Andrea Bianchi

Tangible user interfaces are portals to digital information. In the future, securing access to such material will be an important concern. This paper describes the design, implementation and evaluation of a PIN entry system based on audio or haptic cues that is suitable for integration into such physical systems. The current implementation links movements on a mobile phone touch screen with the display of non-visual cues; selection of a sequence of these cues composes a password. Studies reveal

Authentication in public spaces poses significant security risks. Most significantly, passwords can be stolen, potentially leading to fraud. A common method to steal a PIN is through an observation attack, either using a camera or through direct observation (e.g. shoulder-surfing). This paper addresses this problem by presenting the design and implementation of a novel input keypad which uses tactile cues as means to compose a password. In this system, passwords are encoded as a sequence of rand

Haptic and audio cues now appear commonly in computer interfaces, partially due to inherent advantages such as their support for eyes-free interaction. Their invisible, unobservable nature also makes them ideal candidates for security interfaces in which users have to enter secret information such as passwords. In particular, researchers have explored this idea through the design of PIN entry authentication systems based on multi-modal combinations of visual and non-visual content or on the reco

Authentication through passwords in public spaces (such as in ATMs) is susceptible to simple observation attacks, such as shoulder surfing, which can result in the password being compromised and ultimately the exposure of users to fraud and theft. Haptic technology, which can present information non-visually to users, offers a potential solution to this problem through the creation of tactile passwords. Situated in this space, this paper presents the design and initial evaluation of a novel hapt

Abstract Wearables are a rapidly emerging device category with wide-reaching use scenarios. The novel form factors and broad potential of this technology pose new security challenges: devices are typically on and close to a user. Furthermore, while they possess limited input and output channels, they often feature rich sensing, computing and communication capabilities. Due to this novel context, this paper argues that researchers need to reconsider the functional, technical and social aspects of

Tangible interaction allows the control of digital information through physical artifacts - virtual data is tied to real-world objects. Sensing and display technologies that enable this kind of functionality are typically complex. This represents a barrier to entry for researchers and also restricts where these interaction techniques can be deployed. Addressing these limitations, recent work has explored how the touch screens on mobile devices can be used as sensing and display platforms for tan

PassBYOP is a new graphical password scheme for public terminals that replaces the static digital images typically used in graphical password systems with personalized physical tokens, herein in the form of digital pictures displayed on a physical user-owned device such as a mobile phone. Users present these images to a system camera and then enter their password as a sequence of selections on live video of the token. Highly distinctive optical features are extracted from these selections and us

Invisible input and output modalities, such as haptics and audio, are a potentially effective defense against observation-based attacks on PIN entry systems. However, the successful implementation of such systems calls for some general design guidelines. The featured Web extra is a video of Andrea Bianchi, Ian Oakley and Dong-Soo Kwon showing how haptics and audio input and output modalities can help keep passwords safe for users of ATMs and other devices.

Tablet computers and portable eReaders are gradually becoming the preferred platform for the consumption of textual materials. However, although these technologies are powerful, it is widely acknowledged that print documents better support the advanced active reading tasks necessary to gain a deep understanding of a text. While prior work to address this issue has aimed improve digital eReaders by either leveraging familiar physical affordances or by extending paper's capabilities with digital t

Research on tangible interaction and digital haptics has rarely intertwined, despite the natural relationship between physicality and touch. This paper addresses this relatively unexplored domain by presenting the Haptic Wheel, a freestanding single-axis rotational controller incorporating vibro-tactile cues. In addition to describing the hardware and implementation, the paper discusses the potential application of the system for eyes-free interaction, password entry and as an active puck on a t

Tangible systems present compelling interaction opportunities but are typically enabled by complex, bulky, awkward or expensive sensing infrastructures. This hinders their adoption in many application areas. In order to address this issue, this paper explores the use of simple active magnetic tokens that create carefully controlled patterns of varying magnetic flux as the building blocks of tangible systems. We describe the construction of these tokens and a software system capable of detecting

Authentication in public spaces, such as ATM PIN entry, is inherently susceptible to security attacks based on observation in person or via cameras. This paper addresses this problem with a system which allows users to enter a PIN on a standard mobile phone and then transmit it securely for authentication using modulated patterns of light shown on the screen and sensed by a cheap bespoke receiver unit. No pre-pairing is required as physical proximity guarantees security. The paper presents sever

Capacitive touchscreens have changed the way in which people interact with computational devices. In fact, direct touch input on screens is immediately understandable and appealing to both novice and advanced users and, more importantly, it leverages people's natural ability to use multiple fingers for input gestures. However, currently off-the-shelves touchscreens are unable to disambiguate among different fingers or to determine whether different touch-points belong to the same user, reducing