

Biometrics Turns Your Ear Into Your Password - kkleiner
http://singularityhub.com/2009/05/06/biometrics-turns-your-ear-into-your-password/

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endtime
I wonder what the effect of earwax buildup is on this. Without actually
knowing anything about OAE, I'd imagine earwax delta could cause greater
change in OAE than switching between people with similar ears.

This sounds cool, so hopefully someone can explain why I'm wrong.

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anigbrowl
You're not wrong. I am less than enthused about this, since I enjoy above-
average hearing (and have leveraged this professionally for the last decade as
a sound tech). I already have to put up with enough noise pollution: this is
about as attractive to me as laser-based iris scanning would be.

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RiderOfGiraffes
Also reported on <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=563786> which in turn
points to a New Scientist article,
[http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227035.200-our-
ears-...](http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227035.200-our-ears-may-
have-builtin-passwords.html)

In that they say:

    
    
        There are a number of problems that must be
        dealt with, he says. In subjects that have been
        drinking alcohol, for example, emissions are
        deadened. And different drugs alter the amplitude
        of OAEs, as do ear infections or wax build-up.
    

The grant application is here:

<http://gow.epsrc.ac.uk/ViewGrant.aspx?GrantRef=EP/E015522/1>

