7 ms·

I'm not so sure. How many people are motivated to dupe your fingerprints to get into your iPhone? How many of those people could conceivably get into your iPh

I'm not so sure. How many people are motivated to dupe your fingerprints to get into your iPhone? How many of those people could conceivably get into your iPhone through other ways? Fingerprints are a nice way to keep almost everyone out of your device. And for the rest, well, I really doubt some other locking mechanism would've kept them out.

mangoman 13y ago
I'm sure 5s's are fetching at least $400 on the conservative side. If all I have to do is spend like $5 and follow a how-to on a website, I think a lot of people would be willing to make the investment.
- mendocino 13y ago
  If your objective is to sell a stolen iPhone then you still have to know the owners Apple ID and password due to activation lock. Being able to bypass Touch ID isn't going to help you.
  - hayksaakian 13y ago
    Nope. If it's not a hardware lock, it will be bypassed.
    - glitch003 13y ago
      Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure Apple's new iOS7 activation lock has not been defeated yet. Keep in mind that if these criminals can't figure it out by googling it, they will give up and move on. The typical phone thief isn't a security expert with the knowledge to invent a previously unknown exploit.
      - jordanthoms 13y ago
        Well, it's possible that the fence they sell the phones to would be motivated to find an exploit.
  - slantyyz 13y ago
    But what if the objective isn't to steal the phone but to surreptitiously collect or plant information? I can think of some examples: * jealous spouses who want to look at call logs, emails, text histories * unscrupulous managers looking to see if you've been talking to headhunters, competitors, etc. * stalker coworkers who are looking for "private selfies" * frenemies who want to post inflammatory messages using one of your social media accounts
- chongli 13y ago
  It's not that easy. You've got to get a really good, clean, complete print of the correct finger and avoid damaging it during processing (nontrivial).
jcomis 13y ago
What I think he is saying is that because it is now on iPhone, more devices/services/whatever may be likely to use finger prints for auth. This is dangerous because you can't change your fingerprint in the unlikely case someone dupes your print. If more and more things rely on finger prints, the value of duping goes up, right? What happens when your prints are duped once?
- Steko 13y ago
  "What happens when your prints are duped once?" Most of us don't live in a James Bond movie. (1) If someone has my fingerprints they still need my phone to do anything. (2) Even with my phone there's a good chance it's worthless unless they also have my pin. (3) Stealing my phone has also become worth much less unless you have my prints and the followthrough to make fake ones and again they'll want my pin in most cases because you only get 5 failed attempts with your fake prints. (4) All of that takes time, during which I may be able to remote wipe my phone, making the whole exercise worth even less. And it takes money, again lowering potential returns. It's easy to imagine (numbers pulled out of ass) that a thief could get a few hundred bucks for a 5C (no touch id) but say half that for the more expensive 5S. Maybe that won't hold up for various reasons (hey thieves will work hard to make those stolen 5s's worth more) but the principle behind multi-factor is sound.
- diminish 13y ago
  or could home 3d printing be used to create fingers with fingerprints?
  - marcosdumay 13y ago
    A default Reprap won't be able to reproduce a fingerprint, but all it would take is increasing the reduction rate of the motors, using a smaller hole at the hot end, and a material that flows better (or increasing the temperature). It would probably take a few tries, but seems well within a person-sized budget.
adventured 13y ago
What are people going to do when, in the all-too-near future, criminals begin sharing and selling databases of stolen high resolution finger prints? One theft isn't practical? How about a million? Driven by a never-ending pursuit of monetary gain via crime; with criminals always happy to conquer the latest technology wave. There's absolutely no reason to think that criminals won't amass substantial finger print records just like they do any other intimate information they can get their hands on, from SS numbers to passwords. It's not a question of if, but when this starts becoming common. All it requires is linking finger prints to something valuable at a mass market scale, and that will drive an unlimited criminal demand for finger prints. It's not about the iPhone. It's about a consumer shift to finger prints as a primary security feature, and whether that is sane (with the iPhone potentially setting the trend given its cultural status).
- aliakbarkhan 13y ago
  I'm not sure I agree. How exactly is anyone (other than the government) supposed to be able to get all these fingerprints? Are you suggesting people are just going to go around and start dusting for prints anywhere they can or what? Maybe fingerprint phishing? (That doesn't even make sense unless we start transmitting actual fingerprint data to servers instead of mostly using it to protect password managers client-side.) The reason identity thieves can get their hands on social security numbers and passwords is because people have to share that information deliberately a lot more often. If you breach the right database, maybe you'll score the jackpot and get the financial details of a few million people, but what database can you breach to get peoples' fingerprints in a format that allows you to create fake fingers to bypass biometrics? Who's going to be keeping high-res copies of fingerprints around, let alone in enough quantity where it might actually pose a risk to a decent proportion of the population?
- mikeash 13y ago
  Let's say criminals manage to build a database of everybody's fingerprint. Now, I steal a phone, and have access to that database. How do I query it?
  - mbrubeck 13y ago
wtbob 13y ago
> How many people are motivated to dupe your fingerprints to get into your iPhone? I'd suggest that someone would just access the data storage, bypassing the fingerprint mechanism.
ajross 13y ago
This is right. Fingerprint scanning prevents casual snooping in the same way that a PIN or face unlock does. It's lightweight authentication. It can't be used as a hard security feature (e.g. as input to a PBKDF) so it can't provide security against hard attacks like stealing the device and reading the flash. It's cute. Honestly I don't see what this adds over face unlock which is reasonably mature now and equally yawnworthy IMHO.
- gfodor 13y ago
  I haven't used face unlock but I am going to guess TouchID is much faster and easier. It unlocks almost instantly, you don't have to be in view of the camera, and it doesn't require any extra effort since your finger is already on the home button to wake up the phone.
  - Touche 13y ago
    Face unlock is instant now too. People still remember the slow demo from when ICS came out but it's nothing like that any more.
  - rogerbinns 13y ago
    > I haven't used face unlock Face unlock is very fast - generally I turn device towards me to start using it and face unlock has unlocked it before I even realise it was locked (less than half a second). When it fails to recognise you, you can enter a pin/password/pattern. There is a menu option to 'Improve Matches' so it can pick up whatever is different this time. Every release has improved dramatically. After my most recent Android reinstall I recall only ever improving matches once. It doesn't work in low light which fingerprints will.
    - cstrat 13y ago
      The answer is probably no, but does it work if you've got sunglasses on?? I know that Picasa's face detection works even if I am wearing sunglasses... thats the only reason I ask.
sologoub 13y ago
Identification via fingerprints is fine, it's the authorization to do something that can be problematic. So, unlocking your phone, not too bad, accessing your bank records, not so good. If the fingerprint is the identification that is used to then trigger decryption of securely stored data, it's a lot less secure of a mechanism than a fingerprint AND a password. There was a good recent discussion that fingerprints also do not enjoy the same protection as passwords, as the fingerprint is not a "content of your mind". Here's the wired article on this: http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/09/the-unexpected-result-of-fingerprint-authentication-that-you-cant-take-the-fifth/ http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/09/the-unexpected-result-o... It was also discussed at length on HN, but I can't find the thread.
- cbsmith 13y ago
  Terminology quibble. _Authentication_ is what's tricky. Authorization is no problem.
eeeeeeeeeeeee 13y ago
Fingerprint authentication is just like a door lock on your house. It's not going to stop a determined criminal (because they can just smash your window), but it's a pretty good way to stop casual attempts at intrusion. I agree that the touchID shouldn't be used for authentication with everything and I think Apple agrees, which is why they haven't opened it up to 3rd party developers.

