PC Security System Only Seen in Dreams....

[robostangs548]

So, I built myself a new computer. I thought that it was pretty sweet. Along with the computer i bought a new screen, keyboard, mouse, and web cam. But today I discovered what was only seeing (at least for me) in movies. Banana Security has a software where using your notebooks/desktops web cam takes a picture of you and creates a 3d face "security key" for your Windows account. After setting it up I can lock my computer and have my face unlock it. How cool is that? I've just installed and so far i do not have any problems, yet. I tested with my sister and it works just fine. When she was sitting in front of the computer it wouldn't unlock, but as soon as I popped my face in front of the cam, my Windows session was up again. It is in the beta stage right now, and is only available for windows... Sorry Mac People , they are working on it. But the best thing is that it is FREE. You can get a copy on there website at http://www.bananasecurity.com/ tell me what you all think.... I think that it is amazing that technology is becoming so advanced, and that this software can use such little things as an everyday web cam and a regular computer to do this. Check it out! (Oh BTW, for all of you thinking "what if it can't detect your face?" well, there is also an option to enter a password as well as the camera!) I am pretty sure that it works on all Windows platforms... I am running Vista and it works like a charm. Try it out, and comment back on your experience. I am trying to get a copy of there code, and i will give it to our programmers to see if that might be something they could possibly use for next years game... Enjoy everyone.

Again the website is:
www.bananasecurity.com

[Pat Fairbank]

Sounds pretty cool!

A question: what happens when you hold a photo of your face in front of the camera?

[robostangs548]

Originally Posted by Pat Fairbank

Sounds pretty cool!

A question: what happens when you hold a photo of your face in front of the camera?

Tried it, for some reason, you need to be moving and the background to be still... AKA it won't work with a photo not sure why, but it seams that only the real you will work. You can definitely try to beat it with a picture... If you get it to work let me know!

[Chief Pride]

20$ says i could beat it! i just dont have a webcam...

[artdutra04]

This sounds interesting, though many similar biometric security systems exist for both Windows and Mac.

But the only thing these security measures do is prevent someone from continuing to use your current operating system if the computer is stolen. Unless you have all the contents of your hard drive encrypted, all the data on your hard drive is still easily accessible, no matter what kind of password/biometric security system you use to logon to your computer. (I've had legitimate reasons to do this before.)

But there's no sense in revealing how to do that here.

[Greg Marra]

Originally Posted by robostangs548

Tried it, for some reason, you need to be moving and the background to be still... AKA it won't work with a photo not sure why, but it seams that only the real you will work. You can definitely try to beat it with a picture... If you get it to work let me know!

So if I cut around myself in the picture so it is just my head?

I am sketched out by single-point "what you are" and "what you have" security systems. What if it doesn't work? You're locked out? Wonderful.

And if a password overrides, aren't we just adding another layer at which the system can be broken into?

[Chief Pride]

Originally Posted by artdutra04

This sounds interesting, though many similar biometric security systems exist for both Windows and Mac.

But the only thing these security measures do is prevent someone from continuing to use your current operating system if the computer is stolen. Unless you have all the contents of your hard drive encrypted, all the data on your hard drive is still easily accessible, no matter what kind of password/biometric security system you use to logon to your computer. (I've had legitimate reasons to do this before.)

But there's no sense in revealing how to do that here.

http://www.truecrypt.org/

Originally Posted by Greg Marra

So if I cut around myself in the picture so it is just my head?

I am sketched out by single-point "what you are" and "what you have" security systems. What if it doesn't work? You're locked out? Wonderful.

And if a password overrides, aren't we just adding another layer at which the system can be broken into?

no, the face recognition is just for lazy people...

[Schnabel]

Could you post a picture of this in action. I think this is really cool, just I only have a laptop so the background is moving about 55% of the time.

[Protronie]

Sounds good but not for me I think...
Most of the time I keep my room so dark the webcam don't pick up anything...

But thanks for passing along the 411...might come in handy someday

[robostangs548]

Since I am lazy, this is a stock picture off of a website that I found...

I have finally ran into some problems, but we will see, so far it's semi alright software, and it is more or less just something cool to play around with...

So as you can see, you can either enter a password, or have the software recognize your face to unlock your computer...

Oh and BTW person with the laptop, your laptop should work perfectly, when i was checking into this software it says it only looks at what is in the "red" square, so you could definitely give it a shot, and i am pretty sure that it would work.

[robostangs548]

On a further note, I can guarantee that my parents don't even know what a partition is, better yet will they know how to "hack" into it, so for me (or the other 98% of the population) this software will work just fine.