SoK: Inaccessible & Insecure: An Exposition of Authentication Challenges Faced by Blind and Visually Impaired Users in State-of-the-Art Academic Proposals
Md Mojibur Rahman Redoy Akanda
34th USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security '25) · Day 1 · Usable Privacy and Security 1
This talk, presented by Md Mojibur Rahman Redoy Akanda from Texas A&M University, along with co-author Amanda Lacy and supervisor Nitar Sakenna, delves into a critical yet often overlooked area of cybersecurity: the authentication challenges faced by **blind and visually impaired (BVI)** users. Titled "SoK: Inaccessible & Insecure," the presentation outlines a comprehensive Systemization of Knowledge (SoK) paper that systematically evaluates the accessibility and security of 50 state-of-the-art academic authentication proposals. The core objective was to determine if these mechanisms, both general-purpose and those specifically designed for BVI individuals, adequately serve this diverse user group.
AI review
Legitimate SoK work that fills a real gap — nobody has systematically audited academic authentication proposals against BVI accessibility criteria at this scale, and the finding that even dedicated BVI schemes fail their own stated goals is genuinely useful. The ELISA framework gives the community a reproducible lens, but the talk itself is methodological scaffolding more than a security revelation, and the recommendations land in familiar 'design for inclusion from the start' territory.