
Startup Vidoop Has A Plan To Monetize User Logins - transburgh
http://gigaom.com/2007/10/04/startup-vidoop-has-a-plan-to-monetize-user-logins/
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phony_identity
Some nitpicking:

"Data security is just hard to provide, and thanks to hackers, even harder to
protect." Wait, the 'hackers' are the reason it's hard to provide, right? So
why the "even harder to protect" part?

Later there's the typical focus on stock price instead of market cap. This is
the "ooh, shiny!" school of business writing.

"This curbs the riskiest kind of hacking" Please reduce hacking risk; wear a
helmet.

You know what this reminds me of? A local newspaper article. This writer isn't
smart enough to be on the web; Om should fire him.

I'm sorry, everyone. Just had to get this off my chest.

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majimojo
This is similar to CAPTCHAs being used to scan books. Smart idea. Wouldn't be
surprised if that's where it got its inspiration.

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joshwa
or hotcaptcha or petcaptcha...

<http://www.hotcaptcha.com/>

<http://research.microsoft.com/asirra/>

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herdrick
How is this secure? There are only 15 choose 3 different possible logins for
each screenful of pictures. That's 455. So you have a 1/455 chance of just
guessing the right one? Or does order matter? Maybe that's what's happening.
15 permute 3 is 479,001,600.

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nickb
Had you actually read through or watched the video, you'd notice that you
can't just take someone's username and start guessing. They have a second
layer that requires "out of band" authentication.

<http://www.vidoop.com/vidoop_how.php>

Also, it's more like 12 choose 2 but you cannot enter those two easily since:
they change all the time and they're embeded in pictures.

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herdrick
I misread 12 as 15. But the blog post says you pick three images. So 12 choose
3, or 220.

OK, if you were willing to sit through their video, why don't you tell us
about this second layer?

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almost
Wow, that is really really really stupid idea. There are just so many things
wrong with it.

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vlad
It's good because instead of tracking your keystrokes, spyware will have to
take screen shots of your web browser whenever it notices a login form in the
web browser.

What it might do is solve a lot of security issues as a side effect-- by
forcing users to stop using their single password on every web site, which is
what many or most users do right now. Although, now they'll just use the same
three image categories, unless they really want to memorize many sets of them
for different sites, and competing visual authentication systems.

What it really does is allow companies to pay money for showing pictures. This
isn't to help consumers, since this forces users to take the additional step
of thinking every time they login. It's to make deals with ad agencies.

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trekker7
hey that's pretty cool

The beauty is, you have to remember your passwords... so you'll have an image
of a grande frappuchino permanently embedded in your head, the next time you
drive by a Starbucks. Consumerists, rejoice.

