Forgot your password?
20.05.12
Passwords are a pain to remember. What if a quick wiggle of five fingers on a screen could log you in instead? Or speaking a simple phrase?
Neither idea is far-fetched. Computer scientists in New York are training their iPads to recognise their owners by the touch of their fingers as they make a caressing gesture. Banks are already using software that recognises your voice, supplementing the standard PIN.
And after years of predicting its demise, security researchers are renewing their efforts to supplement and perhaps one day obliterate the old-fashioned password.
“If you ask me what is the biggest nuisance today, I would say it's the 40 different passwords I have to create and change,” said Nasir Memon, a computer science professor at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University in Brooklyn who is leading the iPad project.
Many people would agree. The password has become a monkey on our digital backs an essential key to our many devices and accounts, but increasingly a source of exasperation and insecurity.
Source: The Hindu