10 ms·

The Pixel 4’s face unlock works on sleeping people

95 points by mataug 7y ago

rolph 7y ago
thats a zero day worth looking into. A latex mask would be harder to do without consent, but we do have 3d printers and image analysis of high quality. beyond someone cloning your face in latex and gluing it on thiers, there is facial excision, and it would be nasty to need caution about someone using your actual face. working hack or not just the attempt is disasterous to the victim
- EpicEng 7y ago
  If someone is going to rise to the level of creating a mask in your image to unlock your phone then you have already failed by using this feature to secure it. MI6 is coming after you and you're relying on something like this? C'mon.
cooljacob204 7y ago
Face unlock will always be for convenience, not real security. To me it's like a front door lock. It's there to dissuade people. If someone is adamant enough they will get in.
- ryanmcbride 7y ago
  Totally agree but moving the dot a little further down the line towards security is never a bad thing. Perfect shouldn't be the enemy of the good, etc etc.
- annexrichmond 7y ago
  Face Unlock is indeed for convenience, but that doesn't mean it can't be used as a secure method of authentication. So when it is implemented as such, it should be as secure as possible. Apple claims its Touch ID is 5x more secure than a 4 digit passcode[1], based the probability of two fingerprints being the same. They claim that its Face ID is 20x more secure than Touch ID[2], or 1 in 1,000,000, which is similar to the probability of guessing a 6 digit password. In my opinion, part of a secure implementation is requiring that the user is aware and looking at the device. So the fact that Pixel doesn't take this into account is a huge security flaw. [1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204587 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204587 [2] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208108 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208108
ryanmcbride 7y ago
At first reading this I thought "My iphone recognizes me right when I wake up so I'm sure someone could use unlock it while I was asleep or unconscious" but I tried it a few times while making a 'passed out' face and it turns out, nope. At least I couldn't get it to. Even tried using my hands to hold open my eyelids and it didn't unlock. That's pretty impressive.
- deergomoo 7y ago
  There’s a setting “Require Attention for Face ID” that controls this. It’s enabled by default, but if you’re unable or find it difficult to look directly at the sensor (or wearing sunglasses that block IR) you can turn it off and make it behave like the Pixel. You can even point it at your face while looking away, and it won’t unlock until you make eye contact.
  - stordoff 7y ago
    It's surprisingly sensitive as well. I've just try tried focusing on a spot 5cm to the side/above my iPhone 11, and it reliably wouldn't unlock until I glanced at the camera.
- rtkwe 7y ago
  The iPhone uses the blaster IR + the camera to tell if you're looking at the phone to avoid this. Android should be able to implement this though because it really just looks for the IR reflecting off the back of your eyes which only happens when you're looking right at the light source. It's the same thing that causes(ed) red eye in photos.
outworlder 7y ago
I bet this half-assed implementation is only there so that potential shoppers with a checklist in hand will be able to mark the feature as present. I wonder how many reviewers fell for it.
- tomerico 7y ago
  I imagine that it's more nuanced - people expect biometric security from their phone today. The Pixel 4 removed the fingerprint sensor, relying on the face recognition. I imagine that what happened is that the full functionality wasn't ready for launch, and they had to decide between shipping a partial implementation or postponing the phone's launch date.
  - OnlineGladiator 7y ago
    If they had reason to believe it wouldn't be ready, why did they choose to remove the fingerprint scanner? If both options were available there'd be an order of magnitude fewer complaints.
    - Skunkleton 7y ago
      Because the hardware for the fingerprint scanner was removed long before it was obvious that they weren't "done" with the face scanning software. Its likely that they decided to trim back the functionality of the face scan well after the drop dead date for getting the hardware on time.
      - OnlineGladiator 7y ago
        That's kind of my point. It was probably poor planning, although it's possible something very unlikely went wrong. But it's not really that cutting edge of technology anymore so either the engineering team was underwhelming (a little hard to believe at Google) or the project was poorly managed (very easy to believe at Google).
