8 ms·

Fingerprints could be stolen from V sign selfies (2017)

90 points by montalbano 7y ago

koolba 7y ago
This reminds me of the one from a few years back about copying house keys from photos.
- dr_orpheus 7y ago
  Also reminded me of an article (I'm having trouble finding it) about a master key for an apartment complex that had been stolen. The article published a picture of the master key itself and then more people were able to copy the master key...
- JohnFen 7y ago
  I played with this when I got my first 3D printer about 5 years ago -- I took a photo of my house key and replicated it in about a half hour. The photo was (intentionally) not a great one. It was at that time that I started keeping all of my keys in a sleeve. Do I now need to start wearing gloves?
  - chillwaves 7y ago
    Locks are trivial to pick. Typically easier than recreating keys through a photo. This does not dimish their value.
    - JohnFen 7y ago
      Not all locks are trivial to pick, but the common consumer ones are (speaking from experience -- I've been a recreational lockpicker for years). But recreating through a photo counts as a low-skill attack. Not as low-skill as raking a lock or using bump keys, but it does make low-skill attacks viable on moderately-or-better secure locks.
    - dTal 7y ago
      I mean, yes it does diminish their value. If you had an unpickable lock, that would be more valuable.
dhmiller 7y ago
I've said it many times before. Biometrics should be used as usernames and not as passwords. You should be able to change a password.
- eganist 7y ago
  > I've said it many times before. Biometrics should be used as usernames and not as passwords. You should be able to change a password. This guidance isn't unique, though it is certainly accurate. Case in point sourced from 1999 when the differences between identification v. authentication in a biometric context were being hammered out: https://web.archive.org/web/19990508102505/http://biometrics.cse.msu.edu/info.html https://web.archive.org/web/19990508102505/http://biometrics...
- travisjungroth 7y ago
  You could use a gut biome sample for a password. It changes slowly over time, so you’ve got rolling built in. And you can do a reset with antibiotics.
  - SomeOldThrow 7y ago
    Why?
    - travisjungroth 7y ago
      Because it’s funny imagining taking a stool sample to log into Snapchat.
  - noneeeed 7y ago
    I like that if you eat a healthier and more varied diet you end up with a more complex password.
  - DerpyBaby123 7y ago
    Is this sarcasm? I have accounts I haven't logged into for years, but still need access to. Losing access over time is not a good feature. And a 'reset' with antibiotics doesn't make sense for a bunch of reasons. Also, password diversity is a good thing. I don't want $COMPANY_A's data breach to expose my password to $COMPANY_B
epicwhaleburger 7y ago
V... sign...
- rhacker 7y ago
  I guess the peace sign wasn't as universal like we thought...
  - Izkata 7y ago
    It's also used for "victory". I'd argue in millennials and younger, this is probably the more familiar use because of Pokemon.
    - user- 7y ago
      > I'd argue in millennials and younger, this is probably the more familiar use because of Pokemon. Sorry but this is not the case at all. Most millenials know it as a peace sign, none of them would think of pokemon.
    - kelnos 7y ago
      The "victory" meaning comes from WWII, not Pokemon. The hippie counter-culture movement in the 1960s co-opted it as the "peace" sign, but nowadays I'd argue it doesn't have much of a meaning, it's just "something people do for photos" (especially in East Asia).
  - kwhitefoot 7y ago
    The V sign with palm facing the signer in British English means something like 'Fuck off'. All sorts of quite likely spurious history about archers insulting the French at Agincourt is used as a kind of etymology. With the palm facing the viewer it means peace now but it's rare to see it referred to as a V sign in the UK with this meaning. In WW II Churchill used it to mean Victory not peace but apparently started out used the insulting version and had to have the difference explained to him. Not sure if that is true or just apocryphal.
    - 7y ago
sebst 7y ago
Combine that with physical keys copied from photos, audio surveillance by recording vibrations with a standard Web cam, movement detection through WiFi signals, first steps towards mind reading, and other creepy tech breakthroughs, it is certainly an interesting time to be alive.
blaincate 7y ago
Hitchhikers guide to galaxy : (I remembered something along this lines) https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/92738/what-is-the-name-of-the-id-card-in-mostly-harmless https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/92738/what-is-the-... [Ford] slowly drew out from the wallet a single and insanely exciting piece of plastic that was nestling amongst a bunch of receipts. It wasn’t insanely exciting to look at. It was rather dull in fact. It was smaller and a little thicker than a credit card and semi-transparent. If you held it up to the light you could see a lot of holographically encoded information and images buried pseudo-inches deep beneath its surface. It was an Ident-i-Eeze, and was a very naughty and silly thing for Harl to have lying around in his wallet, though it was perfectly understandable. There were so many different ways in which you were required to provide absolute proof of your identity these days that life could easily become extremely tiresome just from that factor alone, never mind the deeper existential problems of trying to function as a coherent consciousness in an epistemologically ambiguous physical universe. Just look at cash point machines, for instance. Queues of people standing around waiting to have their fingerprints read, their retinas scanned, bits of skin scraped from the nape of the neck and undergoing instant (or nearly instant - a good six or seven seconds in tedious reality) genetic analysis, then having to answer trick questions about members of their family they didn’t even remember they had, and about their recorded preferences for tablecloth colours. And that was just to get a bit of spare cash for the weekend. If you were trying to raise a loan for a jetcar, sign a missile treaty or pay an entire restaurant bill things could get really trying. Hence the Ident-i-Eeze. This encoded every single piece of information about you, your body and your life into one all-purpose machine-readable card that you could then carry around in your wallet, and therefore represented technology’s greatest triumph to date over both itself and plain common sense.
- djrogers 7y ago
  Please don't use code blocks for quoting large chunks of text - makes it impossoble to read.
  - ihuman 7y ago
    Is there a better way to blockquote? HN doesn't have anything like Markdown's '>' for quotes/blockquotes.
ryacko 7y ago
I try to resize photos using a raster graphics editor. Strips exif, reduces fingerprinting based on camera lens dust (most reporting was based on this Facebook patent though: http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.html&r=1&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=PG01&S1=%2820160114.PD.+AND+%28Facebook.AS.+OR+Facebook.AANM.%29%29&OS=PD/1/14/2016+and+%28AN/Facebook+or+AANM/Facebook%29&RS=%28PD/ http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=H... ) Give as much data as one is comfortable with, when viewing the image in a 1:1 ratio.
debatem1 7y ago
I actually did this for a previous employer to demonstrate that we shouldn't switch to fingerprint auth-- took a photo of the big boss holding a clear glass, which nicely highlights your fingerprint.
everlastingfan 7y ago
It's not "stolen", it's "copied". Biometric identifiers are a conceptually ass-backwards thing.
walshemj 7y ago
I am not getting this the V sign is normally given with the back of the hand facing forward ie "F&^K you"
- kelnos 7y ago
  Heh, must be a cultural difference. The V sign they're talking about here is most common in East Asia I guess, though I see it often enough in the US. It's not a vulgar thing, and the usual position is with the palm facing the camera. The same thing was often used as the "peace sign" in the mid/late 1900s, though these days it's not as mainstream as it used to be. Its roots go back farther than that, and I think your interpretation (with the palm facing one's body) is older than the more modern interpretation.
  - walshemj 7y ago
    Well there some argument that the inverted V (V for victory) was used in ww2 by Churchill avoid the negative connotations but in fact was trolling the Nazis.

