  Many computer-based authentication schemata are based on pass- words. Logging
on a computer, reading email, accessing content on a web server are all
examples of applications where the identification of the user is usually
accomplished matching the data provided by the user with data known by the
application.
  Such a widespread approach relies on some assumptions, whose satisfaction is
of foremost importance to guarantee the robustness of the solution. Some of
these assumptions, like having a "secure" chan- nel to transmit data, or having
sound algorithms to check the correct- ness of the data, are not addressed by
this paper. We will focus on two simple issues: the problem of using adequate
passwords and the problem of managing passwords.
  The proposed solution, the pathword, is a method that guarantees:
  1 that the passwords generated with the help of a pathword are adequate (i.e.
that they are not easy to guess),
  2 that managing pathwords is more user friendly than managing passwords and
that pathwords are less amenable to problems typical of passwords.
