Researchers make weak passwords strong with CAPTCHAs plus an algorithm

In practice, if a user wanted to, say, encrypt a Word file, the person would do so using a commercial encryption application and jot down the password and split it into the two parts, easy and complex. The user would then go to the website Kladko and his colleagues plan to set up, create a CAPTCHA of the complex part and encrypt it with the easy part.

To decrypt, users enter the easy password to decrypt the complex part then enter that to decrypt the Word file. The website will have a tool that automatically applies the cleartext password to the encrypted file, Kladko says.

Read more about wide area network in Network World's Wide Area Network section.