HOUSTON - Passwords can be tough to come up with so biometric ones like your thumbprint or a retina scan can be convenient, but researchers may have found a way to use your thoughts as a password.
A person's brain password is a digital reading of their brain activity while looking at a series of images.
Just as passwords are more secure if they include different kinds of characters – letters, numbers and punctuation – a brain password is more secure if it includes brain wave readings of a person looking at a collection of different kinds of pictures.
Dan Wallach, a computer science professor at Rice University, is not sold on it since biometrics have a crucial vulnerability: A person only has one face, two retinas and 10 fingerprints. They represent passwords that can't be reset if they're compromised..
Wallach says, "Biometrics are fast and convenient, and when we are talking about putting a contraption on your head, it's not fast and it's not convenient and that gets rid of a lot of the benefits of biometrics."
Wallach suggests users have different passwords for different sites and if you are worried about a banking site or something a little more important, then use two-factor authentication.