Let’s see some ID, please

Michael Rogers Columnist • Profile • E-mail

As the joke goes, on the Internet nobody knows you’re a dog. But although anonymity has been part of Internet culture since the first browser, it’s also a major obstacle to making the Web a safe place to conduct business: Internet fraud and identity theft cost consumers and merchants several billion dollars last year. And many of the other more troubling aspects of the Internet, from spam emails to sexual predators, also have their roots in the ease of masking one’s identity in the online world.

Change, however, is on the way. Already over 20 million PCs worldwide are equipped with a tiny security chip called the Trusted Platform Module, although it is as yet rarely activated. But once merchants and other online services begin to use it, the TPM will do something never before seen on the Internet: provide virtually fool-proof verification that you are who you say you are.

Some critics say that the chip will change the free-wheeling Web into a police state, while others argue that it’s needed to create a safe public space.  But the train has already left the station: by the end of this decade, a TPM will almost certainly be part of your desktop, laptop and even cell phone.

The TPM chip was created by a coalition of over one hundred hardware and software companies, led by AMD, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Microsoft and Sun. The chip permanently assigns a unique and permanent identifier to every computer before it leaves the factory and that identifier can’t subsequently be changed. It also checks the software running on the computer to make sure it hasn’t been altered to act malevolently when it connects to other machines: that it can, in short, be trusted. For now, TPM-equipped computers are primarily sold to big corporations for securing their networks, but starting next year TPMs will be installed in many consumer models as well.

With a TPM onboard, each time your computer starts, you prove your identity to the machine using something as simple as a PIN number or, preferably, a more secure system such as a fingerprint reader. Then if your bank has TPM software, when you log into their Web site, the bank’s site also “reads” the TPM chip in your computer to determine that it’s really you. Thus, even if someone steals your username and password, they won’t be able to get into your account unless they also use your computer and log in with your fingerprint. (In fact, with TPM, your bank wouldn’t even need to ask for your username and password — it would know you simply by the identification on your machine.)

The same would go for online merchants — once you’d registered yourself and your computer with an Amazon or an e-Bay, they’d simply look for the TPM on your machine to confirm it’s you at the other end. (Of course you could always “fool” the system by starting your computer with your unique PIN or fingerprint and then letting another person use it, but that’s a choice similar to giving someone else your credit card.)

Another plus for the TPM is that your computer will be able to make sure that it’s really a legitimate e-commerce site you’re connected to, and not some phishing-style fraud. There would still, of course, be ways that you could access your bank or e-commerce accounts from other computers when you were traveling, but the connection wouldn’t be as secure as using your own computer. Plans are already underway to put TPMs into smartphones and other portable devices as well.

Print this Email this Blog this  IM this

MORE FROM PRACTICAL FUTURIST

Practical Futurist Section Front

Will the Internet transform storytelling? What evolutionary psychology says about social networking At this radio network, the audience is the star Is the Internet dumbing us down? Who will fix my wired (and wireless) home? Will road warriors choose electrons over airplanes? Who will be the TV Guide of the Internet? Why is U.S. always last for new phones? Weighing the risks of biotechnology What will make the laptop obsolete? Practical Futurist Section Front   Add Practical Futurist headlines to your news reader: