Assigning passwords to computer history

[wdlove]

Computer users disagree about many things -- PC versus Macintosh, Windows versus Linux. But nearly everyone agrees that using passwords to secure digital data is a lousy idea. They're hard for users to remember, but easy for information thieves to crack. And each of us needs dozens of them, for every computer network and website we use.

Even Bill Gates hates them, and he can afford to pay someone to type his passwords for him. "There's no doubt that over time people are going to rely less and less on passwords," the chairman of the software company Microsoft Corp. said in a speech Tuesday. "It just doesn't meet the test for anything you really want to secure."

http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2004/02/26/assigning_passwords_to_computer_history/

 

[Santiago]

Ahh, it's by Hiawatha Bray. That must be why I deemed the author an idiot within the first paragraph. There are no viable alternatives to passwords. Requiring physical keys of any sort (such as the mentioned RSA random-number-generators) is even bulkier and more annoying than passwords. Can you imagine having to carry around just half a dozen of those, much less twenty or more?

Biometrics is ultimately a black box technology, and people don't trust those. If the machine doesn't accept your password, you must have mistyped it and you can try again. If it doesn't accept your thumb print, now what? Is your thumb too filthy? Is the scanner broken? What's wrong? You have no idea.

 

[wPod]

biometrics all the way. . . if your fingerprint doesnt work, then you have to go to the old-school password. technology is always improving (and so will the ways of choping fingers off and using them to access other people's data. . . j/k)

http://bssc.sel.sony.com/Professional/puppy/index.html

interesting little toy from sony

 

[MrMacMan]

I like:
The Technology

I don't like:
The Technology.


I like the fact that there are no passwords.

I don't like that they are one step away from compling thosands of users fingerprints into a database for their own corperate 'necessities'...


Gah.

eyescan, finger printing...