Word: fingerprint
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...Something you know is easy: it's a password, a personal identification number that no one else should have. Something you have is an ATM card or an ID card at work. Something you are can be your handwriting, your fingerprint or your DNA sample, depending on how detailed you want to get. Some very advanced systems use GPS to pinpoint where you are, but that's a different level of technology...
Back in the U.S., police and prosecutors suffered a rude jolt from a court ruling that threw doubt on the validity of even the most sophisticated fingerprint analysis. Various defense lawyers had attempted for three years to get fingerprint analysis held to a rigorous standard for expert testimony set by a 1993 Supreme Court decision. Print-matching standards vary widely, the lawyers argued, and have never been scientifically proved. A Philadelphia judge finally agreed, and his ruling, while not binding in other jurisdictions, is expected to make it more difficult to use fingerprint evidence to prove guilt in court...
...national ID card - not really. The Department of Transportation, acting on instructions from Congress, has begun work with states to develop electronically smarter drivers' licenses that can be checked for validity across the country, and that have more than just than that always-awful picture - like a fingerprint or retinal-scan imprint - to match the card to its holder...
...through immigration without stopping. They have provided personal and employment information and signed on to an iris-recognition database. Iris recognition, which will go into operation mid-January at London's Heathrow, is a technology that essentially relies on the unique patterns of a person's iris like a fingerprint...
...first order of business is figuring out where the spores came from. That won't be easy. While new tests on letters received by Senators Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy reveal a genetic fingerprint (called the Ames strain) that's traceable back to the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease at Fort Detrick, Maryland, officials point out there are as many as 12 private labs that receive military samples for research. Officials are also checking into an ongoing anthrax-development project at the Army's Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. While the possibility of an Army connection...