Are you sick of trying to think up brilliant user names and passwords that you don’t have to jot down in a notebook? It’s not really very funny if the gag is on you, however. Given the rate at which America’s retail credit system has been compromised by criminal enterprises in Russia, you surely won’t be surprised if one day you find out that every iota of information about you, including your credit rating and sexual fetishes, is already freely available for hackers. I’m definitely not being hysterical or unduly trying to gestate a crisis when I say that personal security is a problem that concerns every web user.
It’s time to wipe away all traces of the old login+password pairing; unfortunately, the current reality is that the whole web was built around that security scheme and the bottom-line cost of modernization sees stores like Home Depot, Macey’s and Target shrug and take the hit. At the moment, no other system has been adopted. The Russians, however, pissed off at the manner in which the western powers have placed sanctions on them for their bullying, Fascist behavior in Ukraine, made an egregious error when they attacked PayPal, Linked-In, Facebook and Yahoo. These guys are as flush with readies as any of Putin’s Voor ve zakonye-affiliated malware thugs. The Eyelock company, out of New York City and Puerto Rico, is the first of its kind and they are ready to ride in like the cavalry.
Eyelock has been stealthily engineered to solve this problem by creating extremely complex passwords for you, although—Jah be praised!—there’ll be no reason you’ll ever have to remember them because the Myris system will both encrypt and store the passwords, while you are able to unlock them of your own volition as you look at the device and your unique iris pattern is used to instantaneously decrypt the vault, quicker than a rabbit gets laid on a Friday night when the hutch door is left open.
Of course, fingerprints, which have been used a means of detection to different degrees for nearly 150 years are an alternative. The iris pattern, however, is even more unique than fingerprints. Like some byzantine barcode, every set of eyes is remarkably different. After close to a decade of research on Lastpass and 1Password, software, Myris can look in your eyes and use your ‘eye print’ as a means of creating a completely unique password. Best of all, having been ‘eye printed’ the code, once created, is, theoretically, uncrackable.
Now, clearly, I’m not a scientist, and I’m unsure as to whether a clever thief might ultimately be able to make a copy of the raw image Myris “sees” when looking at your eyes. “Could someone unlock my device by using a picture of me?” is a very logical question. The answer is that your iris is recorded using near-infrared light and bounces light in a manner which requires a live subject and 3D-refraction in the iris’ texture, making it pretty much impossible to unlock.
Installation is pretty simple. Connect the Myris device to a USB port and a drive will appear with an app installer. Select your OS and start the installation. Chrome users, I’m told, have had extension problems with installation, so an alternative like Firefox might well be viable to consider. Disable your current password manager, if you own one. At any rate, soon your install will be finished and you’ll see an Eyelock app screen that asks you to register for a new account. Following this you will be prompted to unlock Myris with your eyes each time you enter a new password online. This works pretty much like any other password manager you’ve used, except that the password(s) aren’t stored online, but inside the Iris device, protecting you from any possible breaches.
Automatically logging into a website is also simple. Go to the login page, look into your Myris device and seconds later you will gain entry and thereafter go automatic. The same goes for apps. Indeed the only problem until this system becomes ubiquitous and is standardized, you will have to join each individual site and app one at a time.
Last, but not least, this is a personal device and cannot be configured to handle more than one person. It’s a one-user device and isn’t meant to be used by a group or a family. This is something Eyelock will have to look into next.
