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?
Multimedia
Biometric Passwords
Related
Bits Blog: Finding the Unique in You to Build a Better Password (December 23, 2011)
Enlarge This Image
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
In another alternative to the password, one would sign one's name on a small screen.
Enlarge This Image
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
Nasir Memon of N.Y.U.'s Polytechnic Institute has been working on touch recognition in iPads.
Neither idea is far-fetched. Computer scientists in Brooklyn are training their iPads to recognize their owners by the touch of their fingers as they make a caressing gesture. Banks are already using software that recognizes 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.