25 ms·

Feds Walk into a Building and Demand Everyone's Fingerprints to Open Phones

272 points by triplesec 10y ago

jlgaddis 10y ago
In the legal filing, the government says (in a footnote) that there is no Fifth Amendment issue because the Fifth protects against self-incrimination but that, here, no one has been charged with a crime. The government is on a "fishing expedition" -- obtaining a warrant to search the phones so that they can (hopefully) find evidence. As mentioned in the article, it doesn't work that way (they're going about it backwards).
M_Grey 10y ago
Just another reason to forgo the convenience of biometrics in favor of a password/phrase that exists only in your mind. At least for now, that's something you can't be compelled to produce. Really though, this descent into a police state is such a pathetic outcome for this country. Dangerous, scary, and tragic, but also... pathetic. This is what happens when a sizeable majority don't even participate in the electoral process, and those who do are overwhelmingly mindless.
- B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago
  > a sizeable majority don't even participate That might be your best hope. (Respectfully submitted, etc, etc.)
- eternalban 10y ago
  Reading this from the Forbes article: https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3143273/Mass-Fingerprint-Case-Redacted-Copy-1.pdf https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3143273/Mass-Fing... Relevant bits start at page 5 (III - LEGAL DISCUSSION). Compelling a person to provide his or her fingerprint does not implicate, let alone violate, the Fifth Amendment. "[B]oth federal and state courts have usually held that [the Fifth Amendment] offers no protection against compulsion to submit to fingerprinting." Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757, 764 (1966). That is so because the Fifth Amenmendment privilege against self- incrimination only prevents the use against an accused of testimonial or communicative evidence obtained from him. and yet here they are as a matter of fact seeking "communicative evidence".
  - basch 10y ago
    yet this law was made for identification purposes, not unlocking safes.
    - sliverstorm 10y ago
      Right, and considering fingerprint's long history as identification, it seems like it would be both impossible & unreasonable to try to split the two uses. Can we really say "You only obtained his fingerprint for the purpose of identifying him, you can't use it to unlock the phone"? And, we can't reasonably try to end the use of fingerprints as ID...
      - chias 10y ago
        > Can we really say "You only obtained his fingerprint for the purpose of identifying him, you can't use it to unlock the phone"? That seems to me to be a very reasonable thing to say. It seems to me that we have plenty of mechanism in place to say "you have X, you can use it for Y, and not Z, because using it for Z violates someone's rights". As a super contrived strawman example, if your computer ever gets confiscated by law enforcement, while they may be permitted to search it, they can't just play Fallout 4 or mine bitcoins on it. Another instance I think is similar in concept: juries are instructed to disregard things (i.e. pretend they don't have a piece of information for the purposes of a trial) all the time, when access to this information would be improper.
        sliverstorm 10y ago
        To be clear I don't think it's unreasonable, it just seems it would be difficult to define & enforce, because it's already matter of public record. For example, what if the fingerprint was lifted from the scene of the crime? Can you use that to unlock the phone?
        basch 10y ago
        if your house key is laying outside, can they use it without a warrant?
- a3n 10y ago
  A sizable majority would go along with this, because they haven't been come for yet, as the saying goes.
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    To use another saying, the frogs in this pot are just about boiled... if not now, it's going to be too late, if it isn't already.
- awqrre 10y ago
  Biometrics could be used as a username, but should not be used as a password...
  - Grazester 10y ago
    Exactly. It is a form of identification not authentication.
    - toomanybeersies 10y ago
      I heard fingerprints described as "Authentication, not authorisation", which I think is a better description of the role they play (on the iPhone, at least), and the role they should play. They authenticate who you are, they aren't trivial to fake. However, they shouldn't authorise access to a device on their own. Your fingerprint works as a somewhat more secure, medium term swipe-to-unlock for your phone.
      - joshuahutt 10y ago
        Authorization typically means what actions the authenticated user is allowed to perform, not that the authenticated user has herself conveyed some kind of approval.
      - rdtsc 10y ago
        > I heard fingerprints described as "Authentication, not authorisation", I understand once you've authenticated who the user is, authorization is just a mask of what they are allowed to do. It is like saying "after you've given your username (GMail account) to Google, it should allow you to read your email. If you happen to be an administrator for Google Business account you can also see other accounts or settings etc". So hopefully you meant that you just use your fingerprint in place of typing out your username not in place of typing your username _and_ password.
        raphman 10y ago
        One could see fingerprint and user/pw as two different roles - with different levels of authorisation. (Somehow similar to sudo which asks for the user's password the first time but assumes that the logged in user is allowed to execute further sudo commands without pw auth. Even if sudo does not really implement two different user roles here.)
- susan_hall 10y ago
