Beyond the Password
Irritating as passwords are, most companies aren’t going to rush to buy new authentication technology for all that a bunch of new ideas have been discussed in the Wall Street Journal. We’ve been hearing for years about biometrics, three-factor security, even implanted chips, but the most sophisticated among us have only a key fob that generates a dynamic PIN code. Passwords work, and the overhead involved in having your help desk manage password resets for forgotten passwords is low.
Maybe we’ll get there in time; certainly the new technologies are more secure, or at least they provide options for those who really require a two- or three-factor security policy. Those organizations that are especially vulnerable to security breaches or are especially attractive to hackers will be keen to adopt, but the rest of us may expect to be managing passwords for a long time to come.
And hey, what’s this about passthoughts? I’m not sure I like where that approach could be leading us. Control of your computer by thought is coming, and perhaps it’s best that security software should be leading that wave; but who would work for a company that has a thought reader attached to their workstation? The recent NSA scandals should put this idea out of anybody’s mind – irony intended – for a generation.
« Data Visualization May Be The Thing – But Caution Required Amazon’s Detente With Offline Retail Is Over »
