Can I Have Your Passwalk?
from the paging-hollywood dept
Researchers at Finland’s VTT Technical Research Center have come up with a way to secure mobile phones and laptops by sensing changes in their carrier’s walking style. The thinking is that if something is stolen, it will be carried by somebody with a different gait, and the device will sense this and shut down. The researchers say the method’s better than typical password or biometric methods since it can happen completely transparently to the user, but it seems like it’s got a few pitfalls — like, for instance, if you loan your laptop to somebody, or you break your leg and are on crutches. It would, however, cut down on the number of people whose fingers get cut off or eyeballs get pulled out so thieves can use them to gain access to equipment, which is always nice.
Comments on “Can I Have Your Passwalk?”
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I’m in a hurry. Oh, now it won’t me use it…great!
Talk about strange coincidences
I JUST pulled my calf muscle and so I now have a much different walking style. They should just develop the laptop that can smell you!
Re: Talk about strange coincidences
Yeah, you’ll see guys missing both eyeballs, since their work requires that they check in with a retinal scan. They still need to work, so after they lose the first one to a thief, well, …
It’s really sad….
Misconceptions about biometrics
I just to clear up what I’m sure was meant as humor, but illustrates a common misconception. All industrial biometric devices have proof of life sensors built into them so that cutting off a finger for a fingerprint of removing an eye to fool an iris scanner simply will not work. Sure, maybe you can fool the $39.95 fingerprint scanner you buy at your local store, but then again people don’t protect highly sensitive data with that device – they use an industrial strength version.
oops
“Here, let me put you onto my friend…”
“Hello… Hello?”
“The line just went dead”
interesting idea
…that authentication would take place as a background process–but what if someone just needs temporary access to your PDA/cell to pull off a master password? I don’t see how you could make this work quickly enough without repeatedly locking out the device’s owner.