  I'm not sure if "overwhelmingly mindless" is the right characterization. In my opinion, the most interesting story playing out among the Western nations is what is happening in Poland right now. In the USA, people fought for independence from Britain starting in 1775, so obviously those people are not alive in 2016. But in Poland, many of the people alive now are the same people who overthrew tyranny in 1989. That's an interesting story. Among the Polish public there are many who were willing to risk their lives to fight for a more open, democratic and liberal political system, in 1989. And now, in 2016, Poland is suffering the same shift towards authoritarianism that we see in other Western countries. Just so I'm clear, I'm saying I find this interesting because in many cases we are talking about the same people who were alive in 1989. In the USA you can say "Oh, that generation believed in those things, but those currently alive don't believe in these things." (I don't agree with that statement, but you could make that argument.) Whereas in Poland, it's in many cases the same people who fought for a more open system who are now tolerating the drift towards a more authoritarian system. To me, the story isn't about "overwhelmingly mindless" voters, its about voters who are angry with the failure of the system. That is, they are mindful of how the system has failed. They may not know what the answer is, but they are angry, and they are willing to elect politicians who seem to mirror their anger. It might be a bad strategy to vote for someone simply because they appear to reflect your anger, but I think I can understand the motivation, and it is not quite the same as being mindless.
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    If a voter's reaction to anger with a failed system is to shoot themselves in the foot with a pistol they've had laying around since '89, I'm going to stick with the "mindless" appellation.
  - angry_octet 10y ago
    In counterpoint to this, witness the mass protests (by women) against the proposed ban in abortion. A religious right wing pressure group pushed it along, the govt backed it, mass protests, humiliating back down. Goes to show how out if touch ruling parties are about what people think, and their belief that people actually do support their hard line policies. In actuality, maybe people are just voting based in whether their economic circumstances improved over the last term, regardless of whether the change was due to national or global factors. Maybe they just don't like the Russians and voted for the nationalist rhetoric.
- lisper 10y ago
  No, it's what happens when large numbers of people decide they care about safety and security more than they care about freedom. That doesn't necessarily make it any better, but to attribute this outcome to mindlessness is to badly miss the point. The first step to solving a problem is to understand what the problem actually is.
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    The problem is that we're not exchanging freedom for security, we're exchanging freedom for the empty promise of security and the reality of a police state. I'm still calling "mindless".
    - trendia 10y ago
      To give another example: If the US were to outlaw all forms of encryption, we would have less privacy AND less security: Less Privacy: all communication is now readable by a third party in the middle Less Security: all banking information is now transmitted in plaintext
    - tedunangst 10y ago
      A locked phone is a lot less interesting to a burglar. If the convenience of touch ID means more people lock their phones, that's not an empty promise.
      - M_Grey 10y ago
        How many people lock their phones against burglary?
        tedunangst 10y ago
        One. Me.
        M_Grey 10y ago
        Huh... why? I mean, burglars and hackers are usually very different people, and the former usually doesn't care about what's on your phone, just your phone. I grant however, that you could have a particular situation perhaps relating to your work which might alter that.
- bigiain 10y ago
  Alternative idea:intentionally register someone else's fingerprints on your phone - so when the cops arrive and find a phone lying on the couch you can plausibly say "not mine, here try my finger on it!" ;-) (Anybody got ready access to med school cadavers with the fingerprints intact?)
  - mekazu 10y ago
    Keeping your fingers wet will also prevent the mechanism from working.
  - tenpies 10y ago
    I really wish you could set up functionality for each finger. Index unlocks, but thumb instantly wipes the phone.
- qb45 10y ago
  > Just another reason to forgo the convenience of biometrics in favor of a password/phrase that exists only in your mind. At least for now, that's something you can't be compelled to produce. Unless by rubber hose cryptanalysis. Still better than being compelled to produce one's finger, though ;)
kyled 10y ago
Not a fan of solely using fingerprints for authentication. Good systems allow you to rotate keys. I only got 10 fingerprints.
- rch 10y ago
  And you might not have any, once an adversary is done with you.
  - nothrabannosir 10y ago
    Fortunately, my threat model does not include people cutting off my fingers. Take out the pliers and you can have my phone. My notes are private, but not that private.
    - freehunter 10y ago
      https://www.xkcd.com/538/ https://www.xkcd.com/538/
      - M_Grey 10y ago
        That's the reality, for sure, but at least you're stripping away the air of respectability, law, and order. When you're whipping someone with a rubber hose, you've made a serious commitment.
        nickpsecurity 10y ago
        " you're stripping away the air of respectability, law, and order." Counterexample popped in my head was parents with a belt asking for iPhone unlocked. Still has respectability, law, and order in most places. I wonder if there are other counterexamples.
        M_Grey 10y ago
        If you need to belt your kid to get access to their device, you've already gone well past the fail-state of parenting.
natch 10y ago
Working link: http://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2016/10/16/doj-demands-mass-fingerprint-seizure-to-open-iphones/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2016/10/16/doj-de...
yardie 10y ago
This is why my unlock is not tied to biometrics. Once I realized the government can compel you to unlock your phone without a warrant using your fingerprint it became a much less compelling feature. The same for facial recognition.
- rhizome 10y ago
  Yep. I got into a little argument with my brother over this last week, as he is a "I don't care, I have nothing to hide."
  - adventured 10y ago
