JPH05324560A - User authentication system for information processor - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To safely authenticate a user by using the encoding technique where the position of a pointing device is inputted by neglecting to confirm by a display device. CONSTITUTION:The moving range of a mouse 201 is divided into a left range 302, a right range 303, and a range 301 where the mouse 201 is not regarded as moved. The position of the mouse 201 at the time when the button of the mouse 201 is first clicked is taken as the origin, and thereafter, the button is clicked several time, and the mouse is moved left or right, then the button is clicked several times. This operation is repeated to from an input pattern. The mouse is moved for a certain distance or longer with the button depressed on to terminate the input. Since this pattern has wide respective ranges and the position to which the mouse is moved is set as the next origin again in the case of movement, the cumulative error of the mouse position is eliminated, and therefor, the position of the mouse is inputted without being displayed.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a user authentication system for an information processing apparatus which authenticates the identity of the user by comparing a password presented by the user with a password stored in the information processing apparatus.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in a user authentication method in an information processing device, a password is provided in advance,
A user inputs this password using a character input device such as a keyboard, and compares each password with a password registered in advance in the information processing system to authenticate each user.

However, in recent information processing devices,
Input from the user does not depend on character input such as keyboard,
What is mainly performed by a pointing device such as a mouse has become popular.

In such an information processing system,
In order to authenticate the user with the password, it is necessary to use a keyboard or a means for inputting characters with a pointing device.

Among them, in order to input characters with a pointing device, a method has been used in which a user looks at a character displayed on the screen and designates it with the pointing device.

[0006]

However, it is costly to prepare a new keyboard for user authentication in an information processing apparatus capable of inputting only with a pointing device.

Further, forcing a user who is familiar with the operation with the pointing device to perform a key operation reduces usability.

Further, when a character is input by a pointing device, the character is displayed on the screen, and in the method of designating which character, what character is input is known. Therefore, there is a problem in the security of the password.

The present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned problems, and is for inputting the position of the pointing device without confirming the position of the pointing device when the password is input by the pointing device,
An object of the present invention is to provide an inexpensive, easy-to-use, and secure user authentication system by using an encoding means.

[0010]

In order to achieve this object, a user authentication system of an information processing apparatus according to the present invention is provided with a pointing device capable of inputting coordinate position and button press / release information. In a user authentication system of an information processing device that performs user authentication with a password, a coding unit that codes a movement amount and a direction of the pointing device and a combination of pressing and releasing a button as a first confirmation pattern, Predetermined,
The user authentication is performed by comparing the first confirmation pattern and the second confirmation pattern with a storage unit that stores a second confirmation pattern composed of a movement amount and a direction of the pointing device and a combination of pressing and releasing the button. Comparing and authenticating means for performing, and a prohibiting means for prohibiting the display of the position of the pointing device, when performing user authentication, by prohibiting the display of the position of the pointing device by the prohibiting means, by the comparative authentication means, The first confirmation pattern and the second confirmation pattern that have been input are compared and authenticated, and the use permission of the information processing apparatus is given according to the result.

[0011]

In the present invention having the above-mentioned structure, the pointing device outputs the movement amount and direction, and the data of button press and release by the operation of the user.
The encoding means encodes the data to generate a first confirmation pattern. The storage means stores a predetermined movement amount and direction of the pointing device and a second confirmation pattern including a combination of pressing and releasing the button. The comparing means includes a first confirmation pattern from the encoding means,
By comparing the second confirmation pattern in the storage means,
Perform user authentication. The prohibition means prohibits the display of the position of the pointing device.

[0012]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

The present invention is applied to an information processing apparatus having a structure as shown in FIG. 2, for example.

In FIG. 2, a mouse 201 is a pointing device for input. The input port 202 is a central processing unit (CPU) that receives electrical signals from the mouse 201.
Converted to data that can be processed by 203. The main body of this information processing apparatus is a well-known CPU 203, RAM 204, R
OM205, magnetic disk unit 207, display 2
09.

