Friday, November 19, 2010

Finally, an alternative to those annoying passwords and smart cards! They always took so long to use. With this new system, we simply let a machine track our eye movements and quick access is granted. But what happens if I'm hungover? Or sleepy?
Another scenario: "I'm quite sure they've caught the rapist; they confirmed his guilt absolutely by his eye movements!" More bad science designed to toss your ass in jail or lock you out of your own car.

(technologyreview)
The way you view the world is unique, so why not use it to identify you?

A company in Israel has developed a security system that does just this--exploiting a person's unique pattern of eye movements to identify them. Most biometric security systems measure physical features that are constant, such as fingerprints or iris patterns. An eye-tracking system has the potential to be harder to fool and easier use, its creators say.

The new system tracks the way a person's eye moves as he watches an icon roam around a computer screen. The way the icon moves can be different every time, but the user's eye movements include "kinetic features"—slight variations in trajectory—that are unique, making it possible to identify him. This is less complicated than using a long pass phrase or a smart card to gain access to a computer system or a building...
(more)