14 DAY TRIAL // How bad is your password? Well, if it’s among the famous list that includes “123456” and “password,” then it’s probably pretty bad and anyone could crack it, hacker or not.
Even if you’ve chosen something slightly more complicated, someone who knows you could probably decipher it after a while. So, Microsoft Research is trying to figure out just how weak your password is by reading your mind.
Yes, you did just read that. No, it’s not literally reading your mind, of course, but Telepathwords is able to predict your next character as you type it in. It’s not right 100 percent of the time, mind you, but it has its moments.
The tool basically lets you see how predictable your passwords are. As you type in letter after letter, Telepathwords will predict your next step. When you’re done, a checkmark will indicate the letters it chose correctly, while an X the characters it didn’t guess.
Of course, typing in your most secret passwords into the service might not sound like the most brilliant idea, but the team over at Microsoft Research promises that the contents of the log were encrypted straight on the browser before getting sent over to the server.
“We do not keep the keys required to decrypt the log on any publicly-facing server. (Our servers create a random, unique key for each log, transfer the key to your client, and encrypt the key with a public key that is not stored on any publicly-facing server),” they reassure users.
So, even if you don’t trust it enough to actually type in your actual password, you can play around and see if any of the ideas you usually come up with are up to the test. Chances are, the tool will guess at least half of the characters you fill in, but if the password is slightly more complicated, it could be just as baffled as anyone trying to crack your security.