        7y ago
agildehaus 7y ago
I don't know why anyone would want a face unlock instead of a simple fingerprint sensor. My phone is unlocked and ready for me before it even leaves my pocket. The lack of it is one of the major reasons I'm not upgrading my Pixel 2.
- tytso 7y ago
  It's not like fingerprint sensors are all that secure. From Mythbusters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAfAVGES-Yc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAfAVGES-Yc "Remember, according to the manufacturer says this lock has never been broken...." Watch the whole video --- even the photocopy of the fingerprint was sufficient, which was the third (of three) attempted methods.... all of which worked.
  - csours 7y ago
    That was from the 2006 season. Fingerprint scanners have improved significantly since then. This is of course, not a blanket statement (see Samsung headlines yesterday)
    - derrasterpunkt 7y ago
      We don’t have to go that far, the chaos computer club circumvented TouchID in 2013. https://www.ccc.de/en/updates/2013/ccc-breaks-apple-touchid https://www.ccc.de/en/updates/2013/ccc-breaks-apple-touchid
      - scarface74 7y ago
        That was still over 5 years ago on the first generation Touch ID. I couldn’t find an easily repeatable hack for the newer version.
- Ididntdothis 7y ago
  Even in terms of usability I find fingerprint scanners much better. At a minimum I they should offer both options and not just eliminate fingerprint.
matchbok 7y ago
Another instance of Android copying and iOS feature poorly. What exactly is Google even working on these days?
- jiqiren 7y ago
  google doesn't need to care because their users don't care. take a look at all the google apologist in this comment thread for a quick example.
- mav3rick 7y ago
  Yeah right. Forgot "Night Sight" by Google which is only now copied by Apple as "Night Mode". What is apple working on these days ? This phone also has Soli in the phone. Apple is set to copy it for it's next phone.
maerF0x0 7y ago
They should just have an interactive login like "Make a sad face" or "Make a scary face" etc... they facial movement pattern could become a sort of biometric and they'd get millions of samples for sentiment analysis / AI
- nullandvoid 7y ago
  Captcha for logging into my phone.. that's a fast track to insanity dont give Google ideas
- cheriot 7y ago
  Watching commuters unlock their phones would make my morning so much more entertaining...
altmind 7y ago
Your bio-metrics - your face, your voice, your fingerprints are your login, not your password. You cannot change them, you leave this data everywhere and this data can be snooped and replayed easily. Moreover, this data is singular for a person - its hard to assign yourself multiple roles or have multiple sets of credentials with different permissions or for different services. We collectively should stop revolutionizing the access control sphere and use boring scheme with passwords, pins and tokens.
- dominator008 7y ago
  Now that they have a radar on-board. Gestures could be a viable alternative.
- mattmanser 7y ago
  Like "secret" questions, it's going to take a decade or two before big companies have this sink in and they realize how stupid they are being using them as logins.
  - koolba 7y ago
    And before that we’ll have people grimacing or laughing into their phones to make “secret expressions” Actually that’d be a cool idea for an auto wipe feature! If you blink a Morris code SOS it should send out a 911 alert with your location and then permanently lock the phone.
    - datapunk 7y ago
      Gesture controls are tricky, only a few applications of them make sense (like hand-to-fist for camera). Something like this would be the modern version of butt dialing 911, back when users would speed dial 911 unintentionally from sitting on their phone.
- keanebean86 7y ago
  I remember hearing the idea years ago that reasonable security needs these 3 somethings: 1. you know - password 2. you have - device/usb/etc 3. you are - bio-metrics Is this still a thing? It sounds decent to me. Most auth usually uses 1 or 2 from the list but rarely all 3.
cwkoss 7y ago
When face unlock first came out, my boss bought a phone with it and was showing it off at the office. I took a picture of him and held it up to the camera, and was able to unlock his phone. He was a little less excited about the feature after that...
- bluedino 7y ago
  The more complicated systems either take a 3D scan of your face or use an IR camera (the later can be fooled by an IR photo...)
  - nokcha 7y ago
    >an IR photo Is such a thing possible? My understanding is that IR emission from ordinary objects is primarily determined by their temperature. To imitate the IR signature of a human face, one would need a special-purpose, actively-powered device.
