Cyber-attacks and identity theft seem a realer threat than ever before, but the tools we need to protect ourselves we have carried since birth. Friday, we made Ryan King the most verified man in Brooklyn. "Verified," a fingerprint-recognition device chirped back at Ryan after he placed his finger on the reader. "Verified," a facial-recognition device said to Ryan after scanning his face.
Ryan works at the American headquarters for FingerTec, a Malaysian company replacing PINs, usernames, and typed passwords with fingers and faces we don't need to memorize. "You can't copy someone's fingerprint unless you chop it off," Ryan said, "which wouldn't work because it has to be attached to a hand."
"One nine, zero, seven, five," Alexy Khitrov said to his phone. Alexy recited that random list of numbers aloud, while his phone scanned his face, and -- without pressing a single button -- he logged into his online banking account. "There are over 70 parts of the human body that create the human voice," Alexy said. And -- for all those impersonators out there -- we can control only 15 of those parts.
Alexy founded SpeechPro, which sells voice-recognition software. He estimates 50 million to 60 million people worldwide already use a voice log-in. And that figure doubles annually. "Passwords are dead," Alexy said. "They are so 20th Century and we're in the 21st Century."