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Google Plans To Bring Password-Free Logins To Android Apps By Year-End (techcrunch.com)

Posted by msmash on from the Google-despises-passwords dept.

An anonymous reader shares a report on TechCrunch: Google's plan to eliminate passwords in favor of systems that take into account a combination of signals -- like your typing patterns, your walking patterns, your current location, and more -- will be available to Android developers by year-end, assuming all goes well in testing this year. In an under-the-radar announcement Friday afternoon at the Google I/O developer conference, the head of Google's research unit ATAP (Advanced Technology and Projects) Daniel Kaufman offered a brief update regarding the status of Project Abacus, the name for a system that opts for biometrics over two-factor authentication. With Project Abacus, users would unlock devices or sign into applications based on a cumulative "Trust Score." This score would be calculated using a variety of factors, including your typing patterns, current location, speed and voice patterns, facial recognition, and other things.The Trust API will be available to developers, who can then implement that into their apps. The company says that developers will have the option to adjust the threshold required for a trust score.

9 of 109 comments (clear)

  1. Luddite here by liqu1d · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What on earth is wrong with two factor authentication? I can't see these being more secure.

    1. Re:Luddite here by Calydor · · Score: 5, Insightful

      In fact they will be extremely troublesome.

      Typing or voice patterns? Oh so sorry, you have a headache or the flu, your pattern has shifted enough to not be recognizable. Walking patterns? Too bad about that broken leg after your ski trip, you're locked out of your phone for three months or more.

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    2. Re:Luddite here by JackieBrown · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yep - I'm sure no one at Google thought about this. You should email them quick!

    3. Re:Luddite here by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yep - I'm sure no one at Google thought about this. You should email them quick!

      What, you think Google is magic, or prescient?

      Google has had A LOT of bad ideas. And went on to implement them, only later to realize they were bad ideas.

      The thing about Google is that it (or Alphabet) is big enough that it can afford such failures... no matter how much it costs the rest of us.

  2. Just what we need - better tracking by joe_frisch · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So they want a technology that can accurately identify me by all sorts of unconscious traits. This would make any form of anonymity impossible.

    I completely understand why Google wants this - collecting and selling information is their business model. I don't understand why *I* as a customer would want it.

    1. Re:Just what we need - better tracking by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You aren't the customer in this scenario. You are the product!

  3. Bio auth NOT protected by 5th Amendment by thedarb · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Do not want. Courts can, and do, compel people to provide bio-metric data, as that is not protected by the 5th Amendment. Only passwords and pass-phrases are protected. Government agencies would LOVE this trend, especially if it became the only form of authentication on your device(s), as they wouldn't need a back door to your encryption anymore. Do not accept this weakening of your security.

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  4. Seriously? by SumDog · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This seems horrible in every way possible.

  5. What problem... by Dcnjoe60 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What problem is this trying to solve? And more importantly, why is google collecting this specific information about users and once collected, how else will it be used and by whom? Maybe that's why the announcement was "low key." They were hoping it would go unnoticed.