It sounds a bit like the latest spy thriller, but we do applaud The Australian for its ingenuity surrounding its latest Windows 10 security testing. Windows Hello is supposed to be the latest-and-greatest way to authenticate into one's laptop, assuming that said laptop has all the right parts in place for confirming that the face in front of it really belongs to the right person.
So, what happens when the person sitting in front of a particular device is an identical twin of the person who is actually authorized to log into a particular laptop? Well, then it gets a bit interesting. And we should clarify that this isn't just a for-fun kind of a test by a bunch of bored journalists. According to The Australian, just around one in 40 people in Australia are a twin. If Microsoft's face-recognition setup allows the incorrect person to authenticate into a particular device, that's a decent security problem for a not-so-insignificant number of people (especially if you're the good twin and your sibling is the evil twin).
The results? Better than you might expect for Microsoft. In all of The Australia's testing, the Windows 10 laptop did not authenticate the twin who didn't previously have an account and facial recognition set up with the device in question. There was one instance where Windows Hello didn't authenticate the right person either, but that's as crazy as things got. That bodes pretty well for the false acceptance rate Microsoft has been promoting for Windows Hello: 1 in 100,000.
If you're expecting to just fire up a webcam and start setting up Windows Hello on your desktop PC or laptop, you're probably going to be a bit let down. For starters, Windows Hello's facial recognition techniques require a bit more hardware to function correctly. Your camera in question has to be able to take normal, infrared, and 3D images, which isn't something that most off-the-shelf webcams can handle right now. (If your laptop has an Intel RealSense 3D camera, though, you're good to go.)
Windows Hello also allows users to authenticate into their devices using fingerprints. (And, no, identical twins don't have the same fingerprint.) At some point, Microsoft also hopes that Windows Hello will allow device owners to log in using iris identification, a feature that might arrive in some Windows 10 phones before the end of the year.
For more information visit: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2489959,00.asp
source: pcmag.com
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