Let’s get real for a few minutes.

Believe it or not, PCs serve an important purpose: to get important stuff done. Think of it like semis vs. cars. One one end, you have something that gets you from A to B. On the other end, you have a hulking machine built to haul 10 tons or more. They’re huge, ugly, and burn energy, but they do what a car simply won’t do in its form factor. As much as I would love to have a PC that fit in my pocket, the reality is this won’t be happening for a very long time.

I built my desktop to be a stuff-doing station. It has 16GB of RAM, an 8-core 64-bit processor, a video card that cost an embarrassing amount of money, and banks upon banks of peripherals. Shrinking down this computer anytime soon would be impossible. I mean, the video card alone is probably the size of around 15 iPhones. Multi-terabyte drives are the size of 3 iPhones. Running on ARM could probably shrink down the other internals, but we’ve already got a huge problem for real-world work if we can’t manage to shrink down storage and video cards at a decent price.

What do we need that stuff for? Well, let’s look at the PC audience. Gamers, they need those video cards, maybe even 2 or 3 of them. Video editors, they’ll need a good video card as well, plus RAM and serious HDD space, not to mention speed. 3D artists will need a rendering farm (the cloud won’t do), specialty video cards, and loads of RAM. Graphic designers mostly need adequate screens, but they also need adequate processing and human interfaces. Businesses simply need adequate interfaces and access to Office. Engineers and scientists also need adequate interface and processing power. Desktop computers are massive, hot, and loud, because, well, they’re doing some pretty hardcore stuff. The wonderful thing about the mobile revolution is we no longer need to use them for basic tasks like web surfing and social media, but there are people in this world that need them to do their jobs.

So where do I see things in a few years? I think we’ll still see both devices, and I think we’ll finally see real docking stations, but I don’t think we’ll see actual tablets or smartphones being used as PC replacements. This might possibly work in the business world (and it would be kinda cool and probably seal the deal for BYOD), but smartphones still have a ways to go before you can use them for other purposes. Eventually things will miniaturize, but who knows if they’ll catch up to the raw power, customization, and upgradability of a desktop. We really need a way to dock our devices together in a synergistic (I hate that word, sorry) fashion to share data efficiently, but it seems like a lesson in futility at this point to try and replace the desktop completely, especially if your peripherals will be taking up lots of space anyway. I mean, a tablet won’t be replacing your mouse and keyboard in production (if you disagree, you’ve never designed or developed anything in your life). A tablet won’t replace your dual monitor setup, or your RAID, your subwoofer, etc. so what’s the big deal about having a box to better process your serious work? Desktops aren’t just a box, they’re a human interface and peripheral setup that has stayed consistent for decades for good reason.

So I touched on modularity being absent on smartphones, so let’s talk about the recent social media interest in the Phoneblok concept. I think we’ve all had this idea at some point in time, and it really is a great idea. Obviously there are some engineering challenges with what they portray, but that’s not to say it’s impossible to do. If good ideas were easy to engineer, we’d run out of good ideas. That said, some of this concept is pretty silly. Some thoughts of mine.

– There’s no shame in merging similar functionality. Wifi, Bluetooth, and NFC should probably be merged into one block. I mean seriously, when was the last time your Bluetooth broke on your phone? Heck, when was the last time you used Bluetooth?
– The block and pin idea would probably be flaky. They should have gone a different direction, like PCI card slots… rails and a pinout on the end. This would make engineering much simpler and avoid having the phone burst into 10 pieces if you drop it.
– Simplify. Instead of trying to modularize everything, just have slots for where things will go. Have everything held together by a battery on top, then have 1 CPU slot, 1 big card slot, and 4 small slots. That way you don’t have to tear your hair out second-guessing the user’s configuration. A battery and a CPU have no hardware interface commonalities.
– Don’t pretend this is greener. In all honesty, the Phonebloks idea might actually increase waste, and it will certainly up the manufacturing costs.
– In the real world, most of these things are crammed into a single board or chip. This is how they are able to make the devices so cheap and fast. Separating everything out means a headache for the manufacturers of these chips, and the engineers that have to deal with the interfacing.

I’m willing to bet someone will eventually try to tackle this problem, but it won’t be something from Kickstarter. Just my two cents.

After every Apple keynote, you can always expect to read the same type of sensationalist article. You know, the “Is this the end of _______ as we know it?” Well, iPads didn’t kill PCs, Siri didn’t kill Google search, and thumbprint scanners will NOT kill passwords.

See, biometrics aren’t really in the same vein as passwords; they’re really more of a supplement, or a verification of a person’s prescence, like a PIN number or SMART card. They’re not trying to be passwords, they’re something else entirely. They’re just trying to make life difficult enough for people who aren’t you, or at least difficult enough without a specialized computer. Even a 6 digit PIN only has 1,000,000 combinations, which would take a computer seconds to brute force, but that’s beside the point.

The point I’m going to make is that biometrics have similar flaws that don’t make it suitable as a password replacement. In all fairness, replacing a PIN number is really all Apple is trying to accomplish at this point, and I think that’s great, so it’s the media that has it all wrong.

So what’s wrong with thumbprints compared to passwords? Just off the top of my head…

• Thumbprints cannot be changed, revoked, or reset. If someone knows your thumbprint hash, you’re out of luck, forever. If you are concerned about the NSA, this should terrify you.
• You are limited to 10 thumbprints. And even then, you’re not going to remember which finger you used for what website.
• They technically aren’t replacing a password, A thumbprint is read as a hash and stored as a shadow password. It will especially work this way for websites.
• The thumbprint reader and software introduces failure points. A hacker could take control of these systems and force a certain hash without scanning a thumb. A man in the middle could read the hardware interaction and simulate it later.
• Thumbprints aren’t secret. You leave traces of your fingerprints on everything. Especially mobile devices.
• Technology exists to “lift”, analyze, and reproduce said fingerprints, and it will only improve with demand.
• Some people have stubborn fingerprints. Me, for instance. When I worked for the University, we went through several thumb and handprint timeclocks the professors had to use. Those machines hated me. One of them would routinely make me scan 8-10 times before it would get a match, while it worked fine for everyone else. I think it had to do with my hands always sweating.
• They add a failure point for the device. As someone who has owned several scanners through the years… these things break. On a PC it’s not a big deal, you can run out any buy the same brand thumbprint scanner, but what happens when it breaks on your iPhone? You buy a new phone, and you don’t get your data back.
• You can’t let a trusted party use your thumbprint when you’re away.
• You can damage your thumbprint. What if you burn your thumb while cooking dinner? You could be locked out of your computer for weeks, or in some cases, permanently.
• There hasn’t been much study on this, but thumbprints could be prone to hash collisions, especially if you are forced to scan a “backup finger”. Different biometric technologies, or course, will vary greatly.
• Your actual thumb could get stolen. Don’t laugh, it has happened. Some thieves are willing to cut off your thumb if it will give them complete, unrevokable access to your entire life.
• Biometric hardware does not give standard readings, so you’re at the mercy of a third party to maintain access to your accounts. If you replace one piece of hardware with another brand, it will probably not give the right hash.

Passwords, of course, have problems of their own, but they are still the most secure and sensible way to protect your data. Even something easy to remember like “iLikeBag3lsAndCr3amcheese_” is incredibly secure for years to come. The thing is, security is up to you. Your password should be long. It should have caps, numbers, and special characters. You should not use the same password twice. It should not be obvious, and you should not write it down. Follow these rules and you have very little to worry about, besides forgetting it.

What’s the right way to go about authentication? I dunno, I’m not a security expert. I would say multi-factor authentication is always best, so maybe a password-protected SMART cart would be the best way.