Are you always looking to expand your security practices? Do you want to take a crack at instituting a whole new way of creating a secure, password infrastructure? If so, this article on keystroke dynamics can help you break into whole new worlds of security...

Measure the total time of entry and verify the time between keystrokes to help authenticate a user regardless of the data being entered. Require nonprintable characters, such as backspace and break, in the password to enable new levels of password obfuscation. Learn how to apply the open source tools xev and Perl in keystroke dynamics to measure the more-subtle characteristics of human-computer interaction.

The whorls and ridges on your fingertips can identify you based on what you touch. How you touch and especially type can often be just as unique an activity. Keystroke dynamics is a relatively new field that enables identification of individuals through statistical analysis of their typing patterns. Many commercial products analyze the dynamics of password entry, as well as continuous typing monitoring for enhanced security. This article uses example code to demonstrate keystroke dynamics for enhancing the security of your applications in authentication and continuous data entry contexts.