"I can write the best cryptographic code possible, but it’s all worthless unless there is a good system for verifying the user’s identity," John begins, regaining some poise now. "How does the computer know that you are you? Passwords are too easy to guess, steal, or forget. The computer needs to know something about you that is as unique to you as your fingerprint. Basically it has to look at some part of your body, such as the blood vessels in your retina or the distinctive sound of your voice, and compare it against known values stored in its memory. This kind of technology is called biometrics. Epiphyte Corp. boasts one of the top biometrics experts in the world: Dr. Eberhard Föhr, who wrote what’s considered to be the best handwriting-recognition system in the world." John rushes through this encomium. Eb and everyone else in the room look bored by it—they’ve all seen Eb’s resume. "Right now we’re going with voice recognition, but the code is entirely modular, so we could swap in some other system, such as a hand geometry reader. That’s up to the customer."