Many solutions evolved over time, from secret handshake rituals using rolled-up trousers, to special knocks on doors, to royal seals. As technology evolved, so did identification methods but so did methods of cracking these solutions.

Nowadays, we have multiple passwords we have to use on a daily basis, from the Pin code for our new chipped credit cards, to the password to log into our computer and yet another password to log into our email. Some office workers now have to remember up to a dozen passwords every day.

Like Ali Baba and the 40 thieves, once someone has your password (Open Sesame), they can access your data or your company's data and do untold damage.

Some corporate systems counter this by making people choose complicated passwords and force users to change them every three months. This generally results in people writing down their passwords and putting them on a sticky note on their monitor. Despite all the complexities in password security, it is a return back to the situation of people leaving the key under the front doormat.

As passwords are not offering enough security anymore, new technologies such as biometrics are starting to be used. Biometrics is the method of identifying people based on one or more physical or behavioural characteristics. From fingerprint scanning to retinal imagery to DNA, physical traits are now being added into the security process.

Some of these traits are easier to manage than others and the majority need your physical presence to measure them, which is fine for the physical security of offices but not as easy when doing any transactions online.

While many new laptops come with fingerprint scanners, fingerprints may not be all that secure. You don't need to be on the Mission Impossible team to copy a fingerprint and make a mould of it to override some security systems, as was proved on the MythBusters TV show on the Discovery channel. The other biometric alternatives mean you need specialised equipment to scan someone's eyes or scan their whole hand. Not very portable.

This week Voice Pay announced a new biometrics system that doesn't require any specialist software or hardware. All that's required is a phone. The technology, initially developed for the CIA, is called VoiceVault and it allows anyone to access a secure system using their voice as one part of the authentication process.

The system is already used by ABN Amro for banking transactions but it has also been used by the American parole system for automatically ringing those on parole and ensuring that they are at their designated check-in. The technology also manages to forgive those with colds and sore throats.

Online transactions are a huge security issue at the moment.

Criminals have been using new forms of deception such as 'phishing', where they send official-looking emails from eBay, Paypal, AIB, Bank Of Ireland and many other financial institutions asking you to log into your account to verify information. The link they offer in the email also looks genuine but it is subtly different and logs you into a website they control. When you try and log in, you are not successful but they now have your account details. Many Irish people have found their accounts have been cleaned out in these attacks.

With the VoiceVault system, they call you, you don't call them, so it eliminates submitting information to fake websites and adds an extra security layer to what you do to online.

Nick Ogden from VoicePay previously founded net payments giant WorldPay, a direct competitor to PayPal, now owned by eBay. EBay recently bought web telecoms company Skype. VoicePay's technology would seem like a perfect fit for eBay/Skype and other online retail companies such as Amazon and Google's 'Checkout' payment system, as well as most online banking systems.

With security moving away from the reliance on passwords and more towards biometrics, perhaps it may not be long before we hear our work colleagues uttering strange phrases down the phone, or if their bank has a sense of humour, it might have them recite lyrics to 'Money, money, money'. Your IT manager might even rig the office security system to demand that you sing 'Nine to Five' before it logs you onto the computer network. Security will have never been so much fun.

BENIGN DICTATORSHIP:

CAN YOU DIGG IT?

LAST week online social media site Digg. com got a legal letter over a story that displayed a string of letters and numbers that just happened to be the code that will unlock the encryption on all the new HD DVDs, meaning now these 'unbreakable' DVDs can also be copied by PC owners.

Thousands of Digg. com members (there are over a million registered users) did not like this and in turn created hundreds if not thousands of new posts also containing the code. Such was the anger that the site owners capitulated and put the post back up but they are now guaranteed to be sued by the motion picture agency.

One large democratic crowd is now looking like lemmings going over a cliff. Benevolent dictatorships are good at times.