    My favorite fast response to disarm that is always: that's not up to you [whether or not you have something to hide]. I've found it instantly shakes the false comfort they're trying to derive from their premise and opens up a moment of rethink.
    - roel_v 10y ago
      Not for me, I don't even understand your point. Of course it's up to me if I have something to hide. I have nothing on my phone that I wouldn't be perfectly OK with to have printed and displayed in a busy public place. How is it not up to me to decide what details of my life I have to hide?
      - morganvachon 10y ago
        Easy: Your contact list. You may not care who sees your list, but the people on your contact list would probably be upset if their private email address, cellphone number, chat name, home address and other personal data were exposed to the general public. Ditto any conversation you had with them via text; you may not care who sees the conversation, but your partner/friend/boss may object to having their privately texted words plastered all over Times Square. Your GPS location data is another good one. Hypothetically speaking, would you really want the public, which contains some seedy characters mixed in with the "normal" people, to see the route you take to drop off/pick up your daughter at school, making her easy pickings for a kidnapping? There's more than just the websites you browse and the people you talk to on your phone. It's a digital vault of every move you make, every question you ponder, every person you've interacted with, every store you shop at. Your banking data is there, your stocks, your hobbies, your bursts of anger, your outlook on life, your loved ones' and associates' addresses and contact information. In short, you hurt more than yourself by exposing your private data, whether to the public at large, the government, or commercial entities seeking to hoover it up for advertising revenue. It's your responsibility to keep it private.
crooked-v 10y ago
I have to wonder what sort of technical measures could be implemented to make biometric systems as legally secure as passwords while still retaining something like the same convenience. The first thing that comes to mind for me is the Apple patent on recognizing a fingerprint anywhere on the phone's surface, and using that in combination with Android-style lock screen patterns. A lock screen pattern isn't nearly as secure as a full password, but it could serve a similar legal role.
- jlgaddis 10y ago
  The linked article states that a "voice print" would likely be sufficient (but hasn't been tested legally).
  - crooked-v 10y ago
    I skipped over voice as a possibility because of the "look like a doofus in public" factor.
- eternalban 10y ago
  It has to be speech, since speech is protected. How about 'phrase of the day' to be spoken in conjunction with swipe? [p.s. this should be relatively trivial to roll out in a patch by Apple.]
  - gonzo 10y ago
    Political speech is protected. There may be 4th and 5th amendment arguments, too
    - eternalban 10y ago
      Miranda: Right to remain silent.
      - M_Grey 10y ago
        Fifth amendment too, if that speech would fundamentally lead to incrimination.
pm24601 10y ago
And this is why I don't use my fingerprint, passcode only for me.
- carterehsmith 10y ago
  I am curious. So... how often are you actually in a situation like that? You know, police with a search warrant. Or, do you feel that there is a reasonable possibility that will happen to you?
  - pm24601 10y ago
    Every time I go through customs
    - carterehsmith 10y ago
      Uh, ok... what countries are involved? Also, how does that work? Customs officer asks you to touch-unlock your phone. You say, no I have a pin code! And then they say, oooh then, nevermind, please proceed? That does not make sense.
  - abgawrv 10y ago
    It does happen by mistake. My apartment was raided by police and I know four others who have been raided too. In two of those cases, the people who were raided had nothing to do with any kind of illegal activity. The other three were drug related, of course.
    - carterehsmith 10y ago
      That sucks, sure. Did they actually ask you to unlock your phone?
      - abgawrv 10y ago
        I've never owned a smart phone. At the time I would've had some prepaid flip phone, and fortunately I was pretty consistent about keeping those out of the house.
dimino 10y ago
Just turn off your phones, can't unlock Android, at least, without the code, after startup.
- P4u1 10y ago
  I was going to say the same thing. Likewise for iOS. Not that I have anything to hide, but if I didn't want to comply in such a situation, I would turn my phone off, game over.
prophesi 10y ago
The title sounds like the start of a good joke.
kabdib 10y ago
Duress fingerprints. 'nuff said. Or a configurable timeout, rather than the apparently hard-coded 48 hours. Or ask for a PIN if the phone's radio detects many more other radios in the vicinity than a few minutes ago ("Because you might be under duress, please enter a PIN now.") Or if a phone has been sitting on a flat surface for a while, require a PIN. Or require a PIN if the phone is tapped with a duress code ("Shave-and-a-hair-cut"). Could be pretty subtle. Countermeasures like this are useful both against thieves (who might want to unlock your phone and get access to your accounts) as well as against state actors (ditto).
- politekc 10y ago
  Touch ID is set to require a passcode after five failed attempts, One could use an unregistered finger or knuckle to intentionally fail the five attempts and force a passcode requirement.
  - splicer 10y ago
    Or just force a shutdown by holding the power button. A passcode is needed on boot.
  - rimantas 10y ago
    Also timeout is 8 hours on iPhone, not 48.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
rcthompson 10y ago
On Android, if you have fingerprint unlock enabled, you still have to enter a PIN it other unlock code after a reboot (I can't speak for carrier-specific modifications, though). So if you have time, shutting down your phone (or leaving it turned off even not using it) would prevent your fingerprint from unlocking it. I believe the same is true for an iPhone as well. More generally, if this is important to you, make sure you know under what circumstances your phone will or will not consider a fingerprint sufficient. Also, you should check whether the error message betrays any information. If you try a fingerprint when it requires a PIN code, does it say the same thing for a known and an unknown fingerprint?
