Twitter declares war on passwords with 'Digits' phone number login

Twitter formally declared war on passwords during a developers' conference in San Francisco, unveiling a new system that allows users to log-in to mobile apps with a phone number.Jeff Seibert, director for mobile platforms at the popular social network, Wednesday introduced Digits, a free tool Twitter offers in 28 languages and 216 countries.With Digits, which is not part of Twitter, the user types in the phone number and receives a one-time confirmation number via text.Seibert is convinced that the system is better than the combination of e-mail address and password, which, he said, is easy to forget, often difficult to key in on mobile phones, and exposed to identity theft.Developers attending the conference, like Derek Hearn, a young techie from Chicago, welcomed Twitter's tool."Digits piqued my curiosity," Hearn, who works for MeetBall, a company sharing the willing users' location on mobile devices, told Efe news agency.Cameron Hendrix, a mobile-apps developer for a digital education firm in New York, described Digits as "more secure" than the current password-based system.IANS