When will the time come when passwords are useless?

I believe passwords are here to stay for at least the next 10 years or so. Even after that, we need a form of identification mechanism to authenticate users by comparing them to an existing database. Unless we see widespread adoption of stuff like retinal scans or advanced forms of authentication, passwords are going nowhere in the near future.

A password such as this: ThisIsALongpassword_2000_QFX will be VERY hard to crack no matter how fast the hardware is.

A 20 letter long password could take up to 63 Quadrillion years to brute-force.

http://www.lockdown.co.uk/?pg=combi

-Elian

It does not matter how fast a machine is, if the login is written correctly it will kill any attempt to guess passwords after a few attempts. This breaks ANY script. and that means a person would have to sit at the machine so long the speed of the machine would not make any difference.

There are already many machines such as laptops and smartphones that use fingerprint analysis to unlock. Even some cars are using this for entry. Many banks require thumb prints for transactions as well. My guess is this will just continue to rise in popularity.

With the rise of identity theft, nothing is sacred. At least at this point, finger prints can't be faked.

Here's an interesting article on new 'authentication' tactic: tattoo and swallow-able password hardware;

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/31/motorola_t...

Here's an interesting article on how fingerprints can be duplicated and used to defeat biometric controls.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/05/16/gummi_bear...