Android lock pattern

[Tillers_Rule]

pattern stinks cause you can just change it if you get the pattern wrong three times

What are you talking about?

I get mine wrong 5 times in a row and it makes me wait 30 seconds to try again...

It never gives me the option to change it if I don't get it right in the first place

 

[JayMonster]

I think the lock pattern blows. Its really easy to figure out what the unlock code is just by looking at the finger print smug on the screen, its a dead give away. Try this, clean your screen free of finger prints and then unlock your phone and see that you have giving your pattern to anyone who has a half a brain.

You do also realize that you can "backtrack" in your pattern, making the pattern "untraceable" right? Or as somebody else pointed out, if you are going to... you know... actually use the phone, the pattern won't be the only swipes.

If you have a pin of 1234, you are not very secure, if you have an overtly simple pattern, it is also easy. That doesn't make the lock mechanism stupid... just the person using it.

 

[dandv]

The unlock pattern is a major security risk

I think the lock pattern blows. Its really easy to figure out what the unlock code is just by looking at the finger print smug on the screen, its a dead give away. Try this, clean your screen free of finger prints and then unlock your phone and see that you have giving your pattern to anyone who has a half a brain.

Generally on a touch screen phone, after unlocking it, it would be customary to follow up your pattern with multiple touches/swipes, since thats how you access the info that you unlocked it to get in the first place. Chances are, your pattern is history.

No.

This is a common scenario that leaves the smudge easily visible:

1. Receive a notification of some sort (IM, SMS, e-mail etc.)
2. Unlock the phone (leaves the fingerprint trace)
3. Read, then delete the notification (one or two taps that don't erase or scatter the smudge)
4. Lock the phone (usually pressing a hardware button, leaving the smudge intact).

Also, a numeric code entered on a touch screen phone would result in a similar "dead give away".

No.

With the pattern, an attacker only has to trace it from one end to the other, then in the opposite direction. By contrast, smudges left behind a PIN of N digits offer at least N! combinations. (You can repeat the digits in the PIN for extra combinations.)

I've filed this unlock pattern security risk issue on Android's Google Code. Please vote for it to be fixed.

 

[funken]

voted.....