Sophisticated Security Technology Now Works With Individual's PCs

Thu Nov 8 07:50:47 EST 2001

http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve.cgi?id=SB1005172330856003280.djm&template=printing.tmpl

November 8, 2001

Personal Technology

Sophisticated Security Technology
Now Works With Individual's PCs

By WALTER S. MOSSBERG

PUBLIC INTEREST IN increased security has surged since Sept. 11, and one of
the most talked-about solutions for securing both buildings and computers
is called biometrics. That's the practice of identifying people based on
computerized recognition of unique physical features such as finger and
hand prints, retinas and even whole faces.

Hollywood depicts such systems all the time in spy movies, and they seem to
work effortlessly. But that's make-believe. To get a feel for how
biometrics might work in the real world, I've been testing a new
fingerprint-recognition system for home computers called U.are.U Personal,
from a Silicon Valley company, DigitalPersona.

The $69 system, sold directly on the company's Web site
(www.digitalpersona.com1), includes some of the same highly sophisticated
technologies that might be installed to guard airports or vast computer
networks.

Fingerprint-recognition systems for PCs aren't new, but nearly all have
been meant for corporations and government agencies. By contrast, U.are.U
Personal is squarely aimed at consumers and very small businesses. It's
designed to work with PCs running Microsoft's new Windows XP operating
system, mostly because XP was built to support multiple users, each with
his or her own profile and password.

IN WINDOWS XP, you can establish separate computer personalities for each
user. Each can have a particular desktop arrangement, Web favorites,
document folders and so forth. And you can quickly switch from user to user
without requiring a complete logout and shutdown of running programs.

U.are.U Personal consists of a small, gray two-inch-square module with an
oval glass window on top and a red light glowing from within. It sits on
your desk and connects to your PC via a USB port. There's also a software
program to train and configure the module. Once you've installed it, and
taken a few minutes to teach it to recognize your fingerprint, you can log
into your individual Windows XP profile by just touching the oval window.
If you sit down at the PC and somebody else is logged on, touching the
module will instantly switch from the other person's profile to yours.

My wife and I each taught the device our fingerprints -- including a backup
finger on the other hand in case we had to wear a bandage or something.
U.are.U Personal worked fine at logging us in and switching between our
profiles quickly. It was very fast and accurate, recognizing our prints
even if we touched the window at an odd angle.

If that was all the product did, however, I'd call it a waste of money.
After all, how hard is it to recall and type in a single password for your
home PC? But U.are.U Personal does much more. It can allow you to replace
all of the myriad passwords you use at Web sites with a touch of your
finger on the sensor. You just set up the device to recognize your favorite
Web sites and it will automatically fill in the user ID and password in the
right places when you touch your finger to the oval.

U.are.U Personal

THIS SOLVES A huge problem. Veteran Web users typically have 20-30 user IDs
and passwords at various Web sites, and can't keep them all straight. So,
these folks resort to several insecure methods -- writing the IDs and
passwords on scraps of paper taped to the PC, using the same ID and
password everywhere, or letting sites record the ID information in "cookie"
files on the PC.

I tested U.are.U Personal at half a dozen password-protected Web sites,
including Hotmail, Yahoo Mail and my bank. In each case, I first typed the
user ID and password into the software that controls the fingerprint
module, then indicated the corresponding line on the Web page. After that,
every time, a simple touch of my finger was all that was needed to sign me
in.

You can even configure the gadget to perform a virtual press of the "enter"
key after it fills out the ID and password at a Web site. This feature
worked fine for me, except at my bank's site.

U.are.U Personal has another useful function as well. It can encrypt any
file or folder on your PC so that the file can only be read if your
personal fingerprint is detected on the module. This is designed to let you
hide files from others who use the PC, or hackers who might break in. You
can only encrypt files when logged onto your own profile, and the product
comes with a file-recovery program you can use if the module is broken or
removed from the PC.
E-mail me at mossberg at wsj.com2. Read these columns online at
http://ptech.wsj.com3.Sign up to receive an e-mail alert4 when Personal
Technology is published.

I had two problems with U.are.U Personal, and I can't recommend it
wholeheartedly until the company fixes them. The worst problem was that, in
my tests, the module simply quit working after I installed a new keyboard
and mouse. I had to reinstall and reconfigure it, which was a pain.

Also, the configuration software was unnecessarily complicated in some
places. It requires you to set up a "profile" for each Web page you want to
enter, but never really explains what a profile is and hides the commands
for editing the profiles if you want to change them later.

So, U.are.U Personal isn't perfect, and it isn't for everyone. But it was
highly accurate, and for those desperate to stop juggling a million
passwords, it could be a real boon.

*	For answers to questions about logging out of Hotmail, noise-canceling
headphones and speech-recognition software, check out my Mossberg's
Mailbox5 column in Tech Center.

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The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
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