- flyinglizard 7y ago
  It should not be possible with iPhones, being that they use a depth sensor for FaceID.
wnevets 7y ago
Everything I've read about the new Pixels makes think Google doesn't actually want people to buy these things.
greenyoda 7y ago
Another biometric security flaw, reported yesterday: > Samsung: Anyone's thumbprint can unlock Galaxy S10 phone > https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21280205 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21280205
mikenew 7y ago
It feels like this whole wave of "face unlock" is just a dumb side effect of Apple not being able to get the in-display TouchID to work well enough for the iPhone X. Maybe it's slightly better than a fingerprint unlock. Maybe it's slightly worse. Who cares. It feels like smartphones have moved firmly into the realm of silly marketing features (at the cost of security, apparently) and we've left behind any kind of substantial, interesting advancements. I mean, we now have a radar that let's us skip a song by waving (sometimes, if it works)? The future of smartphones is increasingly dumb.
api 7y ago
I bet it would work on a printed color picture wrapped around a melon, football, etc.
goldcd 7y ago
I know this issue is going to be 'solved' with the next software update... ..but can't help but feel if you're trying to hide access to your phone from somebody who: 1) Can pick up your phone 2) Wants to access your phone 3) Has access to you and your phone as you sleep 4) You don't want to have access to your phone Bluntly - awaiting an Android update is the least of your problems if you hit the criteria above.
- goldcd 7y ago
  Or stepping back a bit to all those phones with fingerprint-readers (i.e. previous pixels and most phones out there) DID YOU KNOW YOUR FINGERPRINTS EXIST WHILST YOU SLEEP?!?!?!! I'm now considering quitting my job to create lockable-kevlar-mittens the people can don, to ensure your biometrics are safe as you sleep.
  - goldcd 7y ago
    Why would you downvote this? Seems reasonable to raise the fact your suspicious sleeping-partner could press your digit to your phone, if they wanted access. I know we all like a good story, but just taking pixels, I'm unsure how this issue makes your phone less secure than the last one.
    - close04 7y ago
      It's presumably a bit more accessible to use face unlock on a sleeping person since it involves no physical contact. Pressing someone's finger on the reader has a higher (probably still small) chance of waking that person up.
- annexrichmond 7y ago
  How do you know this issue is going to be 'solved' in a future software update? Google never actually promised this. From The Verge: > When reached by The Verge, Google didn’t say one way or the other whether this added layer of security is definitely coming. “We don’t have anything specific to announce regarding future features or timing, but like most of our products, this feature is designed to get better over time with future software updates,” a spokesperson said by email.
legohead 7y ago
never used or cared about face unlock could you just point the phone at a picture of the person? or if depth is needed, just use a projection on a dummy head?
hawkesnest 7y ago
I just attempted to unlock my work-issued laptop with Windows Hello with my eyes shut. Worked perfectly, recognized me without issue. Guess I'll have to disable that now. :(
eth0up 7y ago
I find myself perplexed by many conventions, maybe I'm a lout. A tidy slice of tape unconventionally covers my phone's frontal camera, which to me is a functional and valued liberty, while the option lasts. I uneagerly anticipated the paradigm of soft switches, unserviceable batteries and blackbox gadgetry and have partially succumbed, slightly ashamed. Similarly I've feared the eventual ever vigilant indelible Eye squirming onto my required work surface. Will this be yet another lockstep along the one-way whizbang march of the techno enamored... or will future devices continue to serve and forgive their users of modifications and personal choices? Abridged keyboards, zombie MACs, unremovable apps, fastidious needy cameras, walled shrubberies, presidential alert suppositories, registered devices, opaque source, mutant laptops, ubiquitous Ring, very clever speakers (microphones)... and I hope I'm just a cantankerous luddite who doesn't appreciate the finer attributes of an autonomous device designed by insatiable gormandizers of data and sweathearts of authoritah. I use fingerprint auth, as a convenience, not for security. It seems among the options best left alone (you know, useful), but I suspect this will become a precedent for future models in general. Not against it as an option though.