paulsutter 10y ago
Phones need a feature to require the passcode after n minutes of non-use. No that wouldn't solve all the problems with fingerprints to unlock, but it would reduce the scope considerably.
Kudos 10y ago
If my device has been powered off, it can't be unlocked with a fingerprint. For me that's enough of a trade-off to take the risk.
- boulos 10y ago
  I was going to say the same thing, but then the article says: > For that reason, the warrant authorizes the seizure of ‘passwords, encryption keys, and other access devices that may be necessary to access the device,’” the document read. So the "power off the device, now it's a password" seems to be something they were prepared for. The article is unclear as to whether or not this was granted, but if so it'd be seemingly unprecedented.
  - superchink 10y ago
    Would that hold up? Isn't sharing of a password protected?
sliverstorm 10y ago
I don't know that withholding your fingerprint to keep your phone locked would work, anyway. They already have my fingerprint on file, and likely most of everyone else's, in the DMV records. I'm not sure if fingerprint scanners have been defeated using ink prints yet, but it's just a matter of time, I suspect. Fingerprints are established as identification, which makes them necessarily not private/secret.
angry_octet 10y ago
A good reason to have a timer on the fingerprint authentication mode, so after eg half an hour you have to type your pin too. This would also help them remember their pin which people can forget amazingly easily... It can be weeks between using it on iOS.
appleflaxen 10y ago
at this point, hardware vendors should just stop making these. It's always been a gimmick; it's just run it's course.
- cooper12 10y ago
  You got downvoted but it's true. People unlocked their phones just fine before with pins or patterns. The time saved is marginal. Fingerprints need to go the way of facial recognition to unlock. Unfortunately as these get more popular even more people will find ways to doctor fingerprints.
jamesfisher 10y ago
Your fingerprint is your username, not your password.
tomohawk 10y ago
This seems more like a 4th amendment issue. It's great that they got a warrant, but the warrant is unbelievably broad. I can't imagine a similar one enabling law enforcement officers to conduct strip / body cavity searches of everyone in the building. Or, allowing the officers to search all of the vehicles in the parking lot.
jwatte 10y ago
Fingerprints are user names, not passwords.
stryk 10y ago
This is one reason I've always wanted to have two separate authentication credentials for one user. Unfortunately, I've yet to find an acceptable or easy way to implement that on any device that would need it (your phone, your laptop, any device which you want to keep stuff private). For example: have one authentication method that unlocks the device to the typical desktop environment, command line, or whatever -- just a typical GUI that people would expect to see upon logging in. And then have another (hidden) authentication method to unlock the device into the REAL meat & potatoes. Useful for situations like this when law enforcement demands it, or when TSA/Customs in a foreign country demand you open and boot your laptop at a foreign airport. Is there any way to implement this on Android, iOS, GNU/Linux, or Windows?
- dlp211 10y ago
  Truecrypt had something like this for PC's. The project shut down though.
  - raihansaputra 10y ago
    Veracrypt (the most popular fork of Truecrypt) has this ability too. And some Truecrypt user still trust Truecrypt after the latest audit found no signals of backdoors.
- viral_krieger 10y ago
  I think Qubes OS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qubes_OS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qubes_OS) does something similar to what you're looking for. You can set it up so when you login your "qube" (The virtual machine you're currently using) is a normal looking operating system that doesn't have access to any of your protected files. You can then load up your protected files and programs by starting another password protected "qube", which is similar to starting another VM.
  - stryk 10y ago
    This looks very, very interesting. I'll have a deeper look into Qubes this weekend for sure. I wonder how good their repos are in terms of up-to-date packages and software
pmorici 10y ago
Maybe I missed it but I skimmed the legal document and didn't see anywhere where it indicates the police actually have any kind of probable cause. Was this literally just some fishing expedition against a household's phones?
kordless 10y ago
How about an app that locks down your phone when it scans one particular fingerprint?
boulos 10y ago
A bunch of people mentioned turning off the device, to require a pin or password. The article though explicitly seems to claim the warrant included anything imaginable to unlock a device: > For that reason, the warrant authorizes the seizure of ‘passwords, encryption keys, and other access devices that may be necessary to access the device,’” the document read.
disposablezero 10y ago
Our new startup is an emergency fingerprint-dissolving appliance: nose-plugs and novcaine are premium features, but you can DIY burn the skin of your fingerprint pads off for free with lasers. Next year, we'll also have a slicing add-on product in this category which complements the lasering for extra tinfoil security. We also plan to heavily encourage apps and accessories. ;)
hippich 10y ago
fingerprint (or face) is not a password, it is login.
Houshalter 10y ago
Stupid question, is there an easy way in chrome to block javascript on specific sites? I just get redirected to a blank page.
delegate 10y ago
One solution is to configure a finger which, when scanned, erases the phone. Or maybe the finger triggers a 'enter unlock pin' dialog - with a secret code that erases all data.. Not sure if you can do that from an app - probably no - so Apple should step in here...
sjs382 10y ago
Just a quick hack around this... Android phones (at least those with the latest OS) will require you to enter a PIN the first unlock after a reboot. If you get a chance to restart your phone, do so.

