The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Facial Recognition any good?

    Discussion in 'Dell' started by scastilho, Feb 19, 2009.

  1. scastilho

    scastilho Notebook Guru

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    50
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    Hi,
    The new Dell Studio 15s ship only with facial recognition. I am wondering how secure is this? As in the past I have heard some software will authenticate even a photo of the person. Is the webcam in the laptop enhanced for the purpose of detecting a real person's face?
     
    scastilho, Feb 19, 2009
    #1
  2. fluffboy

    fluffboy Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    10
    Messages:
    400
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    in my opinion this facial recognition is just a consumer gimick so you would wanna buy the product. Ive had the lenovo Y510 which had the facial recognition and it did not work half the time because of poor lighting and the webcam not being able to coop.
    IMHO theres nothing like an 8 digit password with the combination of letters and numbers.(I even stopped using my finger print reader because i would have to scan my fingers a couple times before it registers.)

    my .02 dollars :D
     
    fluffboy, Feb 19, 2009
    #2
  3. HerrKaputt

    HerrKaputt Elite Notebook User

    Reputations:
    444
    Messages:
    2,510
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    55
    Not only does it not work half the time, it is actually very easy to crack. See this thread. Fingerprint scanners are a bit better, but not much.

    A strong password and encryption is still your best protection.
     
    HerrKaputt, Feb 19, 2009
    #3
  4. scastilho

    scastilho Notebook Guru

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    50
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    Ah I see. So it's not worth the extra £20 then?
     
    scastilho, Feb 20, 2009
    #4
  5. db98

    db98 Newbie

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    3
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    No question that a good password is important - even with biometric systems. A few points to note, however.

    1. The article that you link to in the other thread about "cracking" facial recognition does NOT talk about the Dell system - just Asus, Toshiba and Lenovo. I've used several of them and They're not the same system.

    2. Of course facial recognition won't work well in the dark. It uses a camera! Kind of like saying that fingerprint readers won't work with gloves. Having said that, the Dell cameras are actually pretty good and it sees/recognizes me most of the time. It even learns as it goes and has gotten noticeably better with time. Makes that complex password that we all seem to agree on a lot easier to tolerate/actually use, IMO.

    3. The real security that you get with the Dell system is in the automatic locking of the desktop when you're not there. The other systems don't do that. Fingerprints don't do that. It seems to me that the bigger "threat" is someone just walking up to my open computer.

    4. If photo attacks are a real concern for you, there's a Dell feature that sometimes asks for a few characters from your password in addition to your face. This would seem to esseitially negate photo attacks altogether.

    No system is perfect for sure, but from the use I've had with Dell's version it's a heck of a lot stronger than the others.
     
    db98, Feb 20, 2009
    #5