Comment Re:Linking ID to Hardware (Score 1) 178
Not necessarily. Think about the implication of the hardware acting as a "something you have" token in two-factor authentication. Today, a common implementation is to prompt for additional information or receive an email/text to confirm identity before setting a cookie to allow the particular device to be recognized.
Doing the same with a unique profile of the hardware would allow that device to permanently exist as one part of two-factor authentication, with a password being the other piece. This would--by far--be the most common use case. A friend borrowing your computer? They could log into their account with a simple email/text verification (a la Facebook) and their standard credentials. But since you've already tied that hardware to your account, you get to skip that step.
It needn't be all doom & gloom. There are practical applications.