The CPU 203 sequentially executes the programs stored in the ROM 205. The CPU 203 can read data from the input port 202 according to the designation in the program. Similarly, data can be read from or written to the RAM 204 and the magnetic disk device 207, and data can be read from the ROM 205.

Further, the CPU 203 can display characters, images, cursors, etc. on the display 209 by designating a program.

In this embodiment, the CPU 203 controls input coding, comparison, and display. A confirmation pattern is stored in the magnetic disk device 207 or the ROM 205.

In the usual case, a cursor indicating the position of the mouse 201 is displayed on the display 209 by the CPU 203.

In the operation of this embodiment, the data being processed is stored in the RAM 204. This data is, as shown in FIG. 4, origin position data 401 representing the origin, current position data 403 representing the current mouse position, button press position data 405 representing the position when the button is pressed, and the number of times the button is pressed. A button press count data 407 indicating whether the button has been clicked and a pattern buffer 409 for forming a confirmation pattern.

In this user authentication system, the mouse 2
Data corresponding to the password is input by 01.
This data is called a pattern here. Further, a pattern coded by a coding method described later is called a confirmation pattern, and a pattern input from a mouse is called an input pattern. In addition, the confirmation pattern in the storage device is particularly referred to as a registration pattern, if necessary.

This pattern is constituted by a combination of movement of the pointing device and pressing / release of the button, and any pattern can be used as long as it can be input without displaying the mouse position. However, the following pattern is used in this embodiment.

As shown in FIG. 3, the moving range of the mouse 201 is divided into a left range 302, a right range 303, and a range 301 in which the mouse 201 is not considered to have moved. Mouse 20 when the button of mouse 201 is first clicked
The position of 1 is the origin. Then click the button several times, move to the left or right, and click the button a few more times. An input pattern is formed by repeating this operation several times.

Further, the input is ended by moving the distance over a certain distance while keeping the button pressed.

This pattern has a sufficiently wide range of each area, and when there is a movement, the position is reset as the next origin so that the cumulative error of the mouse position can be eliminated. Can be entered without displaying.

The outline of the operation will be described step by step.

In the following, user authentication in the present embodiment is performed by comparing a registration pattern that has been registered in advance with a confirmation pattern that is input each time the user uses it. The confirmation pattern can be registered as a registration pattern by the user, but in the present embodiment, the registration pattern is assumed to be registered in the storage device in advance.

An outline of user authentication is performed according to the procedure shown in FIG. First, enter the user name (S50
1). For this input, a conventional method may be used, and a method of inputting with a menu or designating a character displayed on the screen with a mouse may be used.

Next, after the user name is specified, the password pattern is input, but before that, the display of the mouse cursor on the display 209 is stopped (S50).
2). This is realized by stopping the display operation normally performed by the CPU 203.

Since the part for inputting the confirmation pattern by the user's operation of the mouse is the main part of this embodiment, the detailed procedure will be described with reference to the flow charts of FIGS. 5, 6 and 7.

Input of the confirmation pattern starts when the button of the mouse 201 is first clicked. At this time, the CPU 203 reads data from the mouse 201 via the input port 202. As shown in FIG. 6, first, the position of the mouse at that time is set as the origin and stored in the origin position data 401 (S601), and the button press count data 405 is initialized to 0 (S603).

Then, the next input from the mouse 201 is read (S605). The input data is either button press, release, or move. For movement, the position after movement is calculated (S615) and stored in the current position data 403.

If the button is pressed (S609), the process shown in FIG. 7 is performed. That is, the button press count data 507 is incremented by 1 (S701), and the current position represented by the current position data 403 is stored in the button press position data 405 for later detection of the end condition (S70).
3) Compare the current position data 403 of the mouse with the origin position data 401 to check in which range in FIG.

If the current position is on the right or left of the origin position, the button press count data 407 up to that point is output to the pattern buffer 409 (S709), and then the current position is on the right or It is output that the position is on the left (S711, S719). After that, the button press count data 407 is set to 1 and the current position data 4
03 is set as the next origin in the origin position data 401.

