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What I meant is: you can not change it and you can not keep it secret so it makes a poor password replacement. Usernames do not have to kept secret (you know th

What I meant is: you can not change it and you can not keep it secret so it makes a poor password replacement. Usernames do not have to kept secret (you know that my username on HN is petschge), so finger prints might be slightly more usable as usernames than they are as passwords. They are of course not great for that either. Their best use might be similar to the "card present verifier" on the back of a credit card, i.e. as a sign that the person who entered they username, they password (and possibly a physical auth token like a chip card) is actually present themselves. Or don't use fingerprints at all. They are not secure nor convenient as you think.

blotter_paper 7y ago
I agree with this, but think that faces face the same issue. If anything, we leave our faces more places than our fingerprints; fingerprints smudge over time, but faces are big enough to capture at sufficient detail using cameras that are already widely deployed. iOS is betrer about facial recognition than Android (and I'm not an Apple fanboi), but it can still be hacked with some patience and enough video frames of the given face at different angles. I would really like biometrics to work, verifiable proof-of-human would be great, but I can only buy into them as an additional requirement for authentication; a piece of privately known/held information is still our most secure authentication mechanism for competent users.
- petschge 7y ago
  You are right. But note that I never said that faces where any better.
  - blotter_paper 7y ago
    True that, I didn't mean to imply otherwise; I just thought your comment was the most coherent rebuking of fingerprints I'd seen so far while skimming, and I thought it would be a good place to expand on your sentiments with my own thoughts. I do see how my opening "but" could be confusing in this regard.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  > iOS is betrer about facial recognition than Android (and I'm not an Apple fanboi), but it can still be hacked with some patience and enough video frames of the given face at different angles. FWIW, I don’t think anyone has done this credibly yet.
  - blotter_paper 7y ago
    It's an arms race where people keep breaking into a specific version, Apple makes it harder, and nobody can get into the new shit for a while. There was a method for the X (dunno if updates have made it harder), but not for anything more recent AFAIK. I bet we see another one drop in the next couple years. It's just an engineering problem.
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      > There was a method for the X I don't recall seeing one. Do you have a link?
      - blotter_paper 7y ago
        https://youtu.be/rhiSBc061JU https://youtu.be/rhiSBc061JU

blotter_paper 7y ago

I agree with this, but think that faces face the same issue. If anything, we leave our faces more places than our fingerprints; fingerprints smudge over time, but faces are big enough to capture at sufficient detail using cameras that are already widely deployed. iOS is betrer about facial recognition than Android (and I'm not an Apple fanboi), but it can still be hacked with some patience and enough video frames of the given face at different angles. I would really like biometrics to work, verifiable proof-of-human would be great, but I can only buy into them as an additional requirement for authentication; a piece of privately known/held information is still our most secure authentication mechanism for competent users.

petschge 7y ago
You are right. But note that I never said that faces where any better.
- blotter_paper 7y ago
  True that, I didn't mean to imply otherwise; I just thought your comment was the most coherent rebuking of fingerprints I'd seen so far while skimming, and I thought it would be a good place to expand on your sentiments with my own thoughts. I do see how my opening "but" could be confusing in this regard.
saagarjha 7y ago
> iOS is betrer about facial recognition than Android (and I'm not an Apple fanboi), but it can still be hacked with some patience and enough video frames of the given face at different angles. FWIW, I don’t think anyone has done this credibly yet.
- blotter_paper 7y ago
  It's an arms race where people keep breaking into a specific version, Apple makes it harder, and nobody can get into the new shit for a while. There was a method for the X (dunno if updates have made it harder), but not for anything more recent AFAIK. I bet we see another one drop in the next couple years. It's just an engineering problem.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    > There was a method for the X I don't recall seeing one. Do you have a link?
    - blotter_paper 7y ago
      https://youtu.be/rhiSBc061JU https://youtu.be/rhiSBc061JU