VIBI: A Braille Inspired Password Entry Model

to Assist Person with Visual Impairments

V. Balaji(B) , K. S. Kuppusamy, and Shaikh Afzal

Department of Computer Science, School of Engineering and Technology,

Pondicherry University, Pondicherry, India
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract. Visually impaired smartphone users are more vulnerable to

cyber attacks such as visual/oral eavesdropping and shoulder surfing.
One of the prime reasons is that these users are soft-target for the afore-
mentioned attacks as they expose the visual and aural cues easier than
the sighted users. Visually impaired people ultimately suffers from pri-
vacy threats in smart-phone platform. This paper proposes a braille
inspired password entry model termed as VIBI to assist persons with
visual impairments. We have examined the security attacks on smart-
phones and proposed a multi-model system named VIBI, that provides
the secure braille pattern based text input for persons with visual impair-
ment. The user enters the password in an interface designed with inspi-
rations from braille by tapping many times on touch screen with their
fingers. Users can enter password in both portrait landscape orientations.
We have conducted sessions with visually impaired participants to evalu-
ate the model which shows that VIBI is faster, safer and easier to access
than existing authentication models for smart-phones.

Keywords: Smartphone security · Visually impaired · Braille input

Authentication

1 Introduction
Smart-phones have turned into one of the most essential components of our
day to day life. Smart phone carries lot of Personal and sensitive data. When
authentication of access fails, attackers can easily access the smartphone data.
Shoulder surfing is a form of attack where attackers will observe the moves of
an user in the physical proximity. Persons with disabilities particularly persons
with visual impairments suffers a lot from shoulder surfing. When the visually
impaired persons are entering the password in the device [20], attackers can
view the graphical password, PIN (Stroke based input). Our primary target is
to provide high level accessible authentication for smart-phone users.
Statistical report shows that the total number of mobile phone users is
approximately 7.4 billion [7] and the Android operating system has been dom-
inating the others operating in smartphone market which is installed approxi-
mately in 82.8% of smart devices globally [9]. The smartphones generally carry
c Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2018
G. P. Venkataramani et al. (Eds.): ICIIT 2017, CCIS 808, pp. 320–327, 2018.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-7635-0_25
 Visually Impaired Braille Input: VIBI 321

lots of sensitive information including personal and business level details. Hence
attackers target smartphone users in order to steal these information [14] in
various ways. Authentication is the primary check against the attacks. The
authentication mechanism in smart-phones can be provided by passwords, pat-
tern lock etc. The threats confronted by the disabled people are shoulder surfing
and visual/aural eavesdropping attacks. So highly secured accessible password
protection is a necessary constraint to dispose of the attacks. We haven taken
accessibility as major component for providing Accessible security models.
According to the WHO (World Health Organization) report, 15% of the world
population is disabled, 285 million people are estimated to be visually impaired
where 39 millions are blind and 249 have low vision [21]. Providing assistive
smartphone technology to the differently-abled users is essential so that they
become an active participants of our society.

1.1 Braille

Braille1 is a pioneer assistive method used by visually impaired users for reading
and writing. Braille based smartphone applications have entered into mobile
phone platforms [8]. Persons with visual impairments also use mobile specific
screen reading services such as Talkback [17], VoiceOver [19] The Braille method
is organized with 6 dots, each row consist of 2 dots (3 * 2).
Typing in password secretly is a challenging task for person with visually
impairments. Screen readers makes aural feedback for each key press when enter-
ing password. Avoiding these key sounds makes it hard for visually impaired
users to enter the correct password. In our work we focus to achieve secured
accessible smart-phone password input mechanism and hence we have proposed
a password entry model with an interface inspired by the braille patterns. The
proposed model is termed as VIBI (Visually impaired Braille input).
The main contributions of this work are as listed below:

(a) Proposing an accessible and secure password entry model titled VIBI.
(b) To utilize the familiarity of the persons with visual impairments in using the
Braille by creating an interface with six dots components, for strengthening
the password entry mechanism for smart-phones.

