Digg This: Thwarting Keyloggers

There's an interesting discussion over on Digg.com concerning a Microsoft research paper titled "How To Login From an Internet Cafe Without Worrying About Keyloggers" (PDF). The paper is an easy read for a moderately experienced computer user and the trick they recommend does have merit. But (and there's always a 'but'), it's not a foolproof method. The absolute best method is also the simplest - never, ever login to anything important via public computers.

Having warned about that, the gist of the research paper suggests alternating between typing the login credentials and typing characters somewhere else in the focus window. For example, type one letter of your password, then click somewhere else within the same focus window (it must be the same window) and type some random characters, then click back in the password area and type the next character, and so on. Tedious, not entirely foolproof, but if you're in a pinch and absolutely must login via a public computer, it's certainly better than nothing.

The Digg comments are great and some of the suggestions provided by the commenters could be just as effective (again, none are entirely foolproof). Definitely worth a read.