Technofile: There are few things more horrifying than losing your laptop. Not only can days and weeks of work disappear, but highly sensitive information. With identity theft a rising crime, the security of your data is even more important. So can a laptop which can read its owner's fingerprint help?
Late last year IBM launched one of its latest notebook PCs, the T43 in the T-Series of the highly successful ThinkPad range. There was extra symbolism in the location of the launch: The Clink, an old London prison to symbolise the theme of security.
The most obvious aspect of the T43 is its integrated "biometric" security measure.
Very similar to your average ThinkPad (big fat IBM logo, check; little red joystick on the keyboard, check) the T43 sports an unobtrusive fingerprint scanner below the cursor keys.
There are some cunning reasons for using a a swipe-scanner rather than a touch-scanner. Firstly, a swipe-scanner provides better security, since dragging your finger across it means there is no way anyone could "lift" a fingerprint from the surface. Touch scanners mean the natural oil from your finger could allow a fingerprint to be copied.
A swipe-scanner is also much smaller than a touch-scanner, as it doesn't have to accommodate the whole fingertip, and won't get as dirty as a touch-scanner.
The fingerprint scanner is, quite simply, ingenious. Its capacity sensor senses the patterns of electrical resistance caused by the contours on the fingertip, taking several readings of the fingerprint as you track it across the screen. These are combined to form an image of the print.
Launching the notebook, you are be greeted with the the "IBM Fingerprint Software" window, allowing you to pick which finger you'd like to use. One of the first uses for this is to lock out anyone with the "wrong" finger from booting the PC up in the first place. This is in place of the normal password you might be required to type.
And don't worry about your fingerprint becoming a new method for identity theft. The scanner stores a tiny amount of data for each fingerprint, not enough to reproduce a photograph of a fingerprint.
This can also be applied to your Windows login. But to save you having to swipe your finger twice, you can configure the fingerprint software to auto-log you in after verifying the Power On. Either that, or, if several people are using the laptop it's possible to switch between users easily using the scanner instead of passwords.
There is also the added security of getting around viruses which might "watch" you as you type your password - so-called "keyword loggers" - and then silently send this back to their fraudster owner.
But IBM has not let the issue lie there. It has partnered with data security specialist Utimaco, to allow ThinkPad T42 users to keep their data safe.
This facility keeps every byte of data encrypted, locking out anyone else from accessing it. Although this means the hard disk having to work slightly harder to keep all the data encrypted, it's only 2 per cent more and completely transparent to the user.
Starting in the region of €2,640 , the T-Series ThinkPads should help the average road warrior sleep a little easier at night, knowing their data is safe from even the greatest criminal. That is, assuiming you can keep your finger secure as well.
