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    Home Cybersecurity
    • Cybersecurity

    Biometric Security – 2

    By
    Brett Glass
    -
    January 20, 2004
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      One of the most common causes of network security breaches is easily guessable or insecure passwords. Many users choose common names or words that are in any dictionary; others use the same passwords everywhere or write them down where they can be discovered. Wouldnt it be great if you never had to remember another password? This is one of the claimed benefits of biometrics—technologies that let machines recognize you via one or more physical features. Devices are now available that can examine users fingerprints, facial features, and irises; some even attempt to identify individuals by examining their gaits as they walk.

      The good news is that such devices are coming down in price; some, like the fingerprint recognition devices built into some mice and keyboards, are easily affordable for average consumers. The bad news is that, as with all new technologies, many of the current biometric systems are not quite ready for prime time. A recent article on PC Magazines sister site, ExtremeTech), describes ways in which its authors were able to spoof a wide variety of systems. They foiled some face recognition systems—which try to match facial features such as the distance between ones eyes and the sizes of ones nose and mouth—with still photographs; the authors likewise fooled iris sensors by placing a still photo over a different persons eye.

      Brett Glass
      Brett Glass has more than 20 years of experience designing, building,writing about, and crash-testing computer hardware and software. (A born'power user,' he often stresses products beyond their limits simply bytrying to use them.) A consultant, author, and programmer based inLaramie, Wyoming, Brett obtained his Bachelor of Science degree inElectrical Engineering from the Case Institute of Technology and his MSEEfrom Stanford. He plans networks, builds and configures servers, outlinestechnical strategies, designs embedded systems, hacks UNIX, and writeshighly optimized assembly language.During his rather eclectic career, Brett has written portions of the codeand/or documentation for such widely varied products as Borland's Pascal'toolboxes' and compilers, Living Videotext's ThinkTank, Cisco Systemsrouters and terminal servers, Earthstation diskless workstations, andTexas Instruments' TMS380 Token Ring networking chipset. His articleshave appeared in nearly every major computer industry publication.When he's not writing, consulting, speaking, or cruising the Web insearch of adventure, he may be playing the Ashbory bass, teachingInternet courses for LARIAT (Laramie's community network and Internetusers' group), cooking up a storm, or enjoying 'extreme'-ly spicy ethnicfood.To mail Brett, visit his Web form.

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