The remainder of this paper is organized as follows: The Sect. 2 provides an

overview of the related works. Section 3 deals with the Methodology and Design
Goals of VIBI. Section 4 deals with experiments. Conclusion are given in Sect. 5.

2 Related Works
As the touch-screen based interfaces are now everywhere which makes interac-
tion easier and provide more engaging and natural user experience. However, the
touchscreen interfaces demand constant visual attention which is impossible for
1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braille.
322 V. Balaji et al.

persons with visual impairments. There are some alternative mechanisms avail-
able for them, but in the form of dedicated cumbersome hardware with limited
portability and covers limited functionalities. These devices are expensive, Blue-
tooth based gadgets, but we need to carry additional components likes batteries
and additionally do manual setup which is time consuming and gives limited
result. There are many commercial and freeware assistive software available for
visually impaired users such as TalkBack [16] in Android phones and VoiceOver
in iOS phones2 . Many works have been carried out in the field of mobile acces-
sibility for persons with disabilities: Shabnam and Govindarajan [12] proposed
Braille-coded gesture patterns for touch-screens which is a character input sys-
tem called Eyedroid in which screen is divided into two columns and three rows,
the pattern motivated from 3 * 2 braille system which is gesture based haptic app.
Kane et al. [5] proposed an edge oriented gesture for visually impaired people.
Siqueira et al. [13] have developed BrailleEcran which is an android application
that consist of points on screen protector and Braille symbols on it.
Srivastava and Dawle [15] have proposed Mudra: A multimodal interface for
braille teaching which consist of mobile phone, raspberry pi with refreshable
one character braille and audio headset gives voice output and tactile feedback.
Nicolau et al. [10] focused on HoliBraille, a system that combines touch input and
multi-point vibrotactile output on multi touch screen mobile devices. They are
motivated from traditional Perkins Brailler and designed an interface based on
Perkins Brailler. The model consists of both software (App) and hardware. The
prototype consists of six vibrotactile motors attached to springs and a silicone
case. Ludi et al. [6] have shown a framework AccessBraille, which is an iOS
framework that suggested to provide a Braille keyboard to an iOS application.
The AccessBraille keyboard enables blind users to enter text via Braille easily
onto iPads display. The keyboard framework is designed to enable steadiness in
Braille input within and across through iOS apps. To initialize the keyboard,
the user must swipe 6 fingers (three on each hand) upwards on the screen. The
dots of braille represented as 6 columns here. The issue with this AccessBraille
keyboard is each letter is spoke out by voice over inbuilt accessibility feature
which may slow down the over all performance of the system.
TeslaTouch [22] uses an instrumented touch surface to provide tactile sen-
sations on users fingers tips through electrostatic friction. However, feedback is
restricted to a single point of contact. Azenkot et al. [1] proposed a non visual
authentication model called passchord. This approach has proposed a prevention
mechanism of aural and visual eavesdropping. A preliminary study investigated
with 13 visually impaired participants is done to evaluate the model. To measure
the password strength of the model, entropy methods has been used and met-
rics calculated, passchord model produces 15 possible combinations in 4 fingers
taping. Eiband et al. [2] presented a survey about shoulder surfing, with the
participation of 174 users. He has observed variety of copying strategies. The
work contributes the empirical evidence of shoulder surfing in the real world and
reveal the necessity to enhance the security aspects. Visually impaired people
2
http://www.apple.com/in/accessibility/iphone/vision/.
 Visually Impaired Braille Input: VIBI 323

use smartphones with the help of Assistive technologies like screen readers. The
visual and aural output of smartphone usage is a powerful cue for the attackers
in carrying out proximity based attacks.
There are several methods available to provide authentication in smartphone
platform such as PIN (personal identification number), password authentication,
pattern lock, biometric and others. Although, these technique are providing sig-
nificant contribution to protect from unauthorized people, but differently-abled
persons are highly vulnerable because accessibility issue is not well addressed.
In this section, we have listed some of the existing screen lock techniques.