272 points by triplesec 10y ago

In the legal filing, the government says (in a footnote) that there is no Fifth Amendment issue because the Fifth protects against self-incrimination but that, here, no one has been charged with a crime. The government is on a "fishing expedition" -- obtaining a warrant to search the phones so that they can (hopefully) find evidence. As mentioned in the article, it doesn't work that way (they're going about it backwards).

M_Grey 10y ago

Just another reason to forgo the convenience of biometrics in favor of a password/phrase that exists only in your mind. At least for now, that's something you can't be compelled to produce. Really though, this descent into a police state is such a pathetic outcome for this country. Dangerous, scary, and tragic, but also... pathetic. This is what happens when a sizeable majority don't even participate in the electoral process, and those who do are overwhelmingly mindless.

B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago
> a sizeable majority don't even participate That might be your best hope. (Respectfully submitted, etc, etc.)
eternalban 10y ago
Reading this from the Forbes article: https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3143273/Mass-Fingerprint-Case-Redacted-Copy-1.pdf https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3143273/Mass-Fing... Relevant bits start at page 5 (III - LEGAL DISCUSSION). Compelling a person to provide his or her fingerprint does not implicate, let alone violate, the Fifth Amendment. "[B]oth federal and state courts have usually held that [the Fifth Amendment] offers no protection against compulsion to submit to fingerprinting." Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757, 764 (1966). That is so because the Fifth Amenmendment privilege against self- incrimination only prevents the use against an accused of testimonial or communicative evidence obtained from him. and yet here they are as a matter of fact seeking "communicative evidence".
- basch 10y ago
  yet this law was made for identification purposes, not unlocking safes.
  - sliverstorm 10y ago
    Right, and considering fingerprint's long history as identification, it seems like it would be both impossible & unreasonable to try to split the two uses. Can we really say "You only obtained his fingerprint for the purpose of identifying him, you can't use it to unlock the phone"? And, we can't reasonably try to end the use of fingerprints as ID...
    - chias 10y ago
      > Can we really say "You only obtained his fingerprint for the purpose of identifying him, you can't use it to unlock the phone"? That seems to me to be a very reasonable thing to say. It seems to me that we have plenty of mechanism in place to say "you have X, you can use it for Y, and not Z, because using it for Z violates someone's rights". As a super contrived strawman example, if your computer ever gets confiscated by law enforcement, while they may be permitted to search it, they can't just play Fallout 4 or mine bitcoins on it. Another instance I think is similar in concept: juries are instructed to disregard things (i.e. pretend they don't have a piece of information for the purposes of a trial) all the time, when access to this information would be improper.
      - sliverstorm 10y ago
        To be clear I don't think it's unreasonable, it just seems it would be difficult to define & enforce, because it's already matter of public record. For example, what if the fingerprint was lifted from the scene of the crime? Can you use that to unlock the phone?
        basch 10y ago
        if your house key is laying outside, can they use it without a warrant?
a3n 10y ago
A sizable majority would go along with this, because they haven't been come for yet, as the saying goes.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  To use another saying, the frogs in this pot are just about boiled... if not now, it's going to be too late, if it isn't already.
awqrre 10y ago
Biometrics could be used as a username, but should not be used as a password...
- Grazester 10y ago
  Exactly. It is a form of identification not authentication.
  - toomanybeersies 10y ago
    I heard fingerprints described as "Authentication, not authorisation", which I think is a better description of the role they play (on the iPhone, at least), and the role they should play. They authenticate who you are, they aren't trivial to fake. However, they shouldn't authorise access to a device on their own. Your fingerprint works as a somewhat more secure, medium term swipe-to-unlock for your phone.
    - joshuahutt 10y ago
      Authorization typically means what actions the authenticated user is allowed to perform, not that the authenticated user has herself conveyed some kind of approval.
    - rdtsc 10y ago
      > I heard fingerprints described as "Authentication, not authorisation", I understand once you've authenticated who the user is, authorization is just a mask of what they are allowed to do. It is like saying "after you've given your username (GMail account) to Google, it should allow you to read your email. If you happen to be an administrator for Google Business account you can also see other accounts or settings etc". So hopefully you meant that you just use your fingerprint in place of typing out your username not in place of typing your username _and_ password.
      - raphman 10y ago
        One could see fingerprint and user/pw as two different roles - with different levels of authorisation. (Somehow similar to sudo which asks for the user's password the first time but assumes that the logged in user is allowed to execute further sudo commands without pw auth. Even if sudo does not really implement two different user roles here.)
susan_hall 10y ago
I'm not sure if "overwhelmingly mindless" is the right characterization. In my opinion, the most interesting story playing out among the Western nations is what is happening in Poland right now. In the USA, people fought for independence from Britain starting in 1775, so obviously those people are not alive in 2016. But in Poland, many of the people alive now are the same people who overthrew tyranny in 1989. That's an interesting story. Among the Polish public there are many who were willing to risk their lives to fight for a more open, democratic and liberal political system, in 1989. And now, in 2016, Poland is suffering the same shift towards authoritarianism that we see in other Western countries. Just so I'm clear, I'm saying I find this interesting because in many cases we are talking about the same people who were alive in 1989. In the USA you can say "Oh, that generation believed in those things, but those currently alive don't believe in these things." (I don't agree with that statement, but you could make that argument.) Whereas in Poland, it's in many cases the same people who fought for a more open system who are now tolerating the drift towards a more authoritarian system. To me, the story isn't about "overwhelmingly mindless" voters, its about voters who are angry with the failure of the system. That is, they are mindful of how the system has failed. They may not know what the answer is, but they are angry, and they are willing to elect politicians who seem to mirror their anger. It might be a bad strategy to vote for someone simply because they appear to reflect your anger, but I think I can understand the motivation, and it is not quite the same as being mindless.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  If a voter's reaction to anger with a failed system is to shoot themselves in the foot with a pistol they've had laying around since '89, I'm going to stick with the "mindless" appellation.
- angry_octet 10y ago
  In counterpoint to this, witness the mass protests (by women) against the proposed ban in abortion. A religious right wing pressure group pushed it along, the govt backed it, mass protests, humiliating back down. Goes to show how out if touch ruling parties are about what people think, and their belief that people actually do support their hard line policies. In actuality, maybe people are just voting based in whether their economic circumstances improved over the last term, regardless of whether the change was due to national or global factors. Maybe they just don't like the Russians and voted for the nationalist rhetoric.
lisper 10y ago
No, it's what happens when large numbers of people decide they care about safety and security more than they care about freedom. That doesn't necessarily make it any better, but to attribute this outcome to mindlessness is to badly miss the point. The first step to solving a problem is to understand what the problem actually is.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  The problem is that we're not exchanging freedom for security, we're exchanging freedom for the empty promise of security and the reality of a police state. I'm still calling "mindless".
  - trendia 10y ago
    To give another example: If the US were to outlaw all forms of encryption, we would have less privacy AND less security: Less Privacy: all communication is now readable by a third party in the middle Less Security: all banking information is now transmitted in plaintext
  - tedunangst 10y ago
    A locked phone is a lot less interesting to a burglar. If the convenience of touch ID means more people lock their phones, that's not an empty promise.
    - M_Grey 10y ago
      How many people lock their phones against burglary?
      - tedunangst 10y ago
        One. Me.
        M_Grey 10y ago
        Huh... why? I mean, burglars and hackers are usually very different people, and the former usually doesn't care about what's on your phone, just your phone. I grant however, that you could have a particular situation perhaps relating to your work which might alter that.
bigiain 10y ago
Alternative idea:intentionally register someone else's fingerprints on your phone - so when the cops arrive and find a phone lying on the couch you can plausibly say "not mine, here try my finger on it!" ;-) (Anybody got ready access to med school cadavers with the fingerprints intact?)
- mekazu 10y ago
  Keeping your fingers wet will also prevent the mechanism from working.
- tenpies 10y ago
  I really wish you could set up functionality for each finger. Index unlocks, but thumb instantly wipes the phone.
qb45 10y ago
> Just another reason to forgo the convenience of biometrics in favor of a password/phrase that exists only in your mind. At least for now, that's something you can't be compelled to produce. Unless by rubber hose cryptanalysis. Still better than being compelled to produce one's finger, though ;)

