Biometrics vendors are doing their best to supplant passwords as the chief form of computer security, but Government Computer News Lab tests indicate that many of their products are not quite ready. Some developers have continued to improve already good devices, but others need to go back to the drawing board.

Bad biometric security is worse than no security at all because it can lock out a legitimate user, admit an interloper or -- perhaps most dangerous -- lull a network administrator into a false sense of safety.

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