Hardware That Recognizes You

Amit Upadhyay writes "Gizmodo is reporting about extra funding for smart guns at NJIT. Few have qualms about it, mostly on the line of: would optical sensor for finger prints work when the hand is soaked with blood? Would you get time to enter the override code in an emergency? But if we remove speculative emergency situations, the technology seems to be interesting. While checking out Fingkey Hamster what struck me was, this is one passkey I will not mind publishing on my webpage, and it can't be cracked, unless hardware tampering takes place. Kind of thing that you can put in all the car ignitions and lockers where password entry using keyboard can become too obtrusive."

Comments

Ring lock

[RandoX]

Another interesting option for firearms is a ring lock. It uses a magnetic ring to unlock the firearm, which keeps the weapon from being taken during a struggle and used against the owner. Since the decline in popularity in magnetic media, unpleasant side effects of wearing a magnetic ring seem to be less of an issue.

Sounds like a great idea for cops, though.

As DNA put it:

[gidds]

(meaning the late and much-lamented Douglas Adams, not his or anyone else's deoxyribonucleic acid):

"The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair."

He was talking about devices such as air-conditioning systems, but I think the principle applies here just as much.