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Apple’s Touch ID: A 500ppi Fingerprint Sensor Built Into iPhone 5S Home Button
- cwilson 13y agoThis include's in-app password authentication alongside unlocking your phone (no more entering your iTunes password!).
- film42 13y agoMy GF just said, "I can't wait for you to get the phone so I can install instagram while you're asleep." I really hope apple figures out a way to solve this problem. I just want to point out that although this sounds sarcastic, there's some real concern here.
- iamshs 13y agoThen go the normal way of entering password. It still works.
- ebzlo 13y agoSomeone above mentioned you could add multiple fingerprints as well. I'm guessing this includes other fingers as well as other humans.
- manacit 13y agoTry using a password - I can guarantee they're not making this mandatory..
- meepmorp 13y ago> I really hope apple figures out a way to solve this problem. I think the solution here is to have a discussion about personal boundaries with your girlfriend.
- GuiA 13y ago> (no more entering your iTunes password!) Buying $80 of apps and songs on a drunken night has never been this easy! :P
- zeckalpha 13y agoI'm glad Amazon has a patent on one-click purchasing because otherwise I'd buy too much stuff.
- cwilson 13y agoInteresting quote: "It's never available to other software. It's never uploaded to Apple's servers or backed up to iCloud." I was momentarily worried the NSA fingerprint database was going to get a whole lot bigger, but I guess not. Edit: Obviously this could totally backfire and Apple could screw us all, just reporting what was said. Edit 2: Video is up detailing all of this a bit more: http://www.apple.com/iphone-5s/videos/#video-touch http://www.apple.com/iphone-5s/videos/#video-touch
- TrainedMonkey 13y agoUnless there is a "bug" in software that accidentally uploads all the data to secure servers under certain conditions, that for "some reason" was left over from debugging stage of the product. Unless we see source code and actual A7 + Motion chimp design blueprints that they use at the factory, I will always be skeptical. All that said I will be getting 5S anyways, because device looks rock solid.
- mrcharles 13y agoI for one am totally satisfied by what a suit says on stage.
- jared314 13y agoThey could just remotely access your phone, through specially engineered apps or potential back-doors, or download it during a routine security search. Depending on how accurate the sensor is, how much of the finger is captures, and how the software stores and compares the data, they could potentially get every person who has used your phone's home button. It would be similar to remotely turning on laptop webcams. (I think i'm starting to make myself paranoid.)
- JimmaDaRustla 13y agoI fear for my sanity if my GF buys another iPhone and complains that the battery lasts even less.
- Gazk 13y agoThis is great until someone removes your finger so they can access your phone.
- trebor 13y agoI think that this would be easily detectable by testing capacitance. The steel ring around the home button could potentially be used for that.
- option_greek 13y agoI do hope that the one removing the finger knows that.
- joezydeco 13y agoCapacitive sensing doesn't detect if a finger is alive or not.
- georgemcbay 13y agoA dead finger is the same as a live one as far as capacitance goes unless it has been dead so long that all the moisture is gone, in which case you could just dip it in water prior to the scan. Having said that, the idea of losing a finger to access the device doesn't really make much sense. You've got to incapacitate someone pretty well to take their finger off, so you might as well just force them to touch the phone while they are so incapacitated, unless you really like chopping off fingers.
- trebor 13y agoHumans are pretty powerful conductors, are you sure that a sensitive capacitance sensor couldn't tell the difference between a finger and a finger attached to a body? I don't know it for a fact, but I'd be surprised if not.
- georgemcbay 13y agoA garden variety capacitive sensor can't tell the difference between a human finger and a hot dog. How do you propose it would beyond attempting to measure the amount of capacitance and mapping it to an accepted band? Attempting that is way too fragile a solution due to variability in humans and local weather conditions. And even if you did put in the effort for that, an attacker could still fairly easily match the dead finger capacitance to the correct band pretty easily.
- blisterpeanuts 13y agoI wonder whether this will generate a market for finger gloves etched with custom fingerprints. You'd want one for your spouse, so they can use your phone without needing you to finger it, for example. Probably it would come in a kit that you could use to custom-etch your finger glove. But if you lose it (the glove), I guess you are in trouble. Someone will find it, upload the pattern to Facebook, and your fingerprint is now in the public domain for the rest of time. Unlike a password, it's irrevocable. Unless you could "edit" your fingerprint with some customized secret pattern, etch that pattern to a finger glove, and then only that glove will unlock the device, not even your plain fingerprint. Or would some kind of capacitance sensor on the phone prevent the use of gloves or other spoofs?
- sgk284 13y agoYou can add multiple fingerprints to the phone.
- yapcguy 13y agoWhat happens if you injure your finger in an accident? Or the sensor has a hardware failure?
- Splendor 13y agoMost likely it will default to a password at that point.
- yapcguy 13y agoRight, but since you haven't used the password in months or years, you'll probably have forgotten it by then.
- kamjam 13y agoWhat if someone cuts your finger off and walks around with it in a zip lock bag... like the Minority Report eye ball scene...
- scott_karana 13y agoThen you merely use a regular passcode, by the sounds of it. :)
- denzil_correa 13y agoI think it works on multiple finger prints.
- batuhanicoz 13y agoI think you can always use passwords. This is just an alternative, an easier one. I'm guessing both options will be available at once.
- umsm 13y agoYou can train the phone to use more than 1 finger.
- methodin 13y agoI imagine it'd be good for enterprisey companies - would have to be better than "this exchange server requires a pin to unlock your phone" right?
- sandtrip 13y agoThis is probably why they bought AuthenTec
- Theriac25 13y agoRelevant: https://twitter.com/janchip/status/377454752402903040 https://twitter.com/janchip/status/377454752402903040
- cwilson 13y agoI've read that in some cases fingerprints between left and right hands can differ. I wonder if you can have more than one fingerprint stored on your device?