95 points by mataug 7y ago

thats a zero day worth looking into. A latex mask would be harder to do without consent, but we do have 3d printers and image analysis of high quality. beyond someone cloning your face in latex and gluing it on thiers, there is facial excision, and it would be nasty to need caution about someone using your actual face. working hack or not just the attempt is disasterous to the victim

EpicEng 7y ago
If someone is going to rise to the level of creating a mask in your image to unlock your phone then you have already failed by using this feature to secure it. MI6 is coming after you and you're relying on something like this? C'mon.

cooljacob204 7y ago

Face unlock will always be for convenience, not real security. To me it's like a front door lock. It's there to dissuade people. If someone is adamant enough they will get in.

ryanmcbride 7y ago
Totally agree but moving the dot a little further down the line towards security is never a bad thing. Perfect shouldn't be the enemy of the good, etc etc.
annexrichmond 7y ago
Face Unlock is indeed for convenience, but that doesn't mean it can't be used as a secure method of authentication. So when it is implemented as such, it should be as secure as possible. Apple claims its Touch ID is 5x more secure than a 4 digit passcode[1], based the probability of two fingerprints being the same. They claim that its Face ID is 20x more secure than Touch ID[2], or 1 in 1,000,000, which is similar to the probability of guessing a 6 digit password. In my opinion, part of a secure implementation is requiring that the user is aware and looking at the device. So the fact that Pixel doesn't take this into account is a huge security flaw. [1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204587 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204587 [2] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208108 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208108

ryanmcbride 7y ago

At first reading this I thought "My iphone recognizes me right when I wake up so I'm sure someone could use unlock it while I was asleep or unconscious" but I tried it a few times while making a 'passed out' face and it turns out, nope. At least I couldn't get it to. Even tried using my hands to hold open my eyelids and it didn't unlock. That's pretty impressive.

deergomoo 7y ago
There’s a setting “Require Attention for Face ID” that controls this. It’s enabled by default, but if you’re unable or find it difficult to look directly at the sensor (or wearing sunglasses that block IR) you can turn it off and make it behave like the Pixel. You can even point it at your face while looking away, and it won’t unlock until you make eye contact.
- stordoff 7y ago
  It's surprisingly sensitive as well. I've just try tried focusing on a spot 5cm to the side/above my iPhone 11, and it reliably wouldn't unlock until I glanced at the camera.
rtkwe 7y ago
The iPhone uses the blaster IR + the camera to tell if you're looking at the phone to avoid this. Android should be able to implement this though because it really just looks for the IR reflecting off the back of your eyes which only happens when you're looking right at the light source. It's the same thing that causes(ed) red eye in photos.

outworlder 7y ago

I bet this half-assed implementation is only there so that potential shoppers with a checklist in hand will be able to mark the feature as present. I wonder how many reviewers fell for it.

tomerico 7y ago
I imagine that it's more nuanced - people expect biometric security from their phone today. The Pixel 4 removed the fingerprint sensor, relying on the face recognition. I imagine that what happened is that the full functionality wasn't ready for launch, and they had to decide between shipping a partial implementation or postponing the phone's launch date.
- OnlineGladiator 7y ago
  If they had reason to believe it wouldn't be ready, why did they choose to remove the fingerprint scanner? If both options were available there'd be an order of magnitude fewer complaints.
  - Skunkleton 7y ago
    Because the hardware for the fingerprint scanner was removed long before it was obvious that they weren't "done" with the face scanning software. Its likely that they decided to trim back the functionality of the face scan well after the drop dead date for getting the hardware on time.
    - OnlineGladiator 7y ago
      That's kind of my point. It was probably poor planning, although it's possible something very unlikely went wrong. But it's not really that cutting edge of technology anymore so either the engineering team was underwhelming (a little hard to believe at Google) or the project was poorly managed (very easy to believe at Google).
      - 7y ago

agildehaus 7y ago

I don't know why anyone would want a face unlock instead of a simple fingerprint sensor. My phone is unlocked and ready for me before it even leaves my pocket. The lack of it is one of the major reasons I'm not upgrading my Pixel 2.

