Authentication in the real world

Posted by jerry as Uncategorized

There is an interesting prank being pulled on CEO’s and CFO’s of many large public companies that highlights the trouble of authentication in the real world.  The wall street journal has a report about a prankster who dials into a quarterly earnings call and gives a bogus name and company to the operator.  A well known name and well known company.  See, few people are allowed to ask questions on these calls to prevent just this sort of thing.  But, there is no good way to validate the caller’s identity. 

 The story was well timed for me.  I picked my son up from preschool last week with my wife - the first time I had done so.  We waited in a line of cars and as we approached the building, my wife pulled out a paper plate that was clipped to a clothes hangar.  She dutifully hung the plate from the rear view mirror.  A worker called out plate numbers via radio to signal to bring him outside to wait to be picked up.

I was really struck by this authentication mechanism.  I have to use several passwords to connect to near meaningless data at my office, but to pick up my kid, it only takes a paper plate and a magic marker.