Case study:exploring children’s password knowledge and practices

Children use technology from a very young age, and often have to authenticate themselves. Yet very little attention has been paid to designing authentication specifically for this particular target group. The usual practice is to deploy the ubiquitous password, and this might well be a suboptimal choice. Designing authentication for children requires acknowledgement of child-specific developmental challenges related to literacy, cognitive abilities and differing developmental stages. Understanding the current state of play is essential, to deliver insights that can inform the development of child-centred authentication mechanisms and processes. We carried out a systematic literature review of all research related to children and authentication since 2000. A distinct research gap emerged from the analysis. Thus, we designed and administered a survey to school children in the United States (US), so as to gain insights into their current password usage and behaviors. This paper reports preliminary results from a case study of 189 children (part of a much larger research effort). The findings highlight age-related differences in children’s password understanding and practices. We also discovered that children confuse concepts of safety and security. We conclude by suggesting directions for future research. This paper reports on work in progress.<br/

“Passwords protect my stuff” - a study of children’s password practices

Children use technology from a very young age and often have to authenticate. The goal of this study is to explore children’s practices, perceptions, and knowledge regarding passwords. Given the limited work to date and that the world’s cyber posture and culture will be dependent on today’s youth, it is imperative to conduct cyber-security research with children. We conducted surveys of 189 3rd to 8th graders from two Midwest schools in the USA. We found that children have on average two passwords for school and three to four passwords for home. They kept their passwords private and did not share with others. They created passwords with an average length of 7 (3rd to 5th graders) and 10 (6–8th graders). But, only about 13% of the children created very strong passwords. Generating strong passwords requires mature cognitive and linguistic capabilities which children at this developmental stage have not yet mastered. They believed that passwords provide access control, protect their privacy and keep their “stuff” safe. Overall, children had appropriate mental models of passwords and demonstrated good password practices. Cyber-security education should strive to reinforce these positive practices while continuing to provide and promote age-appropriate developmental security skills. Given the study’s sample size and limited generalizability, we are expanding our research to include children from 3rd to 12th graders across multiple US school districts

Impact of opioid-free analgesia on pain severity and patient satisfaction after discharge from surgery: multispecialty, prospective cohort study in 25 countries

Background: Balancing opioid stewardship and the need for adequate analgesia following discharge after surgery is challenging. This study aimed to compare the outcomes for patients discharged with opioid versus opioid-free analgesia after common surgical procedures.Methods: This international, multicentre, prospective cohort study collected data from patients undergoing common acute and elective general surgical, urological, gynaecological, and orthopaedic procedures. The primary outcomes were patient-reported time in severe pain measured on a numerical analogue scale from 0 to 100% and patient-reported satisfaction with pain relief during the first week following discharge. Data were collected by in-hospital chart review and patient telephone interview 1 week after discharge.Results: The study recruited 4273 patients from 144 centres in 25 countries; 1311 patients (30.7%) were prescribed opioid analgesia at discharge. Patients reported being in severe pain for 10 (i.q.r. 1-30)% of the first week after discharge and rated satisfaction with analgesia as 90 (i.q.r. 80-100) of 100. After adjustment for confounders, opioid analgesia on discharge was independently associated with increased pain severity (risk ratio 1.52, 95% c.i. 1.31 to 1.76; P &lt; 0.001) and re-presentation to healthcare providers owing to side-effects of medication (OR 2.38, 95% c.i. 1.36 to 4.17; P = 0.004), but not with satisfaction with analgesia (beta coefficient 0.92, 95% c.i. -1.52 to 3.36; P = 0.468) compared with opioid-free analgesia. Although opioid prescribing varied greatly between high-income and low- and middle-income countries, patient-reported outcomes did not.Conclusion: Opioid analgesia prescription on surgical discharge is associated with a higher risk of re-presentation owing to side-effects of medication and increased patient-reported pain, but not with changes in patient-reported satisfaction. Opioid-free discharge analgesia should be adopted routinely

Design of computer interfaces for the Chinese population

The objective of this study was to develop and test models of human-computer interface design which would minimize performance time and error rate for the Chinese population. Past research has documented the cognitive and cultural differences between the American and the Chinese populations. Based on this, a three-dimensional conceptual model was proposed which represents the underpinning cognitive and cultural attributes which should be embedded in software interface. The model consists of knowledge representation, interface structure and presentation mode. Two experiments, in which 40 American and 70 Chinese subjects participated, were conducted to test the model in the USA and Mainland China. There were three trials in each experiment. The independent variables of Experiment I were knowledge representation and interface structure. The dependent variables were performance time, errors, memory recalls and satisfaction. The independent variable of Experiment II was the presentation mode of icon displays, and the dependent variables were performance time, errors and satisfaction. The main results of the two experiments indicated the following: (1) For the Chinese users, error rates with a thematic structure were significantly lower than with a functional structure throughout all three trials. (2) For the Chinese users, performance time with a concrete representation was faster than with an abstract representation at the third trial. Performance times with a thematic structure were faster than with a functional structure at the first and second trials. Performance times with a pictorial presentation mode of icon displays were faster than with an alphanumeric mode at the first and third trials. (3) For the American users, error rate with a functional structure was lower than with a thematic structure, and the error rate with an alphanumeric presentation mode of icon displays was lower than with a pictorial mode at the first trial. (4) For the American users, performance time with an alphanumeric presentation mode of icon displays was faster than with a pictorial mode at the first trial. This research demonstrates the importance of embedding cultural awareness within the design of user interfaces and the need of adjusting computer interfaces for the Chinese users to enhance computer performance

A Field Study of User Behavior and Perceptions in Smartcard Authentication

Part 1: Long and Short PapersInternational audienceA field study of 24 participants over 10 weeks explored user behavior and perceptions in a smartcard authentication system. Ethnographic methods used to collect data included diaries, surveys, interviews, and field observations. We observed a number of issues users experienced while they integrated smartcards into their work processes, including forgetting smartcards in readers, forgetting to use smartcards to authenticate, and difficulty understanding digital signatures and encryption. The greatest perceived benefit was the use of an easy-to-remember PIN in replacement of complicated passwords. The greatest perceived drawback was the lack of smartcard-supported applications. Overall, most participants had a positive experience using smartcards for authentication. Perceptions were influenced by personal benefits experienced by participants rather than an increase in security