It’s no fun losing a credit card or having it stolen. Along with the hassle of cancelling and replacing the card, there’s a good chance that large debts will be accumulated before you become aware of the loss.
Engineers at Beepcard Inc in Santa Monica, California, are developing a new type of card that you must talk to before it can be used.
The card requires users to give a spoken password that it authenticates using a built-in voice-recognition chip. The idea is to prevent thieves using a stolen card or fraudsters using someone else’s credit card details to buy goods online.
In my (albeit limited) experience, even the most sophisticated speech recognition packages for PCs are, well, not that accurate. I guess this means even longer queues at the checkout.
And what if the guy behind you in line records your voice as you say your password and later is able to get ahold of your card. No, the recording may not be that good but the device just thinks you have a cold and lets the guy spend at will.
Ok, so maybe that is a worse case senario, but who wants to yell out (obsure?) passwords at checkout (I always thought passwords were to be kept secret). If it works anything like voice dialing on cell phones, I’ll pass.
Something that worries me is that, even though they know they shouldn’t, many people use the same password for everything.
So, stand behind the PHB when he buys a round and you’ve suddenly got his password on the LAN and access to the corporate back account!!!