The processing at the time of releasing the button after S611 in FIG. 6 is to judge the end, and the button pressing position data 40
The position where the button stored in 5 is pressed is compared with the current position data 403 (S613), and if there is a movement over a predetermined distance, the input of the pattern ends.

Through a series of these processes, a pattern of the following format is obtained as the confirmation pattern.

(3 times) Left (2 times) Right (1 time) ... Here, "(3 times)" indicates that the button was clicked 3 times at the first position, and "left (2 times)" ) ”Indicates that it was clicked twice after moving to the left.

This data is held as an internal code in the pattern buffer 409. For example, in the case of the above pattern, the format is a character string "3L2R1" or the like.

Up to this point, the reading of the pattern (S50
3) ends. After that, the cursor display is restarted (S5
05), the input confirmation pattern and registered pattern are compared, and if they are the same, the user is authenticated as a regular user. If not, the process from the input of the first user name (S501) is repeated.

The present invention is not limited to the above embodiment. For example, when the character string is stored as it is when the registered pattern is stored, if the stored character string becomes known to a malicious user, the user can easily become another user. Therefore, the information processing apparatus can be protected from the leakage of the registered pattern by storing the registered pattern in an encrypted form instead of storing it as it is. In this case, the patterns are compared (S507).
This can be easily handled by encrypting the input pattern in the pattern buffer 409 immediately before.

Further, in the conventional user authentication method, a method of inputting a password by inputting characters from a keyboard has been adopted. In such an information processing system, it is desired that the password for the input from the keyboard and the confirmation pattern created in this embodiment be matched in some way.

This can be realized by a configuration in which any character can be output as the confirmation pattern. However, in this case, the display of the menu is not preferable as described above.

As an example, a method of inputting a character code by moving the pointing device and clicking a button will be described. First, the method of FIG. 3 is expanded to make the range of movement of the pointing device eight as shown in FIG. 8, and when the button is clicked in each range, a numerical value of 0 to 7 is assigned. Then, the character code required as the confirmation pattern is represented by an octal number, and the numerical value is input by the above method, whereby the character can be input without displaying the menu.

[0043]

As is apparent from the above description, according to the user authentication system of the present invention, it is possible to provide a safe and user-friendly method by using an encoding method in which the position of the pointing device can be input without confirming it with the display device. It can authenticate users without compromising the interface consistency.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an embodiment of an apparatus to which the present invention is applied.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing an input range at the time of pattern input in the present embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a structure of temporary data in the present embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a procedure of a trick of user authentication.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing details of confirmation pattern input processing.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing details of a button pressing process when a confirmation pattern is input.

FIG. 8 is an explanatory diagram showing an input range at the time of pattern input in a modified example of the embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

101 Pointing Device 103 Input Pattern Encoding Unit 105 Confirmation Pattern Storage Device 107 Comparison Unit of Registered Confirmation Pattern and Input Confirmation Pattern 109 Display Inhibition Device 111 Display Device

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A user authentication system of an information processing apparatus, comprising a pointing device capable of inputting a coordinate position and button press / release information, and performing user authentication with an input password, wherein the movement amount of the pointing device and Direction and
Encoding means for encoding a combination of button press and release as a first confirmation pattern, and a second confirmation pattern consisting of a predetermined amount and direction of movement of the pointing device and a combination of button press and release. The user authentication includes: a storage unit that stores the authentication information; a comparison authentication unit that compares the first confirmation pattern and the second confirmation pattern to authenticate the user; and a prohibition unit that prohibits the display of the position of the pointing device. When performing, the display of the position of the pointing device is prohibited by the prohibiting means, and the input verification pattern and the second verification pattern are compared and authenticated by the comparison and authentication means, and according to the result. A user authentication system for an information processing device, characterized in that permission for use of the information processing device is given.