– Slide lock: This method is used to lock mobile screen in an Android Operating
System, but it does not provides high level security. Unauthorized persons can
easily access and slide to unlock the screen without permission [11].
– PIN lock: This method is used to lock mobile screen, by setting numbers 0 to
9. Users are required to enter a precise pin to unlock mobile device. Drawback
in this method for visually impaired persons is the easier shoulder surfing [3].
– Password: Users Need to provide alphabets, numbers and special characters.
Drawback in this method is less secured, more complex input required. Pass-
word will take much time to give input, hackers can easily trace by shoulder
surfing and eavesdropper [3].
– Pattern lock: This lock method is widely used to draw various graphical pass-
words in nine dots for normal users, which is hard to access for visually
impaired users. Attackers can easily perform shoulder surfing and observe
patterns [18].

3 Methodology and Design Goals of VIBI

The design goals of the proposed VIBI model are as listed below:

– Visually impaired persons can enter the password quickly without significant
barrier.
– Visually impaired users can be protected from aural eavesdropping.
– Highly secured braille password strength with the combination of pressure
gradient techniques.

The architecture of the secure user friendly Braille inspired input screen lock-
ing system is shown Fig. 1. Authentication is provided through three different
inputs 1. Character passwords (visible), 2. Hidden password, 3. Pressure Gradi-
ent Input.

3.1 Interface

The proposed model entitled as “VIBI” (Visually Impaired Braille Input), pro-
vides a secured accessible braille input for persons with visually impairments.
The home menu of VIBI model is shown in Fig. 2.
324 V. Balaji et al.

Fig. 1. VIBI architecture diagram

Fig. 2. Home menu of VIBI

– Braille text input - This module controls the touch input of users. It will
translate the given touch input into braille alphabet. This module checks
whether the touches in grid are matched or not. If the touch inputs match
then produce alphabets characters, if it is not matching the grid input, then
it will throw the re-enter message.
– Pressure module - This module is an additional feature of VIBI to provide high
level authentication for smart phone users. Pressure module is responsible for
pressure sensitivity input.

4 Experiments

In order to calculate the performance of VIBI model, we have conducted various

experimental sessions to observe performance, we included six visually impaired
participants. Demographic details of the participants are shown in the Table 1.
Participants were asked to use the developed VIBI Andorid app and asked
to provide their feedback3 . The performance is evaluated with the following

3
https://github.com/BALAJIPUCS/Braille-Pattern-Password.git.
 Visually Impaired Braille Input: VIBI 325

Table 1. Details of participants and experimental tools

components: (a) Comparison of Time Taken to lock and unlock braille pat-
tern (b) Ease-of-Use (EoU) which is measured in Likert scale [4] of 1 to 5. 1
means least satisfaction and 5 means maximum satisfaction in our VIBI model
(Figs. 3 and 4).

Fig. 3. Hidden password Fig. 4. Character password

Figure 5 Shows the mean value of Time (No of seconds) Taken to unlock
pattern. Ease-of-Use metric is illustrated in Fig. 6.

Fig. 5. Time taken to lock and unlock the pattern

326 V. Balaji et al.

Fig. 6. Ease of use

5 Conclusions

In this paper, we have proposed a secure accessible password entry mechanism

inspired by braille to assist persons with visual impairments. We have adopted
this Braille grid based graphical user interface for security lock techniques. A pro-
totype Android application was designed. We incorporated 6 visually impaired
participants to evaluate the preliminary model. We have conducted experimen-
tal sessions and asked participants to use the VIBI Braille model, then collected
their valuable feedback in the dimensions of security and time-taken. We have
received a positive feedback from visually impaired participants. VIBI model was
rated user friendly by the participants of the experiment. In future VIBI model
will incorporate Bio-authentication techniques to provide multilayer security to
special users.

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