HWAuth: Handwriting-Based Socially-Inclusive Authentication

Abstract

Small, local group of users who share private resources (e.g., families, university labs, business departments) usually have limited usable authentication needs. For these entities, existing authentication solutions either require excessive personal information (e.g., biometrics), do not distinguish each user (e.g., shared passwords), or lack security measures when the access key is compromised (e.g., physical keys). We propose an alternative solution by designing HWAuth: an inclusive group authentication system with a shared text that is uniquely identifiable for each user. Each user shares the same textual password, but individual handwriting styles of the text are used to distinguish each user. We evaluated the usability and security of our design through a user study with 30 participants. Our results suggest that (1) users who enter the same shared passwords are discernible from one another, and (2) that users were able to consistently login using HWAuth.