Throw away your keys. Forget your passwords.
A new technology called biometrics might soon make these old-fashioned forms of security obsolete.
Everything from computers and automatic teller machines to cars and even the front doors of homes could ask to check your fingerprint, hear your voice or see your face as a way of proving your identity.
These biometrics — your body’s unique characteristics — could be both more convenient and more secure than passwords or keys.
Convenient because you wouldn’t have to carry anything special in your pocket or inside your head. Your keys would always be with you, would actually be you.
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Secure because biometrics can’t be copied or stolen.
Oh, sure, movies and television shows are full of spies recording and replaying voices or synthesizing fake fingerprints, but even if such stunts are possible in the real world, they require far more expertise and money than simply overhearing or guessing a password or pinching a key ring.
There is, however, a privacy question. It’s one thing to identify ourselves to our own computers and cars, but do we want large corporations or the government keeping our body measurements on file?
I had my first taste of biometrics last week when I installed U.are.U, a $150 fingerprint scanner from Digital Persona (www.digitalpersona.com). And I loved it.
The fingerprint scanner hardware is about the size of a mouse and connects to the USB port of a Windows personal computer. You’ll need Windows 95 or 98, with support for NT due soon, as well as a Pentium processor and 16 megabytes of random-access memory, or RAM. Inside the scanner is a light-sensitive chip, much like those in a digital camera, and on top there’s a postage-stamp-size window where you press your fingertip.
More light reflects from the ridges on your fingerprint than from the valleys, so the software can quickly see an image of the fingerprint’s curved lines. The software looks for the core, or center, of the resulting curves and for the minutiae–places where ridges end or begin. It then calculates the angles between the core and the minutiae, angles that are the same no matter how you press your finger on the scanner.
After plugging the scanner in and installing the accompanying software–a very quick and easy task–you choose two fingers that will be used for identification. Then you press those two fingers on the scanner window four times each.
Now you can start throwing away your passwords, starting with that log-in password for launching Windows. If your PC isn’t asking, by the way, the password set-up was skipped when you or the factory first installed Windows. Instead of typing letters and numbers and then pressing return, you just press your finger for a second on the scanner’s window.
U.are.U should recognize you immediately and welcome you by name to a new Windows session.
The name part is interesting, because you can set U.are.U up to work for a number of people.
You can also use the U.are.U software to replace your Internet sign-on and other passwords with the same fingerprint “open sesame.” There’s even a U.are.U screen saver that automatically kicks in when you don’t touch mouse or keyboard for a while, but will revert to regular programming only when the correct fingerprint comes along.
Promised soon is more software called U.are.U Private Space, to be included in a $190 deluxe version, that will let you encrypt any file so it can’t be viewed without your fingerprint key.
For better security, U.are.U doesn’t send your fingerprint data through the USB line to the computer. That could let someone intercept and then play back the fingerprint bits. Instead, it uses encryption to send a special code based on your fingerprint.
In my initial testing, U.are.U never let my wrong fingertip or anyone else’s pass the test, but authenticated my correct fingertip, even pressed at an angle or upside down, in only a second.
There were some instances when it didn’t immediately recognize my fingerprint, perhaps because the scanner window was getting dirty. Supposedly, the software automatically corrects for this, even subtracting any remaining fingerprint image from previous scans, so maybe something else was troubling the system.
Sometimes, I had to press longer to be recognized; a few times I gave up and typed the backup password that U.are.U lets you store.
That partially breached biometric security, but not thoroughly. After all, the problem isn’t really in creating and using a single password that’s hard to guess. Most people can do that, if convinced it’s necessary.
The frustration blooms when you need so many different passwords and personal identification numbers, PINs, some you can choose yourself and some that are chosen for you. That makes remembering them something between tricky and absurd. Many people conquer this memory hurdle by writing the passwords down, often on a little note that’s inside their desk drawer or even taped to the side of the computer.
Real secure, huh?
Hackers often start not by creating sophisticated penetration programs but by digging around for just such password cheat sheets.
There’s a big temptation to just forget the whole mess and change all your passwords to something truly simple such as “password” or your initials. Or even to use no password at all. Hackers know those temptations, and are often rewarded when aiming right at them.
So I don’t want to overemphasize the times U.are.U didn’t recognize me. It did well enough, and is so easy and inexpensive that I immediately wanted one in my car and on my house.
And, a very good sign, I immediately started using it each time I turned on Windows, when before I typically just canceled out the login password to save the trouble.
Digital Persona isn’t the only company offering biometric authentication technology. Many are already at work in law enforcement, security and financial services. Because of recent high-profile criminal trials, most of us have heard of DNA biometrics. It will be a while before that reaches your computer or home, but expect to hear of more fingerprint sensors as well as retina, iris, palm, face, voice and signature authenticators.
Here are some of the products now available:
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– American Biometric (www.biomouse.com) makes a $300 “biomouse” that adds a fingerprint scanner–with accompanying software–to a mouse.
– Cyber-SIGN Inc. (www.cybersign.com) has software that can authenticate signatures by remembering the shape, speed, stroke order and pen pressure used.
– VeriVoice (www.verivoice.com) makes Internet Security System, Unix and Windows software to authenticate you by voice, either over the telephone or over the Internet.
– Visionics (www.faceit.com) offers FaceIt PC for $100, software that, in concert with a video camera, analyzes your face shape for authentication. TrueFace from Miros (www.miros.com) is another face recognition program.
– IriScan (www.iriscan.com) sells the hardware and Windows NT software to profile your eyeball from about a foot away. Sensar (www.sensar.com) also offers iris-recognition tools.
Several companies hope to set the standard for biometric software–with password, screensaver, file encryption and other tools–that will work with a range of hardware. These include I-O Software (www.iosoftware.com) and TrueTouch (www.truetouch.com).