Having to hand over your PIN to access your bank account puts you at risk of hackers, but the fact that information can’t travel faster than light, as laid out by Albert Einstein, could offer a solution
Technology
3 November 2021
Do away with PINs, thanks to special relativity Shutterstock / adriaticfoto
Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity tells us that information cannot travel faster than the speed of light, an immutable fact of the universe that researchers now want to exploit to stop hackers from accessing your bank account.
When you enter your PIN at an unfamiliar cash machine, you need to trust that its operator will protect that sensitive information and that someone hasn’t interfered with the machine to steal your details. This need for trust is a weak link that security …