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Ready or Not, Biometrics Finally in Stores

Posted by Cliff on from the pay-with-your-thumb...or-someone-else's dept.

cancer4xmas writes: "It's very exciting to see USA Today's Technology front page saying, "Will that be cash, fingerprint or cellphone?" They're running a story on emerging biometric devices being the most fundamental change in personal finance since 1950, when the credit card was introduced. The concept is now being tested in some stores. Check out the full story." Now couple that tidbit with this morsel from wherley: "In a letter [scroll down a bit] to Bruce Schneier's Cryptogram newsletter, Ton van der Putte tells of a recent invitation from the BBC to comment on the addition of fingerprint biometrics to the British ID card. Using a digital camera and UV lamp he was able to make dummy fingerprints that fooled the readers - and in less time and less cost than similar experiments 10 years ago. He says: '...now the average do-it-yourselfer is able to achieve perfect results and requires only limited means and skills.'"

5 of 317 comments (clear)

  1. Biometric authentication is shit... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    ... although some types are shittier than others.

    It COULD work, I'm thinking of storing the fingerprint template (or other biometric template) on a smartcard and using that to unlock your private key... but no vendor has offered us anything like that yet, and the existing biometric authentication techniques are crap.

    Authentec makes a decent chip. But how are you going to do that one-to-many match to find the matching template? Have users provide a username? They'll never accept that - thats just as inconvenient as providing a username/password.

    Facial recognition? Shit.

    Optical fingerprint? Shit.

    Voice? Even more unreliable than facial recognition.

    Companies like BNX would have you believe that it is the be all end all solution to security. Yet all they provide is authentication services, nothing in the way of authorization.

    I don't think biometrics is going anywhere without being combined with smartcard technology. It makes it an efficient one-to-one match.

  2. in capitalist russia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    in capitalist russia, biometrics buy you!

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