Microsoft's Bold Plan To Ditch Passwords In Windows 10 (still in beta)

[steve2470]

http://www.wired.com/2015/03/microsofts-bold-plan-ditch-passwords-windows-10/

FOR AS LONG as we’ve called for the death of the password, it’s still conspiring to make our lives both more complicated and less secure than they should be. In Windows 10, Microsoft will do its part to ease that particular pain. So long, random string of letters, characters, and numbers. Hello, well, Windows Hello.

Windows Hello, announced today on Microsoft’s blog, is an authentication system relies not on typing memorized gibberish but on face, eye, and fingerprint recognition. Unlocking your laptop or phone will be as simple as looking at or touching it.

Biometric solutions like this aren’t unique to Microsoft; Android has offered a Face Unlock feature since 2011, and fingerprint ID has been unlocking laptops and smartphones for years now. But the technology behind previous offerings—particularly facial recognition—has historically been lacking, and certainly not as ubiquitous as Windows Hello would be given the predominance of Windows machines in the world.

That’s not to say that Microsoft has necessarily gotten it right. There are signs, though, that Hello could succeed where others have muddled, particularly in its compatibility with Intel RealSense 3D cameras, a next-generation tech that can at the very least tell a human from a photo (a distinction with which early Face Unlock devices struggled). Better still? All of the data is stored locally, and not on some remote Microsoft server.

more at link

[sabbat hunter]

1. I have a feeling that

it will be an option, not instead of.

and most likely only for the touch screen devices (surface, phones).

For laptops and desktop machines, especially in a corporate environment, passwords will still be needed.

[Nye Bevan]

2. The thing about Microsoft is, things just work. Simply, elegantly, seamlessly, and intuitively.

OK. Now try saying that while keeping a straight face. It's not easy.

[LisaL]

6. Not at all easy.

What are they thinking? A lot of times I can't figure it out.

[mythology]

3. Not for me as long as the Supreme Court holds that a suspect can

be forced to use biological attributes like fingerprints to unlock computers.

Yes I get that quality passwords are hard to remember, but relying only on biological factors have issues too. I wouldn't mind it as a form of two factor authentication though.

[delrem]

4. The NSA will just looooove that to death. nt

[LisaL]

5. So, how is one supposed to use public computers?