At the cyberspace conference in Washington DC, vendors demonstrated the biometric Smartcard. It's a fingerprint reader installed on your mouse that turns on the computer only when the fingerprints on the mouse match an identical set in a database.

And at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, army recruits are using the same technology to buy uniforms, toothpaste, and even haircuts.

Although consumer advocates warn that the Smartcard may actually make it harder to catch criminals, Robert Irizarry, of Product Technologies, Inc., says "They can't be cracked without damaging or destroying the card."

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