kyled 10y ago

Not a fan of solely using fingerprints for authentication. Good systems allow you to rotate keys. I only got 10 fingerprints.

rch 10y ago
And you might not have any, once an adversary is done with you.
- nothrabannosir 10y ago
  Fortunately, my threat model does not include people cutting off my fingers. Take out the pliers and you can have my phone. My notes are private, but not that private.
  - freehunter 10y ago
    https://www.xkcd.com/538/ https://www.xkcd.com/538/
    - M_Grey 10y ago
      That's the reality, for sure, but at least you're stripping away the air of respectability, law, and order. When you're whipping someone with a rubber hose, you've made a serious commitment.
      - nickpsecurity 10y ago
        " you're stripping away the air of respectability, law, and order." Counterexample popped in my head was parents with a belt asking for iPhone unlocked. Still has respectability, law, and order in most places. I wonder if there are other counterexamples.
        M_Grey 10y ago
        If you need to belt your kid to get access to their device, you've already gone well past the fail-state of parenting.

natch 10y ago

Working link: http://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2016/10/16/doj-demands-mass-fingerprint-seizure-to-open-iphones/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2016/10/16/doj-de...

yardie 10y ago

This is why my unlock is not tied to biometrics. Once I realized the government can compel you to unlock your phone without a warrant using your fingerprint it became a much less compelling feature. The same for facial recognition.

