Wednesday, December 07, 2005 9:22 AM
My work definitely has its perks when I get to work with cutting-edge stuff, often not even released yet. Up until now though, it's been strictly software. For a recent project I've gotten the opportunity to work with two fingerprint-enabled devices: The LaCie USB 2.0 40GB 2.5“ Safe Mobile hard drive (~$140), and the Microsoft Fingerprint Reader (~$40). Both work pretty well and are fun to play with.
The Microsoft unit is a dedicated fingerprint reader for Windows and web site authentication. Unfortunately that's about it. There's no easy way to use the fingerprint for other applications. On the other hand, I've always maintained that computers have too many passwords. If I am logged into Windows, then you know who I am. I shouldn't need to login again. The other down side to is the package clearly states that it can't be used for domains (not a corporate solution), and it doesn't actually replace the login screen -- it just augments it. If someone knows your password, they can just enter it manually instead of worrying about the reader. It's only a secondary means of entry. On the plus side, it's relatively quick, and has been very accurate in my testing. If you want to be able to get into your web sites more conveniently this will help, but if you login from another computer, you'll need to remember those passwords anyway!
As for the LaCie hard drive, it's very slick. Just the design is very nice with the integrated finger scanner on top. Unlike the Microsoft unit, you don't press your finger down, you must slide it. It's pretty easy to slide too quickly and be prompted to try again. Overall recognition is good though. The unit allows up to six users with 10 fingers scanned each. The biggest problem, in my mind, is permissions aren't granular at all. The best that you can do is say that one user can read and write, while another user can only read. That isn't really good enough. I would have preferred the ability to show/hide folders based on user, or even expose an entirely different partition depending on user. It's possible that you could format it in NTFS and use ACL-based security to fine-tune access to files and folders. As it is out of the box though, it works on Mac and Windows seamlessly -- no driver install on the host! If you switch to NTFS (assuming that scenario works) you'd lose that.
In the end, I don't know that I'd be ready to shell out money for fingerprint auth just yet. It's a fun and promising technology, but not compelling enough for me yet. If there was a free SDK available for the MS unit, or if the LaCie allowed a better permissions model, I'd be tempted, but as things are now it wouldn't be worth the cost.