You won’t need to remember passwords in the future. You can just eat them or have them implanted in your veins.
The tech world has long been problematic about the fact that the use of passwords, which is the very measure used to keep user accounts secure, is also what makes them extremely vulnerable to potential security breaches.
Tech companies have not stopped innovating and setting up security measures to narrow down the level of this vulnerability, but the responsibility ultimately lies on the users to make certain that their passwords are safe and secure.
But with thousands of people still unwilling to do their end of the bargain, security experts fear that the threat of security breaches will always stay real.
This is why some of these experts came up with technology measures that may, at least for now, seem rather extreme.
Paypal head for developer advocacy Jonathan Leblanc believes that passwords as they are now are hard to remember, and are therefore a weak security measure. So instead of using a string of characters to protect their accounts, tech companies and users should switch to more secure methods that include keys being either implanted or swallowed by the user.
Other proposals to keep accounts more secure include user identification through vein recognition, as well as heartbeat analysis.
Paypal is working closely with other companies to come up with these type of technologies, and is also in the process of building other technologies involving cyber security with other developers. In a statement released by Paypal, the company told the Independent:
“It’s clear that passwords as we know them will evolve and we aim to be at the forefront of those developments.”
But the company has no plans of integrating these type of security measures with Paypal anytime soon. According to Leblanc, his role in the company is more about thinking forward about technologies that could be benefit the company, but these technologies will not necessarily be adapted by Paypal itself.
Meanwhile, University of Kent Cyber Security Center Director Eerke Boiten said that this type of technology isn’t really anything new.
“These thoughts are not particularly revolutionary. Identification of dogs is already widely implemented in this style through microchipping them.”
“For people, this would run up to all the objections they have against ID cards and well beyond, as it would put them in a position where they would likely be unable to disallow, or even detect, being identified. This is already a known objection to biometrics such as facial recognition.”
Do you remember these old tv shows where one ate a key to a door to keep it safe? Well, that’s how I imagine it, haha. Eating my password to keep my money safe does seem like a stupid and werid idea, but if it works, it ain’t stupid no more, right?
Implantable or consumable “passwords” would be a very safe and secure idea, not to mention how smart of an idea they are. The technology isn’t quite there yet, but we’re incredibly close to it, and something could be mass-produced within the next few years as far as I’m concerned. It’s hard to get a password if it’s literally stuck on someone’s arm, so it’s hard to argue against that solution, though privacy advocates might not like anything being implanted on a person.
Technology already exists to collect credit card information through wallets, purses, and clothing. I don’t see how having a chip implanted or swallowed would negate this, unless somehow the chip or other object itself, were invulnerable, in which case, why not just use that on credit and debit cards? I don’t see the need to swallow a chip or have something implanted under my skin, nor would I.