Making Windows 10 More Personal and More Secure with Windows Hello

groze said:

Have you seen demolition man? Especially the part where the criminal uses an ATM. Enough said.

Ahh... so we imagine gangs of roving criminals snatching phones and cutting out eyeballs to access them?

There are already a great many Laptops out in the wild that came stock with a finger print reader, hence the industry is already ahead of Microsoft , and other OS manufactures on that front. Also the readers are really a great way to protect your data and personal crap from being buggered. . .The future is already here, albeit again there are those who just cannot seem to get with it. . .but hey some don't want it, thus there is no reason for them to use it, however there will be those who do want it, and will use it. . .good luck to both sides. . .

Lee said:

There are already a great many Laptops out in the wild that came stock with a finger print reader, hence the industry is already ahead of Microsoft , and other OS manufactures on that front.

Quite right. All my work laptops have come with a fingerprint reader for more than 10 years. And a smartcard reader. I've been using fingerprint to power on laptop, unlock TPM and sign in since windows 7. Since Windows 8 I haven't needed the Lenovo software to do this - it has been built into Windows.

It is also far more convenient - one swipe and laptop powers on and logs you in. If I want to do a UAC override for my son I swipe my finger - I don't have to type in my user name and password. Already you can use fingerprint to remember user name and password for many websites.

Fingerprints are not new untested technology - for the last 6 years I've used fingerprint and smart card to pass immigration in Dubai so presumably they at least think it is fairly reliable.

What would be useful is if banks etc buy into a method of authentication like MS Hello. Having to type in the 3rd, 7th and 8th characters of your mothers maiden name followed by entering the name of your first school etc really is a pain and this is something that a password manager can't do. If they would accept a security token based on biometrics or whatever instead that would be great.

There is no compulsion here (yet) - if you want to remember 50 different passwords or use the same one for all your logons then go ahead - that is your prerogative. For me at least more secure and more convenient is an advantage.

My old laptop has a fingerprint reader, but guess what - I've never used it. I played with it for half an hour when the laptop came, it did not look stable, so I forgot about it. My newer laptops don;t have that feature.

On my home PC I don't even use a password. I honestly don't see what's the point of it. There's me and my wife and only one account on the machine, since my wife only uses the PC for internet, so there is no need for a separate account. My kid is not allowed to mess with my machine anyways . All of the remote access to the PC is turned off, so you can't connect to it unless you hack something and get past the hardware firewall in the router. And of course, I turn off the machine when I'm not using it, it certainly can't be hacked when it's off. In these circumstances, there is not need for user authentication at all, password or biometric. I believe same goes for most home users.

Now banks and web services are a different story. But the three-level authentication used here in Germany is probably more adequate then any advanced sign-in technique. What I mean is that in order to make any transaction with the bank I have to enter a code from a piece of paper that nobody else has, or alternatively get the code as a text message, but that code is valid for a very short time. Sure, all of that can be circumvented if anyone really wants to. But I doubt my bank account is of any interest to those who can pull it off.

That last point is really what makes the biggest difference - if someone is determined enough and has enough resources, any security can be hacked or otherwise circumvented. Lucky for most of us it's not an issue at all, since no one actually wants to do this to us. And that (together with an insurance policy) is our best security measure!

Face recognition - extremely important feature, especially on cell phones. Most new devices have forward facing "Skype/Selfie" cameras. If it works well, replaces alphanumeric passwords with unhackable passwords. Fingerprints can be hacked already, taking a print right off the stolen device with baby powder and scotch tape, then photographed and faked using a 3D printer. Many people are too lazy to use multiple passwords, they use their logon "hackable with an open wifi connection" password to logon to their bank accounts.

mikejbradley said:

Fingerprints can be hacked already, taking a print right off the stolen device with baby powder and scotch tape, then photographed and faked using a 3D printer.

Source please

Posting the hack is against forum rules I would imagine,
But iphones have already been hacked taking a finger print off of one and accessing the device,
Not easy but doable with the right equipment but it's much easier to cut off fingers :)