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Your Fingerprint Buys Groceries in Seattle

lildogie writes: "The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that a Thriftway grocery store is installing fingerprint scanners that they will use to identify customers." Each customer's payment method (credit, debit) is then automatically applied at checkout. Haven't they seen Charlie's Angels?

8 of 375 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Fingerprint == Money by as400as2 · · Score: 1, Informative

    Yeah, even though it may be difficult to forge a fingerprint, it isnt difficult to break the integrity of a system that links the fingerprints with the database of consumers.

  2. Re:Low tech implementation by _ph1ux_ · · Score: 3, Informative
  3. Re:Fingerprint == Money by VAXman · · Score: 3, Informative

    Interesting concept. Since it's difficult to forge fingerprints, it may be a viable idea. Still, someone other than you could use their fingerprint tied to your money, which isn't a good idea.

    That should require the same amount of difficulty as getting a credit card in somebody else's name. So, in that sense (setting up the account), this fingerprint system has no advantage or disadantage over a credit/debit card.

    However, it has a huge advantage in accuracy of authenticating the owner of the account. I will submit that it is far more difficult to forge a fingerprint than it is to forge a signature (usually the only authentication system used to validate a credit card purchase).

  4. Re:Cash? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    You're fucking paranoid.

    In any case, how often do you withdraw money from ATM and use it right away? How often do you withdraw just enough for your next purchase? Myself, I usually get money in chunks of $200, which lasts about 1-3 weeks (VISA/debit for most things). When I'm out of lunch/movie money, I get another $200, then spend $10 in the next 10 minutes. Who's gonna xref the withdrawl with my cash lunch purchase?

    And this 'published to the world' bit?!? WTF? What published? For whom?

    Even serial numbers are a stretch... by the time the day is over, how many times do the bills change hands?

  5. How did they get it accurate enough? by TheLink · · Score: 3, Informative

    As far as I know the crossover accuracy ratio for finger print biometric techniques is low.

    The few systems I've encountered, fingerprints are not used to uniquely identify people, just as a verification - people still need to swipe a card or enter a pin, then the fingerprint is used for verification.

    Do they have a new technique? There's nothing on the Indivos or Bioscrypt websites stating the crossover rates etc.

    --
  6. Re:Just a question by Com2Kid · · Score: 1, Informative

    Not swearing helps. . . .

    It is not the time spent on them if you are just spewing out of your rectum, you have to CONVINCE the other side that you are right.

    Think convincing arguments back from your primary education.

    What? Weren't paying any attention in Elem/Mid/High school? That could be your problem right there. . . .

    Seriously though, my ass capped out at 50 karma soon as I started COMPARING and CONTRASTING Microsoft and Linux, hell I didn't have to go out and bash either one of them, I just had to state how it was (or at least how I saw it and then convince others that is how it was. :) )

    Take some basic improv classes, they always help, and then some poetry classes, Blicken Lights always help, even if they are just verbular. (damnit I am having fun bastardizing the English Language tonight.)

    And above all else, fuck, just say whatever the hell you want to say, shit some of the idle pure CRAP that I have posted has gotten modded up to +5, even the shit that has been buried four or five layers deep in a thread has gotten modded up before.

    Oh yah, and ALWAYS, I repeat, ALWAYS read the article first.

    Learn to speed read if you must, trust me, it helps.

    Read other comments before you post yours, odds are that witty retort you thought off will get a -2 redudent because it is exactly that, redudent along with the 4 other people above you who have already said it.

    It is easier to get a +5 ---> 2 ---> +3 starting a thread, and to get a +4 staying at a +4 replying to an already existing post. You have more of a chance of sounding half assed intellgent if you already let somebody else do the thinking for you, all you have to do is follow the post to its logical conclusion (or even a bit beyond, heh) and then you can pretty much spout off whatever propaganda you want to (great for spreading Memes which is what I see being online as partialy being all about anyways. :) ) and still get modded up + something or other.

    Especialy if you restate your base underlying "who the fucking hell could possibly disagree with that" opinion at the end of your post yet again.

    Swear less.

  7. Re:Haven't they seen The Sixth Day? by anonymous+cupboard · · Score: 2, Informative

    Wouldn't work - the finger usually needs to be attached. It is some kind of capacitance/heat thing.

  8. Re:Identity verification at registration by psamuels · · Score: 2, Informative
    (And on a more annoyingly pedantic note: "PIN number" is a tautology.)

    Uh, what? "Personal identification number number" is a self-evident logical statement? Perhaps you mean redundancy, like "Based on NT Technology" or "hot water heater".

    --
    "How can you claim that you are anti-crack, while still writing a window manager?" — Metacity README