Pattern lock
My phone has a pattern lock in which you must trace a pattern on the screen with your finger to access it. This is to keep people out of it. One day when I was driving, the Mrs. needed to use my phone but she forgot the pattern and couldn’t get it in three attempts. If you get to five, it locks down for about 10 minutes. Junior then says to the wife to let her see it. She takes the phone, looks at it, swipes her finger and hands the unlocked phone to her mom. I asked her how she knew the pattern and she says she didn’t. She says she just saw the pattern my ‘finger grease’ left on the screen. Clever. She should work for the FBI: FBI, stumped by pimp’s Android pattern lock, serves warrant on Google.
March 21st, 2012 at 10:03 am
My Blackberry is work-issued. Part of our security policy is that cell phones have to have a password. If you enter the password incorrectly 10 times in a row our Blackberries wipe themselves clean of all data.
March 21st, 2012 at 10:14 am
I work at a security company. One customer, who has our access system, gave all of his users the same access code. The keypad showed obvious dirt and wear on the 3,5,6 and 7 keys. I did not ask him how many tries someone would need to guess the code, as he *is* a customer.
March 21st, 2012 at 12:17 pm
Use a stylus.
March 21st, 2012 at 12:59 pm
Clean the screen frequently.
March 21st, 2012 at 6:39 pm
A client of mine restricted her daughters from using her computer because they were neglecting schoolwork by creating a Windows log-in password.
One of the girls put a single grain of salt on each key, and asked the mother to come over and give them access to the machine. Once Mom left, she wrote down the keys “missing” grains of salt and simply made anagrams of the letters until she guessed the right one.
March 21st, 2012 at 8:46 pm
Sounds like we have some future hackers in the waiting. Wow. 🙂
March 22nd, 2012 at 12:33 am
I once ascertained a cheating girlfriend’s voicemail PIN by listening to the key tones as she keyed it in. Of course, now I realize that if I feel the need to go to such lengths to snoop in on my woman’s wheelings and dealings, said relationship is already dead.
March 22nd, 2012 at 9:08 am
I heard that about you … That you have greasy fingers.
March 22nd, 2012 at 8:38 pm
I have the same and have thought about that as a serious weakness for that type of security. Nothing like having to wipe off the screen every time you use it.