Elsevier

Computers & Security

Volume 6, Issue 6, December 1987, Pages 464-470
Computers & Security

Authenticating users by word association

https://doi.org/10.1016/0167-4048(87)90027-7Get rights and content

Abstract

Testing word associations, as an extension of simple password entry, may be a practical means of verifying the identity of individual computer users. If each user specifies his/her own cue-response associations, then responses will be easy to remember. It should be easy for legitimate users to respond correctly to word association testing, but virtually impossible for potential intruders. Such testing should also prove easy for a computer to process.

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Sidney L. Smith received his Ph.D. in psychology from MIT in 1954. Since 1958, he has been a technical staff member of The MITRE Corporation, where he is now a lead scientist. At MITRE he has worked on a wide variety of system development programs and technology studies. Dr. Smith is a fellow of the Human Factors Society, and is a reviewing editor of the journal Human Factors. For his studies of user interaction with automated information systems, he received the Society's Jack A. Kraft Award in 1977. He is also a fellow of the American Psychological Association, a member of the ACM Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (SIGCHI), and is on the editorial board of the journal Behaviour and Information Technology.

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