Who Are You? Identify Yourself!

[cahwyguy]

Establishing your identity? Seems a simple thing, but it is quite complex. In the past, when our social circles were smaller, you could do it by sight or with a letter of recommendation. But today it is much harder. Here is a collection of articles all dealing with identity, and how it is changing.

• Facebook. With Facebook’s recent privacy disclosures, more and more people have wanted to quit FB. But more and more people have discovered that they couldn’t, because their FB identity was tied to so much else. Here’s a real interesting story of one person who tried to leave FB, but just discovered that they could not.
• Invisible Identity. More and more we’re hearing that the password is outdated. There is a big push towards invisible identity — identifying users by typing and gestures and such. Here’s an article that explores the question, and asks whether the password is dying and on the way out. As for me, I think password should stay, but be used in conjunction with invisible identity. Passwords provide a great 2nd level of something you know, and with a password manager, you can have unique and strong passwords for every site.
• Biometrics for App Logins. Continuing the trend towards biometrics, you’ll soon discover that more and more apps — especially banking apps — will be tying their authentication to your smartphone’s biometrics. What this means is that, instead of having to enter your password for your banking app, you can use the fingerprint reader on your phone as an alternative. More convenient, yes. More secure? Perhaps the jury is out on that.
• We Know Who You Are. Ticketmaster is evidently exploring using facial recognition to replace tickets. I’m not sure I like this notion. Yes, tickets can get lost too easily, and are a pain to replace. But it is too easy to fake faces (as anyone who watches actors knows), and how do you handle groups, couples, and people that haven’t bought tickets before. I foresee loads of problems.

 

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