Mar 04, 2015
Our long password nightmare may be coming to an end.
On Monday in Europe, two major semiconductor companies are expected to announce products that use biometric data for security. In one case, readings from the human body provide automatic access to stored passwords. In the other, the biometric reading is likely to become the password itself.
Qualcomm, one of the two chip makers, is expected to say it has developed a kind of sonar-based way to read fingerprints through glass, plastic, and some metal. That is a dramatic improvement over most popular fingerprint authentication methods. The sensor can be placed on either side of a mobile phone, and by reading deep into the skin, noting the difference between the peak and trough of a fingerprint, should be harder to defeat.
“You can’t use glue to make a spoof fingerprint,” said Tim McDonough, vice president for product marketing at Qualcomm. “You’ll eventually see it in watches, cars, gaming devices, set top boxes,” along with certain types of laptops and tablets.
The Qualcomm chips aren’t likely to be inside even smartphones until the end of the year.
Intel, the other manufacturer, is expected to announce the first customer deployments of its True Key technology, which was announced earlier this year. True Key uses a device’s camera to examine a customer’s “facial math,” such as the distance between the eyes and nose, as well as voice and fingerprints, to allow access to devices. It can then permit access to stored passwords.
Both announcements are expected to be made at the World Mobile Congress, a technology industry event in Barcelona, Spain.
While the Intel product will be on the market first, the Qualcomm technology may be the more compelling over the long term, and not just because Qualcomm wants the fingerprint to replace passwords altogether.
For one thing, the sensor that does the sonar work operates independently of the computer’s operating system, and its functions can be stored within a phone’s hardware. Those things make it hard to hack.
A phone using the sensor can also be set to take more than one fingerprint, while restricting individual access to particular apps. In other words, you can share a phone with your mother, but she can’t get into your Snapchat app.
Moreover, Qualcomm seems ready to aggressively push the technology, establishing ways that app makers can modify their servers to accept the fingerprint data as a password.
Qualcomm is a member of an industry group called the Fido Alliance that hopes to simplify online authentication. Google, Microsoft, Alibaba, Samsung and PayPal are also members. That means Qualcomm may be able to spread its technology widely, if it works as promised.
Intel is not a member. “We had TrueKey in development before” the FIDO technology specification was in place, the Intel spokesman Bill Calder wrote in an email. “We may explore how we can leverage the work in the future.”
Also in Barcelona, Intel is expected to announce improvements to its low-power mobile chip, which should make it more attractive for inexpensive smartphones in lower-income markets. Qualcomm picked up an early lead in the mobile phone business, and Intel has been scrambling to offer more products in that market.
Source: New York Times