mangoman 13y ago

I'm sure 5s's are fetching at least $400 on the conservative side. If all I have to do is spend like $5 and follow a how-to on a website, I think a lot of people would be willing to make the investment.

mendocino 13y ago
If your objective is to sell a stolen iPhone then you still have to know the owners Apple ID and password due to activation lock. Being able to bypass Touch ID isn't going to help you.
- hayksaakian 13y ago
  Nope. If it's not a hardware lock, it will be bypassed.
  - glitch003 13y ago
    Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure Apple's new iOS7 activation lock has not been defeated yet. Keep in mind that if these criminals can't figure it out by googling it, they will give up and move on. The typical phone thief isn't a security expert with the knowledge to invent a previously unknown exploit.
    - jordanthoms 13y ago
      Well, it's possible that the fence they sell the phones to would be motivated to find an exploit.
- slantyyz 13y ago
  But what if the objective isn't to steal the phone but to surreptitiously collect or plant information? I can think of some examples: * jealous spouses who want to look at call logs, emails, text histories * unscrupulous managers looking to see if you've been talking to headhunters, competitors, etc. * stalker coworkers who are looking for "private selfies" * frenemies who want to post inflammatory messages using one of your social media accounts
chongli 13y ago
It's not that easy. You've got to get a really good, clean, complete print of the correct finger and avoid damaging it during processing (nontrivial).

jcomis 13y ago

What I think he is saying is that because it is now on iPhone, more devices/services/whatever may be likely to use finger prints for auth. This is dangerous because you can't change your fingerprint in the unlikely case someone dupes your print. If more and more things rely on finger prints, the value of duping goes up, right? What happens when your prints are duped once?

