Passwords bloody passwords....

Privacy Protection vs. Identity Theft

Now that Google has actually changed its privacy policy, the internet is alive with speculation that Californian giant may already be in breach of data protection codes in Europe at least. The French data protection authority has written to Google saying: "Our preliminary analysis shows that Google's new policy does not meet the requirements of the [1995] European directive on data protection."

Now I know that privacy of information and how companies like Google use what they have access to is very important but frankly I am still more concerned about the security of my identity online.

Can the war against Identity Theft be won?

In the wake of several articles over the recent years describing how businesses have lost user password details in hacking raids, I noticed in an archive article on the Chicago Tribune website that President Obama had last year urged the private sector in the US to come up with alternatives to passwords for user security.  

It appears the war against identity theft isn’t going too well and the cost to individuals averages around £450 and takes 130 hours to recover from. The bad guys are winning too often. Time for the cavalry to arrive!

Apparently, some of the biggest names in the US software industry are now looking seriously into the possibility of developing methods that consumers can use instead of passwords to identify themselves online.

Beyond passwords?

Now I don’t know about you but I hate internet passwords. I know you aren’t supposed to write them down and I know they are supposed to be difficult to guess but my problem is that there are so many applications requiring passwords that if you keep them all unique there are just too many to remember. 

And the websites themselves don’t help matters. There are no standards in the format of passwords; some insist on 8 characters, some insist on alphanumerics, some are case sensitive and some even prevent the use of certain characters. No wonder the most popular passwords used today include: 123456, password and iloveyou!

So now I am waiting expectantly for the likes of Microsoft and Google to make things a lot easier for me. No more passwords (or user names, for that matter) to remember and some new, sexy technology to solve my memory problem and keep my data secure.  

Is Big Brother watching you?

But maybe I will have to wait a good while yet. Maybe it isn’t as simple as that. One of the alternatives being suggested by the Obama administration would be to provide all users with some physical credential to generate a one-time digital password. Hardly a new idea but one that is already being met in the US with a chorus of public concern about their government promoting Identity Cards in a different guise. And you thought we were sensitive to having ID cards in the UK!

So the ball is now well and truly in the well-funded techies’ court. The Holy Grail is to come up with a solution that is completely secure, easy to implement and use, is acceptable to fair minded people and which is very difficult to hack. Simples!

My brain hurts...
So here’s to the new generation of password-less authentication and biometric fingerprinting. It all can’t come soon enough for me even though I get the feeling I could be waiting for several years. In the meantime, I guess I will just have to dust off my brain trainer and remember those bloody passwords.