By silicon.com, 24 July 2006 16:55
Office workers are always being hounded by the IT department to improve their password choices - to stop using the obvious 'password', or easily guessable options such as the name of a significant other, children, cats or dogs.
All of which is sound security advice.
So what happens when your password is your fingerprint?
Increasingly governments and business are looking at biometrics - from fingerprints to irises to gait - as ways of being certain who it is they are doing business with.
Want more on biometrics?
Read silicon.com's A to Z of biometrics to find out more about iris scans, palm prints and ID cards.
Silicon Towers, like most offices, is largely tea-powered which means at the end of the day there are mugs on every desk covered in fingerprints.
But if your fingerprint becomes the quotidian way you log onto the corporate network - as some experts think will be the case - then is this the biometric equivalent of writing your password on a Post-it note and sticking it to your monitor?
Biometric security could be a tremendous benefit but at the same time it will spawn a new generation of identity thieves who will want to use our biometric information to break into our bank accounts and identity cards and whatever else is secured with these biometric 'passwords'.
This means that it could become more important to protect the information that we either leave behind (fingerprints on a mug) or allow to be captured (faces on CCTV) on a daily basis.
Of course, many biometric systems will be linked to a token (such as a smart card) to cut down on identity theft but the fundamental point remains - discarded biometrics will have a value to thieves and will need to be protected.
Will the increased use of biometric security turn us into a nation of paranoids who will wear gloves to prevent leaving fingerprints, sunglasses to stop our irises being scanned, hoods to prevent thieves from getting enough data to spoof facial recognition systems, and baggy clothes to disguise the way we walk?
There is of course a name for people that already dress in this way.
And it would be a truly strange bi-product if a technology designed to improve security actually turned us into a nation of hoodies.
Comments
There are 5 comments. Join the discussion
1. Simon
Too damn right - that's exactly what's going to happen as more and more poeple realise the value of the privacy they've allowed the government to steal.
Then we'll no doubt see new laws banning measures to avoid the security systems. Then news laws to ban measures to avoid falling foul of the first anti-avoidance laws, and ...
And of course, and more stuff becomes automatable, more stuff will be automated - with the loss of flexibility that goes with it, and more requirement for regulation to prevent hiding.
Drivers/car owners have already seen a taster of what's to come ! We've got automated (but questionably useful) 'speed' cameras and 'congestion' tax cameras. Then, because that's made it so attractive to hide ones identity (car registration) there was a rise in fake plates, so regulations to limit supply of plates (but only to law abiding motorists, not criminals), and so on.
The net effect is that drivers/car owners feel under siege. Anyone questioning the wisdom or efficacy of these measures is usually met with one of two responses :
1) If you've nothing to hide ...
2) Puleese, think of the childrun - as in, any argument against silly speed limits and stupid enforcement therof can only come from some homicidal maniac intent on moying down the kids at every opportunity.
All these intrusive non-privacy measures are supported by the same arguments - plus of course, the trump card "national security".
1984 wasn't wrong, just a few years out !
2. Eric the Disillusioned
Finally Silicon pulls it's finger out and checks the breeze for direction.
This is not a bad interpretation of what will eventually happen. The great problem is that the vast majority of people will have to have had their bank accounts raided before they do anything about it - and the government knows it.
There have been significant scientific studies to how much crap people will take before they react and the thresholds for the majority of the population are really really high.
By the time the government winds its neck in on this one those of us with the nouse to spot all this will be back to using coins and living in caves to avoid the cameras.
Come on Silicon - push harder against this one!!!
3. Jay
hey i'm from the future lol
4. Paul Perry
Twenty years ago, it was quite common for police in Australia to offer a cellophane covered pack of cigarettes to suspects, then use common sticky tape to transfer the prints to whatever eviidence they had.
5. anonymous
Agree with these comments. Unfortunately it is also true that the government will keep pushing until there is significant rebellion. I'm sick to the back teeth with all this national security bs. 1. We don't need it. 2. If we ever do need it, it's only because of the government starting wars in places where it isn't welcome, justified with more lies...