tytso 7y ago
It's not like fingerprint sensors are all that secure. From Mythbusters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAfAVGES-Yc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAfAVGES-Yc "Remember, according to the manufacturer says this lock has never been broken...." Watch the whole video --- even the photocopy of the fingerprint was sufficient, which was the third (of three) attempted methods.... all of which worked.
- csours 7y ago
  That was from the 2006 season. Fingerprint scanners have improved significantly since then. This is of course, not a blanket statement (see Samsung headlines yesterday)
  - derrasterpunkt 7y ago
    We don’t have to go that far, the chaos computer club circumvented TouchID in 2013. https://www.ccc.de/en/updates/2013/ccc-breaks-apple-touchid https://www.ccc.de/en/updates/2013/ccc-breaks-apple-touchid
    - scarface74 7y ago
      That was still over 5 years ago on the first generation Touch ID. I couldn’t find an easily repeatable hack for the newer version.
Ididntdothis 7y ago
Even in terms of usability I find fingerprint scanners much better. At a minimum I they should offer both options and not just eliminate fingerprint.

matchbok 7y ago

Another instance of Android copying and iOS feature poorly. What exactly is Google even working on these days?

jiqiren 7y ago
google doesn't need to care because their users don't care. take a look at all the google apologist in this comment thread for a quick example.
mav3rick 7y ago
Yeah right. Forgot "Night Sight" by Google which is only now copied by Apple as "Night Mode". What is apple working on these days ? This phone also has Soli in the phone. Apple is set to copy it for it's next phone.

maerF0x0 7y ago

They should just have an interactive login like "Make a sad face" or "Make a scary face" etc... they facial movement pattern could become a sort of biometric and they'd get millions of samples for sentiment analysis / AI

nullandvoid 7y ago
Captcha for logging into my phone.. that's a fast track to insanity dont give Google ideas
cheriot 7y ago
Watching commuters unlock their phones would make my morning so much more entertaining...

altmind 7y ago

Your bio-metrics - your face, your voice, your fingerprints are your login, not your password. You cannot change them, you leave this data everywhere and this data can be snooped and replayed easily. Moreover, this data is singular for a person - its hard to assign yourself multiple roles or have multiple sets of credentials with different permissions or for different services. We collectively should stop revolutionizing the access control sphere and use boring scheme with passwords, pins and tokens.

dominator008 7y ago
Now that they have a radar on-board. Gestures could be a viable alternative.
mattmanser 7y ago
Like "secret" questions, it's going to take a decade or two before big companies have this sink in and they realize how stupid they are being using them as logins.
- koolba 7y ago
  And before that we’ll have people grimacing or laughing into their phones to make “secret expressions” Actually that’d be a cool idea for an auto wipe feature! If you blink a Morris code SOS it should send out a 911 alert with your location and then permanently lock the phone.
  - datapunk 7y ago
    Gesture controls are tricky, only a few applications of them make sense (like hand-to-fist for camera). Something like this would be the modern version of butt dialing 911, back when users would speed dial 911 unintentionally from sitting on their phone.
keanebean86 7y ago
I remember hearing the idea years ago that reasonable security needs these 3 somethings: 1. you know - password 2. you have - device/usb/etc 3. you are - bio-metrics Is this still a thing? It sounds decent to me. Most auth usually uses 1 or 2 from the list but rarely all 3.

cwkoss 7y ago

When face unlock first came out, my boss bought a phone with it and was showing it off at the office. I took a picture of him and held it up to the camera, and was able to unlock his phone. He was a little less excited about the feature after that...

bluedino 7y ago
The more complicated systems either take a 3D scan of your face or use an IR camera (the later can be fooled by an IR photo...)
- nokcha 7y ago
  >an IR photo Is such a thing possible? My understanding is that IR emission from ordinary objects is primarily determined by their temperature. To imitate the IR signature of a human face, one would need a special-purpose, actively-powered device.
flyinglizard 7y ago
It should not be possible with iPhones, being that they use a depth sensor for FaceID.

