include tools from many areas of mathematics, computer science, physics, and engineering. This book is targeted primarily toward both students and researchers who want to be exposed to a wide variety of signal processing techniques and algorithms. It includes 27 chapters that can be categorized into five different areas depending on the application at hand. These five categories are ordered to address image processing, speech processing, communication systems, time-series analysis, and educational packages respectively. The book has the advantage of providing a collection of applications that are completely independent and self-contained; thus, the interested reader can choose any chapter and skip to another without losing continuity

Practical, appropriate, empirically-validated guidelines for designing educational games

There has recently been a great deal of interest in the potential of computer games to function as innovative educational tools. However, there is very little evidence of games fulfilling that potential. Indeed, the process of merging the disparate goals of education and games design appears problematic, and there are currently no practical guidelines for how to do so in a coherent manner. In this paper, we describe the successful, empirically validated teaching methods developed by behavioural psychologists and point out how they are uniquely suited to take advantage of the benefits that games offer to education. We conclude by proposing some practical steps for designing educational games, based on the techniques of Applied Behaviour Analysis. It is intended that this paper can both focus educational games designers on the features of games that are genuinely useful for education, and also introduce a successful form of teaching that this audience may not yet be familiar with

Information scraps : understanding and design

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2008.Includes bibliographical references (p. 139-148).In this thesis I investigate information scraps - personal information whose content has been scribbled on Post-it notes, scrawled on the corners of sheets of paper, stuck in our pockets, sent in e-mail messages to ourselves, and stashed into miscellaneous digital text files. Information scraps encode information ranging from ideas and sketches to notes, reminders, shipment tracking numbers, driving directions, and even poetry. I proceed by performing an in-depth ethnographic investigation of the nature and use of information scraps, and by designing and building two research systems designed for information scrap management. The first system, Jourknow, lowers the capture barrier for unstructured notes and structured information such as calendar items and to-dos, captures contextual information surrounding note creation such as location, documents viewed, and people corresponded with, and manages uncommon user-generated personal information such as restaurant reviews or this week's shopping list. The follow-up system, Pinky, further explores the lightweight capture space by providing a command line interface that is tolerant to re-ordering and GUI affordances for quick and accurate entry. Reflecting on these tools' successes and failures, I characterize the design process challenges inherent in designing and building information scrap tools.by Michael Bernstein.S.M

Big Data Security (Volume 3)

After a short description of the key concepts of big data the book explores on the secrecy and security threats posed especially by cloud based data storage. It delivers conceptual frameworks and models along with case studies of recent technology

Paths to more effective personal information management

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2011.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 256-272).With the widespread availability of digital tools for storing, accessing, and sharing information, why is so much information still lost, forgotten, or kept on paper? The work in this thesis finds that such disorganization results from problems in the designs of the personal information management (PIM) tools in common use today. Such problems impede information capture, force many information forms to be left out, and cause information to be forgotten. How can these problems be mitigated? Our Information Scraps study identifies the need to support more diverse kinds of information, while conserving time, attention, and memory for retained information items. Our first approach to achieving these goals is to eliminate the artificial separation and homogeneity that structured PIM tools impose, so that arbitrary information can be captured in any way desired. A two-year study of List-it, our short-note-taking tool, discovers that people keep notes serving 5 primary roles: reminders, reference items, progress trackers, places to think, and archives of personal value. The second reintroduces structured data to support more effective use and management of information collections. Jourknow addresses the manageability of large note collections with lightweight-structured note contents and contextual retrieval, the access of notes by the contexts and activities at the time of creation. Poyozo reinforces recollection of previously seen information, by providing visualizations of all of a person's past information activities. Finally, Atomate addresses the challenge of managing the ever-increasing deluge of new information, by letting people delegate to software behaviors actions to be automatically taken when new information arrives. These studies identify critical needs of PIM tools and offer viable solutions.by Max Goodwin Van Kleek.Ph.D