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Fingerprint Scanners Still Easy to Fool

Posted by michael on from the mission-possible dept.

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..."

3 of 378 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Airport Police by dook43 · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Hi, dave "420". Methinks that is the weed talking. You tell the families of the 3000 dead that the war on terror is all about PR. Go tell the citizens of Baghdad and Afghanistan that.

    --
    This comment was randomly generated by a school of piranhas chewing on the PCB of a Microsoft Natural Keyboard.
  2. Re:Airport Police by dave420 · · Score: -1, Flamebait
    But they're some of the most dense people you'll ever hope to meet. Running around with next to no training. They're more dangerous to the people around them than terrorists.

    Not being able to criticise someone due to someone else's ideas about that person is ridiculous. I thought America was the home of the free? Thanks for proving otherwise. Keep your fascism to yourself, please.

  3. Quite off-topic I would imagine by valkraider · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    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.