rhizome 10y ago
Yep. I got into a little argument with my brother over this last week, as he is a "I don't care, I have nothing to hide."
- adventured 10y ago
  My favorite fast response to disarm that is always: that's not up to you [whether or not you have something to hide]. I've found it instantly shakes the false comfort they're trying to derive from their premise and opens up a moment of rethink.
  - roel_v 10y ago
    Not for me, I don't even understand your point. Of course it's up to me if I have something to hide. I have nothing on my phone that I wouldn't be perfectly OK with to have printed and displayed in a busy public place. How is it not up to me to decide what details of my life I have to hide?
    - morganvachon 10y ago
      Easy: Your contact list. You may not care who sees your list, but the people on your contact list would probably be upset if their private email address, cellphone number, chat name, home address and other personal data were exposed to the general public. Ditto any conversation you had with them via text; you may not care who sees the conversation, but your partner/friend/boss may object to having their privately texted words plastered all over Times Square. Your GPS location data is another good one. Hypothetically speaking, would you really want the public, which contains some seedy characters mixed in with the "normal" people, to see the route you take to drop off/pick up your daughter at school, making her easy pickings for a kidnapping? There's more than just the websites you browse and the people you talk to on your phone. It's a digital vault of every move you make, every question you ponder, every person you've interacted with, every store you shop at. Your banking data is there, your stocks, your hobbies, your bursts of anger, your outlook on life, your loved ones' and associates' addresses and contact information. In short, you hurt more than yourself by exposing your private data, whether to the public at large, the government, or commercial entities seeking to hoover it up for advertising revenue. It's your responsibility to keep it private.

crooked-v 10y ago

I have to wonder what sort of technical measures could be implemented to make biometric systems as legally secure as passwords while still retaining something like the same convenience. The first thing that comes to mind for me is the Apple patent on recognizing a fingerprint anywhere on the phone's surface, and using that in combination with Android-style lock screen patterns. A lock screen pattern isn't nearly as secure as a full password, but it could serve a similar legal role.

jlgaddis 10y ago
The linked article states that a "voice print" would likely be sufficient (but hasn't been tested legally).
- crooked-v 10y ago
  I skipped over voice as a possibility because of the "look like a doofus in public" factor.
eternalban 10y ago
It has to be speech, since speech is protected. How about 'phrase of the day' to be spoken in conjunction with swipe? [p.s. this should be relatively trivial to roll out in a patch by Apple.]
- gonzo 10y ago
  Political speech is protected. There may be 4th and 5th amendment arguments, too
  - eternalban 10y ago
    Miranda: Right to remain silent.
    - M_Grey 10y ago
      Fifth amendment too, if that speech would fundamentally lead to incrimination.

pm24601 10y ago

And this is why I don't use my fingerprint, passcode only for me.

carterehsmith 10y ago
I am curious. So... how often are you actually in a situation like that? You know, police with a search warrant. Or, do you feel that there is a reasonable possibility that will happen to you?
- pm24601 10y ago
  Every time I go through customs
  - carterehsmith 10y ago
    Uh, ok... what countries are involved? Also, how does that work? Customs officer asks you to touch-unlock your phone. You say, no I have a pin code! And then they say, oooh then, nevermind, please proceed? That does not make sense.
- abgawrv 10y ago
  It does happen by mistake. My apartment was raided by police and I know four others who have been raided too. In two of those cases, the people who were raided had nothing to do with any kind of illegal activity. The other three were drug related, of course.
  - carterehsmith 10y ago
    That sucks, sure. Did they actually ask you to unlock your phone?
    - abgawrv 10y ago
      I've never owned a smart phone. At the time I would've had some prepaid flip phone, and fortunately I was pretty consistent about keeping those out of the house.

dimino 10y ago

Just turn off your phones, can't unlock Android, at least, without the code, after startup.

P4u1 10y ago
I was going to say the same thing. Likewise for iOS. Not that I have anything to hide, but if I didn't want to comply in such a situation, I would turn my phone off, game over.

prophesi 10y ago

The title sounds like the start of a good joke.

kabdib 10y ago

Duress fingerprints. 'nuff said. Or a configurable timeout, rather than the apparently hard-coded 48 hours. Or ask for a PIN if the phone's radio detects many more other radios in the vicinity than a few minutes ago ("Because you might be under duress, please enter a PIN now.") Or if a phone has been sitting on a flat surface for a while, require a PIN. Or require a PIN if the phone is tapped with a duress code ("Shave-and-a-hair-cut"). Could be pretty subtle. Countermeasures like this are useful both against thieves (who might want to unlock your phone and get access to your accounts) as well as against state actors (ditto).

politekc 10y ago
Touch ID is set to require a passcode after five failed attempts, One could use an unregistered finger or knuckle to intentionally fail the five attempts and force a passcode requirement.
- splicer 10y ago
  Or just force a shutdown by holding the power button. A passcode is needed on boot.
- rimantas 10y ago
  Also timeout is 8 hours on iPhone, not 48.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

rcthompson 10y ago

On Android, if you have fingerprint unlock enabled, you still have to enter a PIN it other unlock code after a reboot (I can't speak for carrier-specific modifications, though). So if you have time, shutting down your phone (or leaving it turned off even not using it) would prevent your fingerprint from unlocking it. I believe the same is true for an iPhone as well. More generally, if this is important to you, make sure you know under what circumstances your phone will or will not consider a fingerprint sufficient. Also, you should check whether the error message betrays any information. If you try a fingerprint when it requires a PIN code, does it say the same thing for a known and an unknown fingerprint?

paulsutter 10y ago

Phones need a feature to require the passcode after n minutes of non-use. No that wouldn't solve all the problems with fingerprints to unlock, but it would reduce the scope considerably.

