Slashdot Mirror
Fingerprint Scanners Still Easy to Fool
Anlan writes "A Swedish student wrote her Master's thesis about current fingerprint technology. After a thorough literature study some live testing took place. Simple DIY fingerprint copies were used (detailed how-to in the thesis). Have current commercial products improved as much as proponents claim? Well, this qoute from the abstract says it all: 'The experiments focus on making artificial fingerprints in gelatin from a latent fingerprint. Nine different systems were tested at the CeBIT trade fair in Germany and all were deceived. Three other different systems were put up against more extensive tests with three different subjects. All systems were circumvented with all subjects' artificial fingerprints, but with varying results.' You can guess how happy the sales people at CeBIT were - most systems claim to be spoof proof..."
9-11 = -2
Of course 9/11 happens once every year, usually in September in the USA but in most of the world it can happen in November.
This, in my opinion, is why "9/11" is a terrible name for what happened. (Oh, yeah, and since I am ranting here - it is NOT, I repeat - NOT Nine-One-One. It is Nine-Eleven. They *are* different).
Of course if you are referring to the terrorist attacks on Septemeber 11, 2001 - then I agree. The same style of terrorist attacks will never happen again. They can't. Not because of the TSA (Thousands Standing Around) or even any "biometric" scanners at airports (see, I am kinda on-topic?). But because they exposed their hand, we know their "poker face" for that one. Nope - the next one (and there WILL be a next one) will be entirely different - and just as unexpected.
The only way to win the war on Terrorism is to get people to stop hating us, to get people not WANTING to terrorize us.
Otherwise - either people die, or we become a police state. Neither one is appealing to me.