Patent ID: 8011014

Claim:
A computer implemented method for password validation, said method comprising: a computer of a computer system receiving a user identifier (ID) and a user keying password from a user in conjunction with reception of a request from the user to obtain access to an application, the user keying password consisting of a first character string and a base password for the user, wherein the first character string consists of at least two text characters from a set of text characters and at least one keying character from a set of keying characters, and wherein the base password for the user consists of a plurality of text characters of the set of text characters, the set of text characters consisting of text characters allowed for defining a password of the user, the set of keying characters consisting of non-text characters not allowed for defining the password of the user; and said computer determining that the first character string of the received user keying password matches a second character string determined by a password definition rule specified in a keying password reference, the keying password reference consisting of the password definition rule represented as a third character string consisting of at least two characters, each character in the third character string representing a subset of the user keying password and differing from each character in the base password and in the first character string, wherein at least one character in the third character string represents more than one text character of the plurality of text characters of the base password and fewer characters than the plurality of text characters of the base password, wherein said receiving the user keying password comprises receiving each text character of the at least one text character from depression by the user of a corresponding key of a hardware keyboard of the computer system and receiving each keying character of the at least one keying character from a hardware input device of the computer system, wherein each keying character of the at least one keying character denotes a state of a user-controlled element of the hardware input device, and wherein responsive to and after said determining that the first character string of the user keying password matches the second character string determined by the password definition rule specified in the keying password reference, the method further comprises: said computer ascertaining by the application that the user ID and a user password respectively match a reference ID and a reference password, said user password consisting of the text characters in the user keying password, said text characters in the user password sequenced according to a sequential ordering of the text characters in the user keying password, said text characters in the user password comprising the plurality of text characters of the base password; and responsive to said ascertaining, said computer granting access to the application.