- fchollet 13y agoYes, it seems it supports several fingerprints.
- meepmorp 13y ago> I've read that in some cases fingerprints between left and right hands can differ. I wonder if you can have more than one fingerprint stored on your device? A fine question, but I've never heard of anyone having the same fingerprints on their left and right hands. Is this actually something that happens with any reasonable frequency?
- uFb3prduWpbzCr 13y agoAs an anecdote, my pinky fingers are similar enough to have digital fingerprint readers reject them as "a duplicate finger", so I'm thinking the idea is that they are supposed to be unique. I've gotten a few "I've never seen it do this..." lines from the attendant and generally wind up leaving with ink-covered fingers. I'm curious if this reader winds up having the same issue.
- meepmorp 13y agoThat's what I was curious about, thanks.
- dragonwriter 13y ago> I've read that in some cases fingerprints between left and right hands can differ. Aren't they different in all cases where you actually have a fingerprint? They might, in some cases, be approximate mirror images, but that's still different.
- daniel_solano 13y agoI used to think that fingerprint sensors were pretty cool, and even purchased the option on a laptop some years ago. That was until I found out the relative ease of duplicating fingerprints [1]. Now, I am wary of leaving my password on everything I touch. [1]: http://dasalte.ccc.de/biometrie/fingerabdruck_kopieren?language=en http://dasalte.ccc.de/biometrie/fingerabdruck_kopieren?langu...
- ryanwhitney 13y agoI enter a 4 digit password into my phone a hundred times a day. Standing behind me at Starbucks is probably easier than dusting for prints and recreating my thumb.
- Zikes 13y agoAnd you're probably the only person in line to even bother with a 4 digit password.
- TrainedMonkey 13y agoDoing that is way harder then guessing 4 digit pass code. Besides depending on technology used in Apple's device you might need to get way more sophisticated. With processing power of mobile devices nowadays, how much would you need to invest to make a fake that is not easily statistically distinguishable from real thing? What is stopping that scanner from taking 20-100 pictures and then analyzing them in background? I really do not think run of the mill fingerprint faking will be sufficient to overcome modern fingerprinting with sufficient security emphasis put into them.
- robryk 13y agoI'd guess false negatives. You _really_ don't want persistent false negatives. I wonder what's the solution to the `I cut my index finger' problem. Does it require multiple fingers to be enrolled?
- rMBP 13y agoThis is what first came to my mind as well. But I also reacted to Ars Technica reporting[1] that the sensor has the capability to scan "sub-epidermal skin layers". That might be a way to protect the system from the fingerprint "copy-paste" method described in your link, since the sensor used there only scans the surface. [1]: http://live.arstechnica.com/apple-september-10-event/ http://live.arstechnica.com/apple-september-10-event/
- dm8 13y agoIt has lot applications beyond security.
- speedyrev 13y agoI had the Atrix with the fingerprint sensor. The thing that I liked was being able to unlock the phone with one hand. But, the sensor was on the top back center, right where your index finger naturally landed. It was really nice when your hands were full.
- danpalmer 13y agoI hope this works, but I'm skeptical for 3 reasons: Reliability: I've seen so many broken home buttons, they need to solve this problem otherwise many people won't be able to use it, and many will be put off from using it. Also, what's the false-positive ratio, what's the false-negative ratio? Security: traditionally fingerprint sensors have been pretty terrible at security given a photocopier and a few bits and pieces. You wouldn't need 10 attempts to get into the phone, you could theoretically get it in 1 if you have the expertise. A passcode on the other hand, you have a much lower chance of guessing that within 10 tries before a wipe. Also false matches are clearly an issue here too. Practicality: This is a combination of reliability and security, but also a few other things. Siri takes ~1 minute to respond to my queries, I don't believe this makes network requests, but if it has a big performance problem or something similar, people won't use it. If my phone takes more than 3 seconds to unlock with a passcode it annoys me.
- rimantas 13y ago> Reliability: I've seen so many broken home buttons Have you seen any on iPhone5? That was mainly iPhone 4's problem, iirc. > A passcode on the other hand, you have a much lower chance of > guessing that within 10 tries And peeking 4 digits passcode is even easier. Also, this scanner may be a bit more sophisticated. > If my phone takes more than 3 seconds to unlock with a passcode it annoys me. It's all in hardware. And that's iPhone 5S' hardware, 64bit and all.
- danpalmer 13y ago> Have you seen any on iPhone5? That was mainly iPhone 4's problem, iirc. Fewer, but still yes. > And peeking 4 digits passcode is even easier. Also, this scanner may be a bit more sophisticated. Very true, I'm looking at this less from a position of preventing a friend from fraping you, and more from a business security standpoint where you would hopefully shield a passcode, and probably use a longer alphanumeric one anyway. Not sure that a fingerprint beats that. > It's all in hardware. And that's iPhone 5S' hardware, 64bit and all. Of course, I don't think performance will be the issue, but I'm just hoping that there isn't an issue with practicality. So many of Apple's things are good in theory, and not usable in practice, at least for me. (iCloud CoreData sync, Photo Stream, Siri, AirPlay, FaceTime...).
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- kyro 13y agoSecurity issues aside, I feel this is also Apple's way of one-upping Amazon's 1-click purchasing as more and more people are transitioning to commerce on touch devices.
- owenfi 13y agoI wonder if iOS 7 supports 2 factor authentication (print + passcode)?
- luscious 13y agoJailbreak device, steal fingerprints, spoof purchasing with valor!! I'm sure they've put many hours and much thought in to this, but it won't be nearly enough.