Comments on: You can change your password, but not your finger http://gadgetopia.com/post/3830?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=You+can+change+your+password%2C+but+not+your+finger Geek and you shall find... Sat, 18 May 2013 00:07:46 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 By: Mean Dean http://gadgetopia.com/post/3830#comment-13284 Mean Dean Tue, 03 May 2005 01:30:00 +0000 http://gadgetopia.local/?p=3830#comment-13284 <p>Sorry folks, but I gotta pipe in here. Having several years experience with biometric identification devices - yes, some of the low-end devices can probably be "gummied" just as illegals coming across the US/Mex border run an ink pen across their finger to beat the fingerprint device -- that is until DOJ/INS got smart and got devices that either use sonographic technologies, low-level electrical resistance and/or vascular activity.</p> <p>Moreover, we're talking "good guy" systems here. You walk up to a device and identify yourself with a smart card, voice, keypad, what-not. You then put finger on reader which confirms that you are who you say you are. Considering the type of systems guarded with "good guy" systems like this, the gummie bear approach is going to fail more often or not because of the degree of social engineering required to defeat it.</p> <p>This is nothing more than press people gone wild on some guy getting some press for ... candy.</p> Sorry folks, but I gotta pipe in here. Having several years experience with biometric identification devices – yes, some of the low-end devices can probably be “gummied” just as illegals coming across the US/Mex border run an ink pen across their finger to beat the fingerprint device — that is until DOJ/INS got smart and got devices that either use sonographic technologies, low-level electrical resistance and/or vascular activity.

Moreover, we’re talking “good guy” systems here. You walk up to a device and identify yourself with a smart card, voice, keypad, what-not. You then put finger on reader which confirms that you are who you say you are. Considering the type of systems guarded with “good guy” systems like this, the gummie bear approach is going to fail more often or not because of the degree of social engineering required to defeat it.

This is nothing more than press people gone wild on some guy getting some press for … candy.

]]> By: Joe http://gadgetopia.com/post/3830#comment-13294 Joe Mon, 02 May 2005 12:59:00 +0000 http://gadgetopia.local/?p=3830#comment-13294 <p>Almost all fingerprint readers are narrow readers like that. They work in much the same way that a sattelite takes pictures of the earth through a thin slit, and the results are pieced together to make an image. The motion of your finger across the slit gives the computer an image of the whole fingerprint.</p> <p>Supposedly, most scanners work by either measuring the resistance variations on the finger, or by the distances in the grooves of the finger with a sort of mini-radar. The 'radar' ones would quite likely be fooled. I don't know about the resistive ones. If gummis don't work for those, then perhaps ballistics gel (of MythBusters fame) would, since it supposedly has similar resistance values as people parts.</p> Almost all fingerprint readers are narrow readers like that. They work in much the same way that a sattelite takes pictures of the earth through a thin slit, and the results are pieced together to make an image. The motion of your finger across the slit gives the computer an image of the whole fingerprint.

Supposedly, most scanners work by either measuring the resistance variations on the finger, or by the distances in the grooves of the finger with a sort of mini-radar. The ‘radar’ ones would quite likely be fooled. I don’t know about the resistive ones. If gummis don’t work for those, then perhaps ballistics gel (of MythBusters fame) would, since it supposedly has similar resistance values as people parts.

]]> By: Deane http://gadgetopia.com/post/3830#comment-13299 Deane Mon, 02 May 2005 09:04:00 +0000 http://gadgetopia.local/?p=3830#comment-13299 <p>Did you notice how IBM's fingerprint scanner worked? It wasn't a flat surface onto which you pressed your finger. It's a narrow reader over which you swipe your finger.</p> <p>Wouldn't this defeat the Gummi Bears hack?</p> Did you notice how IBM’s fingerprint scanner worked? It wasn’t a flat surface onto which you pressed your finger. It’s a narrow reader over which you swipe your finger.

Wouldn’t this defeat the Gummi Bears hack?

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