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Sony's New Personal Fingerprint Scanner
MelloDawg writes: "This article at SecurityWatch.com describes Sony's new fingerprint verfication device that fits in your wallet and uses public key infrastructure." Of course, if the prints are never transmitted and the scanner is personalized for each user, it seems like Sony'd like everyone to have his own scanner -- how convenient.
From the linked site: It contains USB drivers for Windows(R) 98 and 2000 and there is a serial cable available for use with Windows NT(R) systems.
Shouldn't be too much trouble to interface to Linux through the serial option for now (though it does load the system more than USB - and we'll have USB support soon enough.)
Also from the site: Sony is working with Entrust Technologies and I/O Software Inc., to allow them to develop specific software applications and is also actively looking to work with other software providers in the infosec field
It's unlikely that they will be providing open-sourced drivers at first (Sony haven't really "jumped on the open source bandwagon" yet) but with Linux becoming more popular all the time, it's likely that demand will convince them to build drivers.
They'll almost certainly be building drivers for various UN*X systems because, despite Microsoft's efforts to push NT, there are many large institutions which will pay megabucks to have a more secure way of authenticating users that just works! The weakest link in most security is the users themselves, and the pathetic passwords most people choose.
Fingerprint assisted password protection would be much stronger, and I doubt Sony will restrict themselves to a single OS manufacturer if they're getting so many companies to write drivers.
Hmm. If it could be restructured slightly to be compatable with the OpenPGP standard, I can see how this could be very useful indeed.
Store a standard PGP key inside it, with the code to decrypt and digitally sign built in. Lock the key, not with a passphrase, but with a unique hash from the biometric data; user presses thumb to scanner, device goes "live" and accepts data from PC interface to sign or decrypt; after sixty seconds, device signs off and requires another scan to go live again. Add a suitable "cradle" interface, and it could form a digital credit-card / debit card that is personalized to the carrier, and can be simply dropped into a cradle at the checkout when your purchases have been scanned...... Only real problem would be if you damaged the fingerprint - and there is no reason why the key can't be stored ten times, one per digit.
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-=DaveHowe=-
Yet another closed standard.
I get the feeling someone at sony heard the phrase: "standards are great, everyone should have one", and took it seriously!
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Biometric authentication alone is one of the stupidest things ever devised.
Imagine this scenario:
1. fingerprints become common as identification,
replacing passwords.
2. someone figures out how to copy fingerprints
and use them as auth.
What do you do? 'Rotate your fingerprints'?. Yeah, right.
Tying authentication to an irreplacable body part is a bad, bad idea, except in the most extreme circumstances.
SecureID, S/Key and other challenge/reponse or one-time key systems are far better for 99.99% of all uses. At least you can replace/regenerate them...
Chris.
-- I don't have a cool sig.
This device (and most of biometrics) is a fraud and merely security through obscurity. Once someone figures out how the card works, then it should be fairly trivial to build a device which opens the card up and grabs your public and private keys.
With PGP and GPG, there's a passphrase to prevent having physical access to the device instantly revealing the private key. You can't really do this with fingerprints (or other biometrics) since the fingerprint cannot be used as a key. The digital image of your fingerprint varies from impression to impression so the device has to ask itself "is this close enough to Alice's finger?" instead of using it as a key.
Even if they could use the fingerprint as a key (perhaps some abstract description of the fingerprint which doesn't vary much), then all you need is a sample of the fingerprint which is fairly easy to obtain. It doesn't even need to be off a live finger - any tests in the device for heat or circulating blood can be bypassed since they can exist only as physical prevention mechanisms, not mathematical mechanisms.
The only really legitimate use of biometrics is if you have secured hardware with trusted guards (i.e., real people) watching that you don't mess with the hardware and that you really are presenting your actual finger or retina. And even this shouldn't be trusted for very important things unless you have several guards at each machine, all resistant to bribes.
Biometrics on a card would prevent only very unsophisticated attacks from people unfamiliar with the cards. If your attackers won't have physical access to your card, then using PGP or GPG without a passphrase is just as secure and more convenient.
Read Bruce Schneier's take on biometrics here.
If we're going to use some sort of physical token I much prefer something clean like the Swatch Access than a messy, oily fingerprint that might not work if you scratch yourself while gardening.