Biometric daemons: adaptive authentication via electronic pets

The biometric daemon was proposed in a 2008 paper (PDF) by Pam Briggs and Patrick Oliver, and it's a very clever thought-experiment for a user-centered, adaptive authentication system. The idea is that the daemon, a cuddly toy, (the name is inspired by the Philip Pullman Dark Materials novels) knows a bunch of your biometrics (fingerprints, voice, gait, etc), and uses them to verify your identity before logging you into various services (ATMs, online services, mobile phones).

The daemon learns about your usage patterns -- where and when you go places, what you do there -- and when you do stuff that appears anomalous, you have to "reassure" it by providing additional biometrics and verification. It essentially moves the stuff that your bank already does (annoyingly cutting off your ATM card if you go on holiday because they assume it's been stolen and taken out of the country) to a device that you control, keeping your data with you. It uses the tendency to anthropomorphizing inanimate objects to give users hints for navigating difficult situations.

I can think of several problems with the system: how to recover passwords after your daemon is lost or stolen; what to do when you and your daemon are upset (because you've missed your flight and you need your daemon to log you into your mobile phone so you can call the airlines, but it won't be reassured because you're too tense to properly authenticate), and so on -- but it's an incredibly neat, clever idea, and one that's got me thinking.

Biometric Daemons: Authentication via electronic pets (PDF) (Thanks, Pam!)

• [Anonymous]

  The main character in the adventure game “The Longest Journey” has something like this — a stuffed purple gorilla childhood toy that both keeps track of and facilitates her access to the internet, money, transportation, etc.

  It’s a neat idea but potentially dangerous as others have said.

• [monopole]

  I’d still prefer an Arisan Lens from the Lensman series. Not only did it serve as a perfect ID but it also provided translation services, and most importantly, it would kill anybody else who tried to use it.

• [Anonymous]

  I’ve been thinking for a while that the solution to illegal immigration in the US would be:
  1. INS and IRS underwrite the production of a portable Retina scanner camera that can connect via cell phone networks. Sell ‘em for $50.
  2. Whenever anyone is hired by anyone, out comes the scanner. Type in your name, machine scans your retina, encrypts both bits of data, and sends a message. IRS/INS unencrypts and spits out a taxpayer identification number. As long as you can get a signal, the process should only take a few minutes and cost a few cents. Which mean when you hire a nanny or a day laborer, this process means you have to do it too.

  3. Failure points: well, privacy advocates wouldn’t like it, but seeing as this is the USA their complaints wouldn’t be a problem. A much bigger problem: companies that want to hire undocumented immigrants. The biggest problem: telling CEOs and senators that yes, they need their retinas scanned too.

• [overunger]

  Huh, almost like The Last Mimsy bunny.

• [Anonymous]

  Nice idea, but it’s a brush pile soaked in gasoline as far as ways it’ll be abused & used against people.

  If something like this ever takes off, I’ll go crawl off to a cave to live.. at least until I get caught and put into custody for ‘regressive behavior’

• [Daemon]

  And then you get injured or something, and it stops recognizing you, locking you out of everything.

• [PMcGorrill]

  “It uses the tendency to anthropomorphizing inanimate objects to give users hints for navigating difficult situations,”
  It’s an emotional translation tool. It analyses modern situations that are inscrutable to us living stuff and gives an output that we can understand through emotional empathy. That is probably the most revolutionizing idea I’ve heard of in a while. It has applications way way beyond security and might even allow people to live in a post-singularity world without compromising their humanity.
  (Also, so long as we’re inventing cuddly gadgets, I want mine to turn into a smartphone when I tickle its belly)

• [Anonymous]

  It would certainly suck if you were locked out from coming home late at night because your gait’s wrong and speech is slurred. . .

• [BrainFatigue]

  Just put some biometric tools on a smart card; I’ll skip the cuddly toy, thank you.

• [Major Variola (ret)]

  The real issue is: how does your
  Domestic Feline Service Provider
  authenticate you? Mine knows my
  smell, gait, voice, and very rough static appearance.

  We (FSP and me) have also evolved a stateless
  communication protocol involving
  food, access, association, etc.
  Knowing your half of the proprietary
  protocol is weak authentication. He tends to work above 1 or 2kHz.

  Since cameras and microphones and
  accel/gyros are free,
  I expect my gizmo to recognize me. Maybe use a fingerprint sensor to tell Me from Junior, transparently. CAT may know that he can fight/bleed me, but ought not to with Junior.

  My menu is different from his. Behavioral affordances. Context dependent. Interspecies comms. Clear concise intent.

• [Stefan Jones]

  “HEY! What on earth are doing to your daemon? That . . . that’s disgusting!”

  “We’re recovering my system from a major break-in and it said it wanted a DNA sample . . .”

  (Hey, look, it can’t help to all uphill from here, right?)

  • [jeligula]

    Good one. You do know that is a story by Harlan Ellison, right?

    • [Stefan Jones]

      I’ve read a lot of Harlan’s stuff, but that doesn’t sound familiar. What was the title?

• [Snig]

  My car uses a key fob to automatically unlock the door and I don’t have to insert it to run the car. Every other car that I drive, I find myself resenting, because it doesn’t trust me the way my car does.

  • [Laroquod]

    Those fobs have been shown to be easily hackable, so… I guess your anthropomorphically trusting car is an anthropomorphically naive idiot?

• [annwn]

  Interzone magazine recently (maybe December?) had a short story not too dissimilar from this concept… about an AI “friend” that inhabited the protagonist’s mobile phone and some neural and optical implants, giving her advice about the people and situations around her… i lent out my copy of the mag so the story’s title escapes me…

• [dragonneyes]

  Small correction — it’s HIS Dark Materials, not just Dark Materials.

  Love the concept!

• [sirkowski]

  Did they call it a daemon to freak out conspiracy theorists?

• [DoctorMantis]

  It’s a fine line between a personal daemon and spy bot. Having something that is able to monitor you that closely at all times is kind of a scary idea. It’s like your own personal black box recorder. Of course, it’s not intended to be used that way but it would be anyway. I can easily see biometric data being used in court cases (the accused claims he was at home but his readout shows he had an elevated heart rate and BP at times corresponding to the break in..).

• [Beelzebuddy]

  I can think of several problems with the system:

  I’m surprised it being the holy grail of surveillance tools didn’t register more highly. The daemon must know everywhere you’ve gone and everything you’ve done (otherwise how will it know to freak out), it must be tamper-proof (for obvious reasons), and everyone who interacts with you must also interact with it.

  Could be I’m just paranoid about this sort of thing. It took me more than halfway through The Golden Compass to stop suspecting the daemons of really being an insidiously pervasive monitoring system on behalf of the Magisterium, like the TVs in 1984.