90 points by montalbano 7y ago

koolba 7y ago

This reminds me of the one from a few years back about copying house keys from photos.

dr_orpheus 7y ago
Also reminded me of an article (I'm having trouble finding it) about a master key for an apartment complex that had been stolen. The article published a picture of the master key itself and then more people were able to copy the master key...
JohnFen 7y ago
I played with this when I got my first 3D printer about 5 years ago -- I took a photo of my house key and replicated it in about a half hour. The photo was (intentionally) not a great one. It was at that time that I started keeping all of my keys in a sleeve. Do I now need to start wearing gloves?
- chillwaves 7y ago
  Locks are trivial to pick. Typically easier than recreating keys through a photo. This does not dimish their value.
  - JohnFen 7y ago
    Not all locks are trivial to pick, but the common consumer ones are (speaking from experience -- I've been a recreational lockpicker for years). But recreating through a photo counts as a low-skill attack. Not as low-skill as raking a lock or using bump keys, but it does make low-skill attacks viable on moderately-or-better secure locks.
  - dTal 7y ago
    I mean, yes it does diminish their value. If you had an unpickable lock, that would be more valuable.

dhmiller 7y ago

I've said it many times before. Biometrics should be used as usernames and not as passwords. You should be able to change a password.

eganist 7y ago
> I've said it many times before. Biometrics should be used as usernames and not as passwords. You should be able to change a password. This guidance isn't unique, though it is certainly accurate. Case in point sourced from 1999 when the differences between identification v. authentication in a biometric context were being hammered out: https://web.archive.org/web/19990508102505/http://biometrics.cse.msu.edu/info.html https://web.archive.org/web/19990508102505/http://biometrics...
travisjungroth 7y ago
You could use a gut biome sample for a password. It changes slowly over time, so you’ve got rolling built in. And you can do a reset with antibiotics.
- SomeOldThrow 7y ago
  Why?
  - travisjungroth 7y ago
    Because it’s funny imagining taking a stool sample to log into Snapchat.
- noneeeed 7y ago
  I like that if you eat a healthier and more varied diet you end up with a more complex password.
- DerpyBaby123 7y ago
  Is this sarcasm? I have accounts I haven't logged into for years, but still need access to. Losing access over time is not a good feature. And a 'reset' with antibiotics doesn't make sense for a bunch of reasons. Also, password diversity is a good thing. I don't want $COMPANY_A's data breach to expose my password to $COMPANY_B

epicwhaleburger 7y ago

V... sign...

