Confident Technologies Makes Its Debut in Restart of Vidoop’s Security Software

Curtis Staker tells me that Portland, OR-based Vidoop had a Web security idea that was just too good to let die. So Staker, a veteran software security executive, helped to acquire Vidoop’s assets in January, moved the software development operation to Solana Beach, CA, near San Diego, and today is launching the reincarnated business as Confident Technologies.

What’s the idea?

Instead of requiring online users to gain access to a secure website by providing a username and password, Confident Technologies has developed an alternative authentication process based on recognizing images. The company says its technology generates a unique, one-time access code each time a user seeks access to a secure website, yet Confident’s approach also is intuitive and easier for customers to remember.

Staker says the human brain has an easier time remembering images and broad categories, such as dogs, airplanes, and flowers, than remembering lengthy strings of letters and numbers—especially when many users must keep multiple user-password combinations for all the different sites they log onto. In terms of intuitive simplicity, Staker says, if you’re searching for your car in a big parking lot, is it easier for you to remember your license plate number, or what your car looks like?

image grid
image grid

In announcing its business debut today, Confident Technologies says its approach makes life easier for online users by providing a randomly generated image to protect online transactions and sensitive information. With “image-based verification,” a user selects categories of images that are easy to remember, such as cars, airplanes, and insects, the first time he or she registers with a website, such as an e-commerce or online banking site. Then, every time the user logs into that website, he or she is presented with a grid of randomly generated images—each with a randomly generated number or letter overlaid on the photo. A user simply identifies the images that fit the previously selected categories.

Confident Technologies says its authentication software can work

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Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.