Microsoft Goes Into Detail On The New Picture Password In Windows 8

By Robert Boland | December 17, 2011 in News

One of the most noticeable and exciting features in Windows 8 was the new picture password to log onto Windows 8. This new feature allows a user to log in by simply drawing a pattern on a picture, making it easy to remember and use. It’s quite cool and innovative and in a post from Microsoft’s building Windows 8 blog, they’ve gone into more detail on how it works.

First off, the picture that the user chooses is broken up into a system of grids.

Then, as you place gestures on the picture, the system records the (X1,Y1,) co ordinates of the starting point and then records the (X,Y) co ordinates for each point in the pattern that you draw as well as the ending co ordinates for lines. For circles it will record the radius and the direction of the circle.

So when you go to sign in, the system evaluates the gestures that you have entered against the ones that have been recorded during set up. Of course you wont be able to draw the gesture exactly the same everytime so Windows 8 will see if what you’ve drawn is close enough to authenticate you.

I think that this is easily the best way to log onto a touchscreen device, which is really what Microsoft are aiming at here with Windows 8.

Microsoft reckon that it’s a pretty secure method of logging in as well. The gesture can be composed of multiple reference points, taps and lines. It might be slightly easier for people to remember if they happen to see you doing it over your shoulder however. Otherwise it will certainly be easier and quicker to log on instead of entering a long complicated password.

The table below compares the number of different gestures you can use in a picture compared to a PIN

ength	10-digit PIN	Simple a-z character set password	More complex character set password	Multi-gesture picture password
1	10	26	n/a	2,554
2	100	676	n/a	1,581,773
3	1,000	17,576	81,120	1,155,509,083
4	10,000	456,976	4,218,240	612,157,353,732
5	100,000	11,881,376	182,790,400	398,046,621,309,172
6	1,000,000	308,915,776	7,128,825,600
7	10,000,000	8,031,810,176	259,489,251,840
8	100,000,000	208,827,064,576	8,995,627,397,120

The only thing that people are really worried about with this new method of signing on whether or not people will be able to figure out your password from smudges on your touchscreen

Of course this is a concern, but let’s be realistic about this. Your touchscreen is always going to have multiple smudges on it and even if you somehow manage to have a clean touchscreen and only the smudges left from your log on gesture, a hacker isn’t going to know what order you drew those gestures.