rhacker 7y ago
I guess the peace sign wasn't as universal like we thought...
- Izkata 7y ago
  It's also used for "victory". I'd argue in millennials and younger, this is probably the more familiar use because of Pokemon.
  - user- 7y ago
    > I'd argue in millennials and younger, this is probably the more familiar use because of Pokemon. Sorry but this is not the case at all. Most millenials know it as a peace sign, none of them would think of pokemon.
  - kelnos 7y ago
    The "victory" meaning comes from WWII, not Pokemon. The hippie counter-culture movement in the 1960s co-opted it as the "peace" sign, but nowadays I'd argue it doesn't have much of a meaning, it's just "something people do for photos" (especially in East Asia).
- kwhitefoot 7y ago
  The V sign with palm facing the signer in British English means something like 'Fuck off'. All sorts of quite likely spurious history about archers insulting the French at Agincourt is used as a kind of etymology. With the palm facing the viewer it means peace now but it's rare to see it referred to as a V sign in the UK with this meaning. In WW II Churchill used it to mean Victory not peace but apparently started out used the insulting version and had to have the difference explained to him. Not sure if that is true or just apocryphal.
  - 7y ago

sebst 7y ago

Combine that with physical keys copied from photos, audio surveillance by recording vibrations with a standard Web cam, movement detection through WiFi signals, first steps towards mind reading, and other creepy tech breakthroughs, it is certainly an interesting time to be alive.

blaincate 7y ago

Hitchhikers guide to galaxy : (I remembered something along this lines) https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/92738/what-is-the-name-of-the-id-card-in-mostly-harmless https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/92738/what-is-the-... [Ford] slowly drew out from the wallet a single and insanely exciting piece of plastic that was nestling amongst a bunch of receipts. It wasn’t insanely exciting to look at. It was rather dull in fact. It was smaller and a little thicker than a credit card and semi-transparent. If you held it up to the light you could see a lot of holographically encoded information and images buried pseudo-inches deep beneath its surface. It was an Ident-i-Eeze, and was a very naughty and silly thing for Harl to have lying around in his wallet, though it was perfectly understandable. There were so many different ways in which you were required to provide absolute proof of your identity these days that life could easily become extremely tiresome just from that factor alone, never mind the deeper existential problems of trying to function as a coherent consciousness in an epistemologically ambiguous physical universe. Just look at cash point machines, for instance. Queues of people standing around waiting to have their fingerprints read, their retinas scanned, bits of skin scraped from the nape of the neck and undergoing instant (or nearly instant - a good six or seven seconds in tedious reality) genetic analysis, then having to answer trick questions about members of their family they didn’t even remember they had, and about their recorded preferences for tablecloth colours. And that was just to get a bit of spare cash for the weekend. If you were trying to raise a loan for a jetcar, sign a missile treaty or pay an entire restaurant bill things could get really trying. Hence the Ident-i-Eeze. This encoded every single piece of information about you, your body and your life into one all-purpose machine-readable card that you could then carry around in your wallet, and therefore represented technology’s greatest triumph to date over both itself and plain common sense.

djrogers 7y ago
Please don't use code blocks for quoting large chunks of text - makes it impossoble to read.
- ihuman 7y ago
  Is there a better way to blockquote? HN doesn't have anything like Markdown's '>' for quotes/blockquotes.

ryacko 7y ago

I try to resize photos using a raster graphics editor. Strips exif, reduces fingerprinting based on camera lens dust (most reporting was based on this Facebook patent though: http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.html&r=1&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=PG01&S1=%2820160114.PD.+AND+%28Facebook.AS.+OR+Facebook.AANM.%29%29&OS=PD/1/14/2016+and+%28AN/Facebook+or+AANM/Facebook%29&RS=%28PD/ http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=H... ) Give as much data as one is comfortable with, when viewing the image in a 1:1 ratio.

debatem1 7y ago

I actually did this for a previous employer to demonstrate that we shouldn't switch to fingerprint auth-- took a photo of the big boss holding a clear glass, which nicely highlights your fingerprint.

everlastingfan 7y ago

It's not "stolen", it's "copied". Biometric identifiers are a conceptually ass-backwards thing.

walshemj 7y ago

I am not getting this the V sign is normally given with the back of the hand facing forward ie "F&^K you"

kelnos 7y ago
Heh, must be a cultural difference. The V sign they're talking about here is most common in East Asia I guess, though I see it often enough in the US. It's not a vulgar thing, and the usual position is with the palm facing the camera. The same thing was often used as the "peace sign" in the mid/late 1900s, though these days it's not as mainstream as it used to be. Its roots go back farther than that, and I think your interpretation (with the palm facing one's body) is older than the more modern interpretation.
- walshemj 7y ago
  Well there some argument that the inverted V (V for victory) was used in ww2 by Churchill avoid the negative connotations but in fact was trolling the Nazis.