two factor authentication

Chris Rapier rapier at psc.edu
Wed Jul 26 07:19:36 EST 2006



William Ahern wrote:

> You can copy a PIN, but with biometric smart cards, which would require, for
> instance, a fingerprint scan, you have an extremely strong security device
> with hard limitations. A smart card can still be exploited (i.e., stealing
> and chopping off a finger, for instance), but since it can't be copied it's
> faaaaarrrrrr easier to mitigate the effects of attacks than w/ most any
> other mechanism in use today.

This is true but its *only* strong if the person trying to get access 
isn't *really* motivated. If they are motivated its not going to stop 
them and they'll have all the time they need. Like you said, chopping 
off a finger is a possibility. More likely they'd just beat/torture you 
to get access. We tend to discount that as being unlikely. I'm not so 
sure it will remain that way. The 'panic' code idea is a good one though.



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