DailyDirt: Passwords Suck, But What's Better?

Every service wants you to create a username and password... and it all begins to pile up after a while. Users try to make things easier for themselves by re-using passwords, but you're really not supposed to do that. What are you supposed to do? Well, password management software exists, but only the truly paranoid folks spend the time to figure out which one of those is the one that works best for particular use cases and then actually set it up. (And then shit happens anyway.) Some companies are trying to figure out other solutions -- here are a few of them.

• Apple has its fingerprint sensor, but a 4-digit PIN will be replaced by a 6-digit PIN soon. Yippee! It's not much of an improvement, but a brute force attack will take a bit longer for the bad guys. [url]
• Would you want to replace a password with a brainwave measurement? Electroencephalograms (EEGs) could verify your 'pass-thoughts' for allowing access to a secure system. Maybe it'll be harder to forget your 'pass-thoughts' or maybe it won't? Or someone might say, "Don't think about your password!" and run off with your EEG waves before you stop yourself from thinking... [url]
• Google is working on a way to identify users from their usage patterns -- how different people type or swipe or interact. It's supposedly "up to" 10x better than other methods, but what happens if you hurt your wrist or something? [url]
• Paypal is suggesting an 'ingestible' (embeddable or injectable) device to serve as a person identification dongle. Implanted devices better be painless to inject and remove! Is it safe? [url]

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

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