Biometric Devices Biometric devices use some unique human biological characteristic to authenticate the user to a computer system. Examples include the use of a fingerprint or the pattern of the iris within the eye. Informer Systems, which incorporates Mission Data, have developed a fingerprint-based authentication solution for NDS, known as SentriNet. SentriNet allows the user to log in to the network using just a fingerprint, instead of requiring a password. This solution won the Novell Developers Contest at BrainShare in 1998.
Tokens are available in a number of formats.
The Novell ActivCard devices can be ordered from any Novell Authorised Reseller. ActivCard token device. In this scenario, the user is prompted for a username, password, and ActivCard number when logging in to the network via a VPN connection. If BorderManager Proxy services has been enabled for use with ActivCard, the user must enter the ActivCard number before being granted access to the Proxy. This will allow access to the forward Proxy, for Web surfing outbound from an organisation, or to the reverse Proxy, for entry to an organisation's intranet, for example.