Kudos 10y ago

If my device has been powered off, it can't be unlocked with a fingerprint. For me that's enough of a trade-off to take the risk.

boulos 10y ago
I was going to say the same thing, but then the article says: > For that reason, the warrant authorizes the seizure of ‘passwords, encryption keys, and other access devices that may be necessary to access the device,’” the document read. So the "power off the device, now it's a password" seems to be something they were prepared for. The article is unclear as to whether or not this was granted, but if so it'd be seemingly unprecedented.
- superchink 10y ago
  Would that hold up? Isn't sharing of a password protected?

sliverstorm 10y ago

I don't know that withholding your fingerprint to keep your phone locked would work, anyway. They already have my fingerprint on file, and likely most of everyone else's, in the DMV records. I'm not sure if fingerprint scanners have been defeated using ink prints yet, but it's just a matter of time, I suspect. Fingerprints are established as identification, which makes them necessarily not private/secret.

angry_octet 10y ago

A good reason to have a timer on the fingerprint authentication mode, so after eg half an hour you have to type your pin too. This would also help them remember their pin which people can forget amazingly easily... It can be weeks between using it on iOS.

appleflaxen 10y ago

at this point, hardware vendors should just stop making these. It's always been a gimmick; it's just run it's course.

cooper12 10y ago
You got downvoted but it's true. People unlocked their phones just fine before with pins or patterns. The time saved is marginal. Fingerprints need to go the way of facial recognition to unlock. Unfortunately as these get more popular even more people will find ways to doctor fingerprints.

jamesfisher 10y ago

Your fingerprint is your username, not your password.

tomohawk 10y ago

This seems more like a 4th amendment issue. It's great that they got a warrant, but the warrant is unbelievably broad. I can't imagine a similar one enabling law enforcement officers to conduct strip / body cavity searches of everyone in the building. Or, allowing the officers to search all of the vehicles in the parking lot.

jwatte 10y ago

Fingerprints are user names, not passwords.

stryk 10y ago

This is one reason I've always wanted to have two separate authentication credentials for one user. Unfortunately, I've yet to find an acceptable or easy way to implement that on any device that would need it (your phone, your laptop, any device which you want to keep stuff private). For example: have one authentication method that unlocks the device to the typical desktop environment, command line, or whatever -- just a typical GUI that people would expect to see upon logging in. And then have another (hidden) authentication method to unlock the device into the REAL meat & potatoes. Useful for situations like this when law enforcement demands it, or when TSA/Customs in a foreign country demand you open and boot your laptop at a foreign airport. Is there any way to implement this on Android, iOS, GNU/Linux, or Windows?

dlp211 10y ago
Truecrypt had something like this for PC's. The project shut down though.
- raihansaputra 10y ago
  Veracrypt (the most popular fork of Truecrypt) has this ability too. And some Truecrypt user still trust Truecrypt after the latest audit found no signals of backdoors.
viral_krieger 10y ago
I think Qubes OS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qubes_OS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qubes_OS) does something similar to what you're looking for. You can set it up so when you login your "qube" (The virtual machine you're currently using) is a normal looking operating system that doesn't have access to any of your protected files. You can then load up your protected files and programs by starting another password protected "qube", which is similar to starting another VM.
- stryk 10y ago
  This looks very, very interesting. I'll have a deeper look into Qubes this weekend for sure. I wonder how good their repos are in terms of up-to-date packages and software

pmorici 10y ago

Maybe I missed it but I skimmed the legal document and didn't see anywhere where it indicates the police actually have any kind of probable cause. Was this literally just some fishing expedition against a household's phones?

kordless 10y ago

How about an app that locks down your phone when it scans one particular fingerprint?

boulos 10y ago

A bunch of people mentioned turning off the device, to require a pin or password. The article though explicitly seems to claim the warrant included anything imaginable to unlock a device: > For that reason, the warrant authorizes the seizure of ‘passwords, encryption keys, and other access devices that may be necessary to access the device,’” the document read.

disposablezero 10y ago

Our new startup is an emergency fingerprint-dissolving appliance: nose-plugs and novcaine are premium features, but you can DIY burn the skin of your fingerprint pads off for free with lasers. Next year, we'll also have a slicing add-on product in this category which complements the lasering for extra tinfoil security. We also plan to heavily encourage apps and accessories. ;)

hippich 10y ago

fingerprint (or face) is not a password, it is login.

Houshalter 10y ago

Stupid question, is there an easy way in chrome to block javascript on specific sites? I just get redirected to a blank page.

delegate 10y ago

One solution is to configure a finger which, when scanned, erases the phone. Or maybe the finger triggers a 'enter unlock pin' dialog - with a secret code that erases all data.. Not sure if you can do that from an app - probably no - so Apple should step in here...

sjs382 10y ago

Just a quick hack around this... Android phones (at least those with the latest OS) will require you to enter a PIN the first unlock after a reboot. If you get a chance to restart your phone, do so.