I wish I could say I had been on this bandwagon before now. But I thought it would take longer than this for me to really want to give up on keyboard based authentication. I like having to remember a series of keystrokes and entering them in proper order to gain access to my machine. Sure, Mondays usually mean I have more backspaces in my passphrase than on other days. I like my keyboard based authentication. Passphrases are the last thing I really HAVE to remember these days thanks to Google, Robo-Form, Credit-Card swipers, proximity sensors, Voice-Command, Media Center, and any number of techno-memory-sucking-ology devices I have.

No More.

Ken Young over at vnunet.com reports “'Acoustic spying' can crack passwords simply by listening to keystrokes”

I imagine it will take some time before the spy shop down the street that sells the mini-cameras, micro-cams, and other eavesdropping devices will have the “Super Remote Keyboard Password Cracker” that will record keystrokes “from as far away as 20 feet!”. The fact is it is just a matter of time. It will happen and it will become common place over time.

That means it is time to seriously consider other authentication options. What does that leave us? We are already seeing bio-metrics in the form of finger-print readers (which are already appearing on some laptops and other devices…..I predict 3 years they are standard unless we find them completely insecurable) and iris scanning. Voice Recogition has been touted for years but is still not a reality and has no chance of ever bing viable unless we can develop a means of properly filtering background noise.

My fear is this speeds up the development of technologies that can do quick DNA analysis using a sample of just about any kind of biological material left behind a la Gattaca. Maybe we refine it such that no physical need be taken from a subject. Even if a physical sample is required I imagine the time in which we can get a result will continue to be reduced to “on the spot analysis”. I could literally sneeze and get sampled by everyone around me. Oh, let’s not forget the black-market in body parts to be stolen, borrowed, grown for use to circumvent biometrics (okay….maybe that is a little over the top….but we should all know by now that ANYTHING is possible…..read some old science fiction from 50 years ago and look at how much USE to be fantastical and how much of it is now reality. Everything written in Science Fiction will come to pass. Mark My Words! I will prove this one day when I travel back in time from the future after being cloned from some DNA samples take from an archeological dig 1000 years in the future….”When found….the subject was gripping what appeared to be an ancient communications device called a laptop……it appears the subject died while working on a rambling, disconnected blog entry….”)

I don’t want my DNA on file. That is just too much information to have on me anywhere. I think during my lifetime we might manage to maintain the right to keep our DNA private. But sometime after I am gone, that will change. We will lose one of the last remaining rights of ownership – ownership of ourselves – only to be cataloged somewhere and brought up at a moments notice to check the ability to get on public transportation, verify that I am the same Chris E. Avis that bought tickets to the football game (or even movies), and of course, if the Chris E. Avis you know has any odd genetic traits that you should become prejudiced about upon gaining that previously unknowable and decidedly unimportant knowledge.

Only a hop skip and a jump till this….

I am holding onto my keyboard as long as I can…….just going to turn the desktop radio up louder…

Cheers!