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Sign Your Name Online With A Mouse
icke writes "Soon, the way you use your mouse could help prove who you are. According to a BBC News article, scientists have found a way for people to sign their name online using a mouse instead of a pen. The technology, based on the research from Queen Mary College, University of London by Peter McOwan, 'uses a neural network to pick out the unique features of the way that someone uses a mouse.'"
You could just record the mouse movements with some macro software and then play it back whenever it asks for their signature.
Everyone that disagrees with me is a paid shill
Would a signature created with a mouse be legally-binding?
While it may be a huge flourish that impresses the ladies, your signature is not as secure as it would seem. Forgeries are easy to make by skilled criminals.
Use a cryptographic key to sign. You'll be glad you did.
And what happens when you change to a different type of mouse? My change to wireless optical was quite a change which took some getting used to, and I'm sure it didn't "sign" the way I used to. Or whatever. :)
My girlfriend had a pen-shaped mouse for a while, (wrist problems), and I'd imagine signing would be much more "natural" with one of those. Neat idea, though ...
David.
Because I always use a mouse the same way, this will work great.... Not. I have many different computers, all with different types of mice and software. Trackballs, eraser-head laptops, trackpad laptops, and don't even get me started about different operating systems and the software they use. This is not going to work for many reasons, and I hope business realize this sooner than later.
"It's another way of indicating that you as an individual are sitting there on the end of the line."
Easy to fake with a mouse movement recorder.
Oh and what about people who use a trackball? does the smart biometric layer apply to those hand movements?
And the other obvious question : wouldn't it be easier to simply teach people why they should use properly formed passwords that are not "mom", "dad", "john1" or "s00persekrit"?
In short, yet another far-fetched solution to solve a non-problem.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
After recently studying for the CISSP, I learned a great deal about biometrics. The most accurate biometrics include things like iris scans, palm scans, retina scans, etc. These are so accurate because they measure characteristics that are totally unique to individuals. Signature dynamics and keystroke dynamics are some of the most ineffective biometrics around. A big problem is they can be faked. While the article states that early trials are 99% accurate, it doesn't detail how many people have actually tried this system. (A test group of 10 wouldn't be very good.) It also doesn't mention if they tried to fake it out. The real world is a harsh place on biometrics.
--
Luck is just skill you didn't know you had.
So the "signature" is tied to a specific pointing device...
so your signature is invalid if you use a laptop with a trackpoint,touchpad, or use a track ball or a tablet and a pen, etc.....
Neat idea, 100% useless in the real world.
Now if you can get a reliable identifier (How about something as simple as a ibutton ring (www.ibutton.com) and quit trying to invent the unique personal identifier that so far is only out DNA (no, no dna testers on our computers than you.)
Identification has always been tied to a unique card, number, whatever given out by a group or agency. Why not stick with the same thing just update it with current off the shelf technology that already works?
www.ibutton.com I use it to log into my computers at home, unlock my doors and even start my harley....
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
what about the mice that are controlled with your thumb, you know the ball that you move. i doubt it would work well with one of those mice
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A forger would have a hard time copying the variations in speed that the actual person uses even if the forger traces the same path or tries to "get good" at the signature.
The problem is that the actual person may also have a really tough time reproducing the same speeds, patterns, etc. in their signature.
This is why handwriting analysis/comparison is almost always inadmissable in court -- it's too variable.
The reasons for this are especially apparent when you look at the handwriting of people like myself whose fine motor control (like many guys) is not so "fine"... I can type quickly, but my signature varies *widely* each time I sign my name. The slant of the letters in my handwriting, type of loops, etc. also varies depending on my mood, the pen and writing surface, my posture, etc.
My real point here is that there's certainly a future in some kind of online "signature", but I'm guessing we'll end up with a system based more on asynchronous crypto as opposed to some kind of biometrics like this.
Normal hard-copy signatures aren't particularly secure -- no one pretends they are. That's why most of the time the cashier doesn't compare the signatures (in more automated systems like many gas stations, and online, they CAN'T). That's also why we have Notary Publics in the US who will certify that you were the one who marked the paper. The advantage of hard-copy signatures is that they're tough to scam safely, in bulk.
I suspect that most online signature methods *WILL* be comparitively easy to scam in bulk, simply because this is the internet, and it's all just data.
There are only 10 types of people: those who understand decimal, those who don't, and, uh, 8 other types I forget.
Interesting, but there's a big problem with using a mouse to write a signature: moving from machine to machine. The ergonomics are totally different between machines, for one thing. Plus, different brands of mouse. What about mice with the thumb-rollerball? Or notebook touchpads? Or optical mice vs. crappy old mice with crud stuck in the rollers?
Hmm. Why don't we ask the couple of generations of IT people who've tried to teach people this very lesson? Maybe they have something to say about that one. I could start with our call center: their number one call every month for the last five years has been "Please reset my password" despite several "education" campaigns.
People don't use "bad" passwords because they're uneducated nitwits, they do it because there are so many dang systems asking for passwords that they'd be driven crazy by the exercise of keeping them all straight otherwise. Either that or they'd have to write 'em all down, which kind of defeats the purpose, yes?
This motion signatures thing probably isn't the solution -- but hey, at least it does try to build on a model users know. Existing ID and authentication methods do sort of suck, so it's not like this is a solution without a problem.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Offense: Record and playback
Defense: Check for exact replica
Offense: Add slight differences
Defense: Check slight differences for consistency with original behavior
Offense: Analyze movement to make differences consistent with recorded macro
This sort of thing goes on and on - reminds me of using a sharpie to circumvent the null data track on copyrighted CD's.
The bottomline is that there is no real security. Even the number of bits in encryption has to be bumped as processors speed up to try to keep them from being crackable in a timely manner. Suppose encrypted credit card transcactions are being logged by someone, with only the last 3 months being kept on file. If there's a huge breakthrough with a diamond superconductor processor, the attacker can assume that most of the credit cards logged in the last few months haven't expired, crack them fairly quickly (even at a day per card), and go on a shopping spree.
The only way to never be behind in an arms race is to never start one, unfortunately this means no steps can be taken for security.
Perhaps a better answer is to start with a system already a few steps ahead of the "offense" from the word go, discouraging attempts to circumvent it. Of course this tends to be costly to develop and (with computers) processor intensive to use.
The only thing more dangerous than a file named -rf is renaming it -rf\ /