Steko 13y ago
"What happens when your prints are duped once?" Most of us don't live in a James Bond movie. (1) If someone has my fingerprints they still need my phone to do anything. (2) Even with my phone there's a good chance it's worthless unless they also have my pin. (3) Stealing my phone has also become worth much less unless you have my prints and the followthrough to make fake ones and again they'll want my pin in most cases because you only get 5 failed attempts with your fake prints. (4) All of that takes time, during which I may be able to remote wipe my phone, making the whole exercise worth even less. And it takes money, again lowering potential returns. It's easy to imagine (numbers pulled out of ass) that a thief could get a few hundred bucks for a 5C (no touch id) but say half that for the more expensive 5S. Maybe that won't hold up for various reasons (hey thieves will work hard to make those stolen 5s's worth more) but the principle behind multi-factor is sound.
diminish 13y ago
or could home 3d printing be used to create fingers with fingerprints?
- marcosdumay 13y ago
  A default Reprap won't be able to reproduce a fingerprint, but all it would take is increasing the reduction rate of the motors, using a smaller hole at the hot end, and a material that flows better (or increasing the temperature). It would probably take a few tries, but seems well within a person-sized budget.

adventured 13y ago

What are people going to do when, in the all-too-near future, criminals begin sharing and selling databases of stolen high resolution finger prints? One theft isn't practical? How about a million? Driven by a never-ending pursuit of monetary gain via crime; with criminals always happy to conquer the latest technology wave. There's absolutely no reason to think that criminals won't amass substantial finger print records just like they do any other intimate information they can get their hands on, from SS numbers to passwords. It's not a question of if, but when this starts becoming common. All it requires is linking finger prints to something valuable at a mass market scale, and that will drive an unlimited criminal demand for finger prints. It's not about the iPhone. It's about a consumer shift to finger prints as a primary security feature, and whether that is sane (with the iPhone potentially setting the trend given its cultural status).

aliakbarkhan 13y ago
I'm not sure I agree. How exactly is anyone (other than the government) supposed to be able to get all these fingerprints? Are you suggesting people are just going to go around and start dusting for prints anywhere they can or what? Maybe fingerprint phishing? (That doesn't even make sense unless we start transmitting actual fingerprint data to servers instead of mostly using it to protect password managers client-side.) The reason identity thieves can get their hands on social security numbers and passwords is because people have to share that information deliberately a lot more often. If you breach the right database, maybe you'll score the jackpot and get the financial details of a few million people, but what database can you breach to get peoples' fingerprints in a format that allows you to create fake fingers to bypass biometrics? Who's going to be keeping high-res copies of fingerprints around, let alone in enough quantity where it might actually pose a risk to a decent proportion of the population?
mikeash 13y ago
Let's say criminals manage to build a database of everybody's fingerprint. Now, I steal a phone, and have access to that database. How do I query it?
- mbrubeck 13y ago

wtbob 13y ago

> How many people are motivated to dupe your fingerprints to get into your iPhone? I'd suggest that someone would just access the data storage, bypassing the fingerprint mechanism.

ajross 13y ago

This is right. Fingerprint scanning prevents casual snooping in the same way that a PIN or face unlock does. It's lightweight authentication. It can't be used as a hard security feature (e.g. as input to a PBKDF) so it can't provide security against hard attacks like stealing the device and reading the flash. It's cute. Honestly I don't see what this adds over face unlock which is reasonably mature now and equally yawnworthy IMHO.

gfodor 13y ago
I haven't used face unlock but I am going to guess TouchID is much faster and easier. It unlocks almost instantly, you don't have to be in view of the camera, and it doesn't require any extra effort since your finger is already on the home button to wake up the phone.
- Touche 13y ago
  Face unlock is instant now too. People still remember the slow demo from when ICS came out but it's nothing like that any more.
- rogerbinns 13y ago
  > I haven't used face unlock Face unlock is very fast - generally I turn device towards me to start using it and face unlock has unlocked it before I even realise it was locked (less than half a second). When it fails to recognise you, you can enter a pin/password/pattern. There is a menu option to 'Improve Matches' so it can pick up whatever is different this time. Every release has improved dramatically. After my most recent Android reinstall I recall only ever improving matches once. It doesn't work in low light which fingerprints will.
  - cstrat 13y ago
    The answer is probably no, but does it work if you've got sunglasses on?? I know that Picasa's face detection works even if I am wearing sunglasses... thats the only reason I ask.

sologoub 13y ago

Identification via fingerprints is fine, it's the authorization to do something that can be problematic. So, unlocking your phone, not too bad, accessing your bank records, not so good. If the fingerprint is the identification that is used to then trigger decryption of securely stored data, it's a lot less secure of a mechanism than a fingerprint AND a password. There was a good recent discussion that fingerprints also do not enjoy the same protection as passwords, as the fingerprint is not a "content of your mind". Here's the wired article on this: http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/09/the-unexpected-result-of-fingerprint-authentication-that-you-cant-take-the-fifth/ http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/09/the-unexpected-result-o... It was also discussed at length on HN, but I can't find the thread.

cbsmith 13y ago
Terminology quibble. _Authentication_ is what's tricky. Authorization is no problem.

eeeeeeeeeeeee 13y ago

Fingerprint authentication is just like a door lock on your house. It's not going to stop a determined criminal (because they can just smash your window), but it's a pretty good way to stop casual attempts at intrusion. I agree that the touchID shouldn't be used for authentication with everything and I think Apple agrees, which is why they haven't opened it up to 3rd party developers.