Future Cell Phone Knows You By Your Walk

jangobongo writes "Researchers at the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland have come up with a unique way to secure your cell phone if it should get lost or stolen: 'Gait code'. Motion sensors in the phone would monitor the walking pattern (or gait) of whoever is in possession of the phone, and if the 'gait' doesn't match a pre-established biometric the phone would require a password to operate. The prototype cell phone correctly identified when it was being carried by someone other than its owner 98% of the time. The research team points out (powerpoint document) that this method could also work for PDAs, laptops, USB tokens, smart cards, wallets, suitcases, and guns."

Comments

But

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a wheelchair you insensitive clod. Anyone who can roll can pretend to be me.

cool tech, but dumb implementation

[Junior J. Junior III]

If the gait biometric fails, and the system falls back to a password, then the system is still no stronger than a password based authentication scheme. So why add the extra complication and expense that developing this technology must surely add?

Re:cool tech, but dumb implementation

[Mad Merlin]

If the gait biometric fails, and the system falls back to a password, then the system is still no stronger than a password based authentication scheme. So why add the extra complication and expense that developing this technology must surely add?

Because the device isn't secure at all when the owner turns off the password protection because they're tired of entering their password. If they only have to enter it 2% of the time, they're less likely to disable it.

I think we can both agree that password protection is better than nothing.

Won't Sell in Scotland

[turgid]

Imagine when you've had 6-8 pints of Heavy and you stumble out of the pub and try to phone a taxi.

Have you ever tried typing in a password after a gallon of beer?

Never mind, there's always the beer scooter.

Re:Won't Sell in Scotland

[Hogwash McFly]

It's funny, it takes you 43 attempts when blind drunk to enter your password, but the rambling yet coherent message declaring your wish to have sex with your best female friend (who thinks of you as a brother) gets to the correct destination as quickly and easily as a cartographer moonlighting as a cab driver...

Used to detect drunkenness

[ThinkingInBinary]

I R'dTFA, and they said that one of the things that alters the user's gait "code" is when they're drunk. If you paired a Bluetooth phone with a car, and added this, it could be a biometric way of making sure someone doesn't drive drunk. Just a thought.

The Slashdot Obvious (tm)

[Roofus]

Time for 100 different posters to point out 200 different situations where they think this technology will fail.

And it all must be true, because the engineers who spent years designing this must be complete idiots, and would never think of these things on their own.

Ready, set, go!

So...

[Zocalo]

I guess this means that you now have to prove that you can "walk the walk" before you can "talk the talk" now?

'gait'

[BushCheney08]

...and if the 'gait' doesn't match...

There's really no need to put the word gait in quotes. The definition of the word fits exactly with how they're using it. Maybe we should start randomly putting other perfectly cromulent words in quotes. Let me continue with the rest of that sentence:
...and if the 'gait' doesn't match a pre-established 'biometric' the 'phone' would require a 'password' to 'operate.'

</pedant>

critics missing the point

[cinnamon colbert]

I think all the critics of this are right, yet they are missing the point, which is not even that the std pin is the backup

Technology succeeds largely if it panders to one of the dominant human traits - lazyness.
If the gait thing means i can save 5 secs, or maybe more on a cold day with gloves that have to be taken off, it will have a good chance in the market.