Two big shots at Google: Eric Grosse and Mayank Upadhyay, recently made announcements concerning Google’s upcoming password strategies. They said that the company is thinking of introducing passwords that would be tied to your physical belongings.

Grosse recently wrote in an article that is yet to be published at the official IEEE Security & Privacy website, “It is time to give up on elaborate password rules and look for something much better.” From a general perspective, and I am not saying that I am a diehard Google fan; this new password strategy would be something better than the old one.

People get their accounts hacked all the time. The reasons are alluded to:

• Easy Passwords
• Weak Passwords
• Outdated Passwords

So probably the knuckleheads at Google loved the ‘Lord of The Rings’ series way too much. They came up with the idea of creating a ring, which would eventually help users authenticate and access their Google accounts. Does the “One ring to rule them all” concept ring a bell here? Of course it does. Since Google has incorporated a universal password system for Google accounts, such as:

-          YouTube

-          Gmail

-          Google Plus

-          Google Play

-          Google Blogger

-          Google Analytics

-          Google Webmaster

It would be real easy for anyone to steal a person’s account. The ring, in this instance, would only allow the original owner of the account to gain access. Google already had a nice experience with its ‘Two Step Password Verification Campaign’ that was based on a user defined password and a unique code SMSd to the person’s mobile phone.

However, as much as the ‘Two Step Google Password’ authentication process is a comforting relief, it is still an irritating process. The next thing Google came up with was the idea of USB tokens. The strategy was to create token USBs that would be tied to the owner’s Google account through a unique code. Upon connecting that USB token, the said user would have been able to open his Google account.

Then again, the idea of persuading people into buying USB tokens was really a big deal. Unless someone at Google wanted to do that forcibly, users would have never bought those Google USBs for the sake of protecting their online accounts.

In the end, they applied the same concept of USB token to the ring thing. Rings are cute, they are easy to carry and people have a knack for them, at times. So why not create a ring authenticator that would hang on to your finger, whilst letting you store your unique Google Account password in it?

Both Grosse and Upadhyay wrote in the upcoming IEEE Security and Privacy article, “Some more appealing form factors might involve the integration of Google passwords with smartphones or jewelry that users are likely to carry anyway. We would like your smartphones or smartcard-embedded finger ring to authorize a new computer via a tap on the computer, even in situations where you are not able to get cellular connectivity.”

There you have it; a brand spanking new twist to password protection. What do you think about it? Is Google really going to implement this idea? Let us know through the comments section below!

This entry was posted on Monday, January 28th, 2013 at 6:35 AM and is filed under National News, Tech Norms. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.