Comment by yencabulator

2 years ago

I've seen a GUI password input field that mutated an abstract line drawing on every keypress. Think random cross-hatching over the whole input field where the lines are nudged a little on every press.

(Not that that's necessarily a good idea, it still gives away timing/length information to e.g. cameras.)

6 comments

yencabulator

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Vicinity9635  2 years ago

I remember seeing this in Lotus Notes. Never saw it before that, or since.

  • yencabulator  2 years ago

    Oh yes, that could be it! Employer made me run Windows in a VM to read corporate email.

    My memory doesn't match videos I can find online of it, but that could be version differences.

    • compsciphd  2 years ago

      At IBM someone made something called fetchnotes that worked like fetchmail, but worked with mail and calendar, made me able to get away with minimal usage of notes.

  • nmstoker  2 years ago

    Yes. Wasn't it to make it harder spoof a password prompt with a static image popping up?

    • Cyykratahk  2 years ago

      I think it was to provide an indication that the password was correct at a glance. (IIRC the number of dots in the password field was also generated, so it didn't necessarily match the number of chars)

      The image was essentially a simple checksum. Each user would eventually memorise which icon was "theirs".