Electronic DNA Could Be The Future of Secure Login

A team of researchers at the University of Oxford claim that our physical behaviour could be use as a secure way of logging into our computers and smartphones.

The researchers are said to have identified that every person creates a unique pattern of physical behaviour, including the speed at which they type, the way they move a mouse or the way they hold a smartphone. They say that around 500 different behaviours are unique to every individual and form a so-called ‘eDNA’, or electronically Defined Natural Attributes. It is said that changes in the string of physical behaviour could indicate when an individual has taken drugs, had sex, or even if they might be susceptible to a heart attack in the near future.

“Electronic DNA allows us to see vastly more information about you,” says Adrian Neal, the man who made the technology, a former MSc student at the university and actual chief executive of Oxford BioChronometrics. “Like DNA it is almost impossible to fake, as it is very hard to go online and not be yourself. It is as huge a jump in the amount of information that could be gathered about an individual as the jump from fingerprints to DNA. It is that order of magnitude.”

eDNA is said to eventually make its way to the commercial market and would allow individuals to log into any computer or mobile device. David Scheckel, president of Oxford BioChronometrics, says that eDNA could even differentiate if a click on an advertisement has been performed by a bot or a real human being. Their own research suggests that around 92% of advertisement clicks and 95% of logins are actually from bots.

Thank you The Guardian for providing us with this information
Image courtesy of The Guardian