Mnemonic smart phone targets the forgetful

A NEW, SMART smart phone invention from the Japanese will cater for stupid people in high powered jobs. It could prove a boon to High Court Judges, spies and government ministers.

Japanese software developer Mnemonic Security recognised that increasingly people are too thick to remember a four digit security codes. So now it's invented a picture security code.

Security problems arise when mobile devices, carrying sensitive information, are issued to people who've been promoted to positions of responsibility way beyond their talents.

It's a particular problem in Britain, where the lack of social mobility means there are limited personnel choices in many jobs, as selection is restricted to members of a social class. This has led to the situation where a Tim Nice-But-Dim becomes a hedge fund manager in the City of London, with sensitive client information stored on his smart mobile phone. And John Prescott, the token proletarian of the Labour party, becomes deputy prime minister.

So the clever Japanese firm created a version of its picture-based personal verification system for use by dimmos no matter high they fly. It calls it the Mnemonic Guard for smartphones.

Mnemonic Guard replaces alphanumeric passwords with "pass-symbols", a series of pictures or illustrated images that are easy for the user to remember but have no special meaning for others who may try to hack in.

Remembering a sequence of pictures is a lot easier. John Prescott, for example, would be more likely to remember a four picture sequence that summarised his day: Pie, Chips, Pint, Secretary, rather than a series of numbers

Mnemonic Guard WM allows the user to configure a group of pictures and/or illustrated images that must be selected in the correct sequence from as many as 64 images in order to verify identity and access data on the handset. Users can input their own personal pictures to make the code even easier to remember.

Mnemonic Security released this software for regular cell phones in May, but the new Mnemonic Guard WM for smartphones is designed to run on Windows Mobile. The firm said marketing will begin later this month, targeting sales at companies that issue smartphones to their employees. µ