Police Ask Stores to Take Fingerprints

Coffee Warlord writes "Operation Thumbs Up, scheduled to begin citywide Sunday, aims to help authorities identify check theft and forgery by obtaining a source of identification that can't be stolen or faked - fingerprints. Dawson doesn't expect complaints from customers. "I anticipate if you are not guilty of anything, it's not going to matter to you if someone takes your thumbprint," she said. -- There are so many things wrong with this, I can't even begin to start."

Comments

Can't be stolen or faked, eh?

[cryptor3]

How's a bit of jello for you?

Tsutomu Matsumoto, a Japanese cryptographer, recently decided to look at biometric fingerprint devices. These are security systems that attempt to identify people based on their fingerprint. For years the companies selling these devices have claimed that they are very secure, and that it is almost impossible to fool them into accepting a fake finger as genuine. Matsumoto, along with his students at the Yokohama National University, showed that they can be reliably fooled with a little ingenuity and $10 worth of household supplies.

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Re:Why not take your DNA?

[TheGratefulNet]

why stop at just a hair sample?

why not collect samples of:

• urine
• stool
• hair
• blood
• semen

or, to save time, I'll just give you my underwear and let YOU sort it all out!

I anticipate...

[frawaradaR]

... that if you are not guilty of anything, it's not going to matter to you if the po-lice installs a few cameras in yer house.

After all, you are not pursuing any criminable activity within your own walls, are ya!?

I'd say, that if you _do_ mind being watched by an innocent camera, you behave suspiciously, and are probably guilty of a crime. After all, people who have nothing to hide usually cooperate with us.

If you do not want to cooperate with us, we will just assume that you in your house run a brothel, manufacture alcoholic beverages, grow marijuana, rip-mix-burn intellectual property protected material, commit sodomy, engage in adultery, prepare for polygami, manufacture Anthrax, communicate on ham radio with suspected terrorists and overthrowers of state, download lewd material on the internet, develop open source Communist applications, and showing anti-patriot emotions posting to unconventional and unorthodox bulletin board systems.

You, sir, are a threat to our free Christian nation, as given to us by God! You have the right to remain silence, be beaten to death in jail, be transferred to Guantanama Bay for unlimited time, be executed in our humane criminable system even if later DNA tests will prove you're less guilty than we first assumed. Everything you say can and will be recorded and used against you, anywhere, anytime, anyhow.

Be a pain in their ass.

[SagSaw]

First make sure this won't get you into legal trouble, as it may really piss off the store.

Go to a participating store. Appear at the checkout with a large number of items you wish to purchase (two cartloads of perishable food items should be good; extreamly heavy/bulky/difficult to handle items work, too). Offer to pay with a check, but refuse to give a finger/thumb print. Kindly ask the cashier if there is any way to pay with a check, but without giving the print. If the answer is no, explain to the cashier (better yet, their manager) that since they won't accept your check you have no way to pay. Leave (without the merchandise, of course).

Employees of the store will have to restock your entire attempted puchase, and some perishable items may have to be discarded. Enough people doing this will make it clear to the store that excessive ID collection is not an economically sound move.