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While biometric authentication is overall less secure and can be circumvented, I still think there are situations where it's preferable to the alternatives, in

While biometric authentication is overall less secure and can be circumvented, I still think there are situations where it's preferable to the alternatives, in particular on smartphones: All Android versions I used don't support setting an encryption passphrase that's separate from the unlock pin/password. As a result one has to choose between a very long unlock password one has to enter all the time or a convenient short one making encryption basically useless. Given this trade-off, I think using a proper, long passphrase for encryption with a fingerprint for normal unlocks is preferable to the alternatives. It's particularly irritating that this restriction is not at all technical; the only justifications I've read were along the lines of "it might confuse users". Less importantly, for my phone, a shoulder-surfing attack seems much more likely to me than someone specifically copying my fingerprint.

imron 8y ago
On the flip side, anyone who obtains the physical device likely has access to the key (your fingerprints are all over it)
- grumdan 8y ago
  That's true, though at this point against a sophisticated attacker, it might be game over anyway, since they could read out the encryption key from RAM directly if it's still turned on. If the device is off, the fingerprints won't help and the data is protected by the long passphrase. Of course all this assumes a particular attacker model and for a lazy attacker that doesn't know how to use the fingerprints to fool the sensor, everything is fine. Another downside is being possibly forced to unlock my phone at airports, since as far as I'm aware, passwords are protected by the fifth amendment whereas fingerprints are not. In this case it might be smarter to turn off one's phone entirely when crossing borders into countries where one can be compelled in this way. This doesn't even go into all the other kinds of pressure they might apply to make me unlock my phone anyway though, so there's not much protection here aside from leaving my good phone at home.

imron 8y ago

On the flip side, anyone who obtains the physical device likely has access to the key (your fingerprints are all over it)

grumdan 8y ago
That's true, though at this point against a sophisticated attacker, it might be game over anyway, since they could read out the encryption key from RAM directly if it's still turned on. If the device is off, the fingerprints won't help and the data is protected by the long passphrase. Of course all this assumes a particular attacker model and for a lazy attacker that doesn't know how to use the fingerprints to fool the sensor, everything is fine. Another downside is being possibly forced to unlock my phone at airports, since as far as I'm aware, passwords are protected by the fifth amendment whereas fingerprints are not. In this case it might be smarter to turn off one's phone entirely when crossing borders into countries where one can be compelled in this way. This doesn't even go into all the other kinds of pressure they might apply to make me unlock my phone anyway though, so there's not much protection here aside from leaving my good phone at home.