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Fingerprint Payment System Gets Financing
prostoalex writes to tell us Yahoo! News is reporting that Pay By Touch, an electronic payments startup that connects your fingerprint to your wallet, has received an additional $130 million in financing to move forward with their biometric payment system.
Isn't technology wonderful???
... actually i'd like to pay for everything with my middle finger...
Fucking sweet.
...what is wrong with my credit card?
That's going to make it a bitch to type.
<sig>Guvf vf abg n frperg zrffntr
I have a chronic problem with the skin of my thumbs and occasionally my index finger. Do I get to choose and alternate finger? Multiple fingers?
"terrorism" and "pedophilia" are the root passwords to the Constitution
Don't sign up for this right away. Wait a while for the bugs to get worked out, and for the early adopters to get robbed blind. Only when the bugs worked out should anyone who is technically literate sign up for this.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
We use fingerprint technology at work. Without scanning our fingerprint (in addition to entering a personal code of digits) we cannot get through the door. On occasions this scanner fails to recognise your fingerprint and after a few tries, you either try a different door or get someone else to scan their fingerprint. I cringe at this to be used for payments for this reason, not to mention somebody using standover tactics and forcing you to pay for their purchase or even like the parent mentions, getting your finger cut off.
some dirty sod will sitck their finger up their own arse then use it no doubt.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
One wonders how secure this is after seeing how relatively simple it is to create a fingerprint mold from nothing more than a residual fingerprint.
The information in credit card magnetic strips can be copied, but the person copying the credit card must at least have physical access (even if only temporarily) to the card in order to make a copy. Using fingerprints, however, is like writing down your PIN on everything you've touched...
This can't possibly catch on, can it? I mean why would you entrust your confidentiality to something as insecure as a fingerprint? You leave it everywhere you go! Imagine that everytime you leave a room, you leave behind a piece of paper with your credit card number written on it.
End transmission.
Seriously - have you guys thought how many FSCKING FINGERPRINTS are there in the streets? Any glass, seat, trash can, paper, door handle, glass, clothes, suitcases...
sheesh! With credit cards at least someone had to steal it first! But now it only takes some scotch tape to do the job. What are those morons thinking?
hey buddy, thumb a hundred bucks to help save the clock tower?
...change your fingerprint every 6 weeks:
How To Fake Fingerprints
Thanks for giving me your fingerprint.
Well, you had to, to give us your 2 cents...
I'd be OK with the whole idea if it would never be made mandatory for payments...
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
Considering the patent is about to expire on retinal scanning, they ought to wait a few more months and utilize that type of biometric. It is much harder to forge, more accurate, and does not require physical contact (which spreads germs).
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
I am not a crypto or security expert, but I gather most experts agree that the more pieces of information you need to provide to be authenticated, the better. For instance, the combination of a personal password with some certificate/token on a USB key is (theoretically) better than either acting alone. Many of the comments in this thread make the point that fingreprints are pretty easily lifted and forged. So, perhaps it is not of much use, from a security standpoint, as a stand-alone authenticator. If, however, it was combined with another token, like the credit/debit card itself, then it could serve in place of the customer's written signature or PIN. That would require a perpetrator to have, at least for a little while, physical access to the card, as well as a print, before going out and defrauding the customer. Using a fingerprint would probably be a little better than using a written signature, which no one ever checks anyway, can also be forged, and could easily be lifted from a number of public documents (or, for that matter, the card itself).
Anyone think this idea, of combining fingerprints with a physical token, have any merit? Naturally this system could still be forged or broken, but would it be more or less hard to break than the current system of cards and signature/PINs? I think we all have to recognize that, if a perpetrator specifically targets you, it won't be too difficult for them to nail you, but what about more casual and random defrauders?
Hey kid, thumb a hundred bucks will ya, help save the clocktower.
There is a more profound problem with using body parts for trusted metrics, which has been brought up on this site and others before. If your "ID" is stolen, you cannot change it. Until, and unless, we can secure digital information (doubtful from this perspective), biometrics will remain interesting but unuseful in wider implementation.
Using plain ol' text since 1968
I'm sorry sir, your finger was declined. It says here that we're supposed to cut it up...
TODO: come up with a clever sig
...
The car, a Mercedes S-class, was protected by a fingerprint recognition system.
...
But having stripped the car, the thieves became frustrated when they wanted to restart it. They found they again could not bypass the immobiliser, which needs the owner's fingerprint to disarm it.
They stripped Mr Kumaran naked and left him by the side of the road - but not before cutting off the end of his index finger with a machete.
Do you have any idea how incredibly stupid most people are. How often do you think someone is going to press the wrong finger onto the scanner by accident. After the first time, the police department is going to stop sending in a SWAT team and just call the store and ask if they have another very confused customer.
Here's a helpful diagram of the proper finger to use. As you can see, this method of authentication is so simple that anyone can use it.
Note also that the the remaining fingers serve as ALERT fingers.