Proving your presence Tokens have been available for several years. Smart cards are credit card-size devices that work in much the same way as tokens. Smart cards in the online Buyer's Guide chart include ActivCard's ActivCard's ActivPack, GemPlus' GemSAFE tokens and V-ONE's SmartGate. Biometric devices use personal characteristics to verify a user's identity. These characteristics can include face recognition, fingerprint or eye scans, and voice identification.
Face recognition requires a digital or video camera.
Products such as Miros' TrueFace Network and Visionic's FaceIt identify users by having them mug for the camera. As you might expect, fingerprint recognition requires a fingerprint reader. Plus, Biometric Access' SecureTouch 98, Mytec Technologies' Touchstone and NEC's TouchPass. Although eye recognition is very accurate, few vendors have developed products that use the technology to provide network access. IriScan is expected to release an iris recognition system for network authentication next year.