Biometric Face Recognition Exploit

clscott writes "A researcher at the U. of Ottawa has developed an exploit to which most biometric systems are probably vulnerable. He developed an algorithm which allows a fairly high quality image of a person to be regenerated from a face recognition template. Three commercial face rec. algorithms were tested and in all cases the image could masquerade to the algorithm as the target person. Here are links to a talk and a paper. Unfortunately, biometric templates are currently considered to be non-identifiable, much like a password hash. This means that legislation gets passed to require hundreds of millions of people to have their biometrics encoded onto their passports. This kind of vulnerability could mean that anyone who reads these documents has access to the holders fingerprint, iris images, etc."

Comments

How to beat a fingerprint scanner

[biostatman]

Breathe on the glass sensor to get the outline of the last person's print. Will fool many systems if the previous print was authorized. (Read this in the economist a couple of weeks ago...)

A bit OT, but thought others might find this interesting. Please don't let the DMCA dogs loose on me.