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Swallowing Your Password
HughPickens.com writes: Amir Mizroch reports at the WSJ that a PayPal executive who works with engineers and developers to find and test new technologies, says that embeddable, injectable, and ingestible devices are the next wave in identification for mobile payments and other sensitive online interactions. Jonathon Leblanc says that identification of people will shift from "antiquated" external body methods like fingerprints, toward internal body functions like heartbeat and vein recognition, where embedded and ingestible devices will allow "natural body identification." Ingestible devices could be powered by stomach acid, which will run their batteries and could detect glucose levels and other unique internal features can use a person's body as a way to identify them and beam that data out. Leblanc made his remarks during a presentation called Kill all Passwords that he's recently started giving at various tech conferences in the U.S. and Europe, arguing that technology has taken a huge leap forward to "true integration with the human body." But the idea has its skeptics. What could possibly go wrong with a little implanted device that reads your vein patterns or your heart's unique activity or blood glucose levels writes AJ Vicens? "Wouldn't an insurance company love to use that information to decide that you had one too many donuts—so it won't be covering that bypass surgery after all?"
The problem with this, and biometrics in general, is that there is only one you.
You can't revoke your "vein pattern" any more than you can revoke your fingerprint. Using your same biometric information for everything has the same pitfalls as using the same password for everything, and you are just one sketchy gas station away from someone getting a copy.
If you are going to implant something, why not implant a challenge/response system with a public/private key and strong cryptography, like you know, we've been doing on the internet with a good amount of success. A random very large number is just as good as any biometric information, and at least you can change it.
Gives new meaning to "I can't find my password in all this shit"
This has the same problem as any exclusively biometric technique -- the user can be compelled to give up their "password" merely by being physically present. "Something you have" can be taken, even if it's your still-living (for now) carcass. "Something you have" should always be supplemented with "something you know".
The summary rightly brings up privacy concerns but I'd also be concerned about the security of the transmitted data. Like RFID, the information can easily be snooped, and would have to be appropriately encrypted to be useful as credentials.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Or someone gets out a tape recorder and records your heartbeat.
Biometrics are only good so long as the device that reads your pattern is "honest." If you have to inject a device to read your biometric patterns, you could just as easily inject a device that pretends to read your biometrics, but actually copies someone else's.
from demolition man???
https://youtu.be/CbM--4-z0cs?t...
As a potential lottery winner, I totally support tax cuts for the wealthy
The heart bypass operation must be covered under the ACA (aka Obamacare). Insurance companies can no longer discriminate based on pre-existing conditions and can no longer impose a lifetime coverage cap.
That is not to say that the implant idea is a good one for a number of other reasons.
Like a good neighbor, fsck is there
I know you young kids don't read the bible anymore, so let me quote something from Revelation for you.
"Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666."
46137
She just grabs it from the table and slowly creeps up behind me and pushes it gently onto my thumb, and then runs away with an unlocked phone when i notice it...
The value of a password is that it is locked away in MY BRAIN until I choose to use it. These are not passwords, and neither is the button on an iPhone.
When I shit the thing out, do I have to eat it again?
on the other hand, your stomach could be a good power source -- kinetic energy, electrolyte source, AND it keeps a steady temperature. I think your colon would be even better though :)
YES! The colon produces methane which is a fuel and could be used in some kind of fuel cell, perhaps. It's a win-win: you'd fart less and not have to remember passwords!
...and any time you needed a password for something, you could go with your gut!
The biggest issue is that people taut these implanted devices as "safer" than any other alternative. Most of us here can see through the gag, but when they market to the masses will your great aunt have the same ability to know? Perhaps not.
Most here know that "Strong" authentication requires at least 2 of 3 (something you know, something you are, something you have) and not just one of them. Security experts prefer the something you have over something you are, because we can control and monitor that thing. Something you are can usually be forged easier than a Yubi/RSA key, because high grade biometric scanners are extremely expensive.
IMHO this is just the latest crazy attempt to get people implanted. Let's not kid each other, that is the goal.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
I believe the idea is that they are 'single-use' devices, so...you get to keep buying new ones for the rest of your life, otherwise you are locked out of everything.
Now there's incentive...do you buy groceries and eat outside, or buy a new password and go hungry. Or dig through your shit and be disgusted.
And they'll make sure it corrodes from acid in your digestive tract so you can't fully 'reuse' it...
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!