wnevets 7y ago

Everything I've read about the new Pixels makes think Google doesn't actually want people to buy these things.

greenyoda 7y ago

Another biometric security flaw, reported yesterday: > Samsung: Anyone's thumbprint can unlock Galaxy S10 phone > https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21280205 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21280205

mikenew 7y ago

It feels like this whole wave of "face unlock" is just a dumb side effect of Apple not being able to get the in-display TouchID to work well enough for the iPhone X. Maybe it's slightly better than a fingerprint unlock. Maybe it's slightly worse. Who cares. It feels like smartphones have moved firmly into the realm of silly marketing features (at the cost of security, apparently) and we've left behind any kind of substantial, interesting advancements. I mean, we now have a radar that let's us skip a song by waving (sometimes, if it works)? The future of smartphones is increasingly dumb.

api 7y ago

I bet it would work on a printed color picture wrapped around a melon, football, etc.

goldcd 7y ago

I know this issue is going to be 'solved' with the next software update... ..but can't help but feel if you're trying to hide access to your phone from somebody who: 1) Can pick up your phone 2) Wants to access your phone 3) Has access to you and your phone as you sleep 4) You don't want to have access to your phone Bluntly - awaiting an Android update is the least of your problems if you hit the criteria above.

goldcd 7y ago
Or stepping back a bit to all those phones with fingerprint-readers (i.e. previous pixels and most phones out there) DID YOU KNOW YOUR FINGERPRINTS EXIST WHILST YOU SLEEP?!?!?!! I'm now considering quitting my job to create lockable-kevlar-mittens the people can don, to ensure your biometrics are safe as you sleep.
- goldcd 7y ago
  Why would you downvote this? Seems reasonable to raise the fact your suspicious sleeping-partner could press your digit to your phone, if they wanted access. I know we all like a good story, but just taking pixels, I'm unsure how this issue makes your phone less secure than the last one.
  - close04 7y ago
    It's presumably a bit more accessible to use face unlock on a sleeping person since it involves no physical contact. Pressing someone's finger on the reader has a higher (probably still small) chance of waking that person up.
annexrichmond 7y ago
How do you know this issue is going to be 'solved' in a future software update? Google never actually promised this. From The Verge: > When reached by The Verge, Google didn’t say one way or the other whether this added layer of security is definitely coming. “We don’t have anything specific to announce regarding future features or timing, but like most of our products, this feature is designed to get better over time with future software updates,” a spokesperson said by email.

legohead 7y ago

never used or cared about face unlock could you just point the phone at a picture of the person? or if depth is needed, just use a projection on a dummy head?

hawkesnest 7y ago

I just attempted to unlock my work-issued laptop with Windows Hello with my eyes shut. Worked perfectly, recognized me without issue. Guess I'll have to disable that now. :(

eth0up 7y ago

I find myself perplexed by many conventions, maybe I'm a lout. A tidy slice of tape unconventionally covers my phone's frontal camera, which to me is a functional and valued liberty, while the option lasts. I uneagerly anticipated the paradigm of soft switches, unserviceable batteries and blackbox gadgetry and have partially succumbed, slightly ashamed. Similarly I've feared the eventual ever vigilant indelible Eye squirming onto my required work surface. Will this be yet another lockstep along the one-way whizbang march of the techno enamored... or will future devices continue to serve and forgive their users of modifications and personal choices? Abridged keyboards, zombie MACs, unremovable apps, fastidious needy cameras, walled shrubberies, presidential alert suppositories, registered devices, opaque source, mutant laptops, ubiquitous Ring, very clever speakers (microphones)... and I hope I'm just a cantankerous luddite who doesn't appreciate the finer attributes of an autonomous device designed by insatiable gormandizers of data and sweathearts of authoritah. I use fingerprint auth, as a convenience, not for security. It seems among the options best left alone (you know, useful), but I suspect this will become a precedent for future models in general. Not against it as an option though.