4 ms·
This is great until someone removes your finger so they can access your phone.
by Gazk 13y ago
This 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.
- codezero 13y agoIf someone is going to remove your finger to access the phone, you probably would just give them the four digit pin. This is a way to get normal people to use better security than nothing and to give them the convenience of not having to enter an App Store password every time they install an app. It's not meant to protect special forces operatives in the field or CIA analysts' contact lists.
- adamnemecek 13y agoOr just one digit, your finger.
- troygoode 13y agoI don't know about you, but I'd gladly give my password to someone today if they were threatening to cut off my finger. Unless you're seriously harder than me, what is the difference?
- kybernetyk 13y agoBut with this new technology $they don't even need you alive to get to your $secret_data.
- netrus 13y agoThat's why eye-scanner authentication makes me shiver...