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Pay By Touch Goes Online
Max Fomitchev writes to tell us that Pay By Touch, the biometric identification service, has announced an online version of their service. While currently the only implementation of this service is in the brick-and-mortar storefront of Star Markets grocery stores, the company hopes that online vendors will start signing up soon.
FTFA: "allows making online purchases with a slide of a dinger across the scanner" (emphasis mine)
really.. a dinger..? you don't say...
The whole fingerprint-for-payment-at-the-store thing has been debated here plenty before, so i'll steer clear of it.. but TFA (well, TFblogpost) is centered around Pay By Touch launching a service that lets you scan your fingerprint at home and autopay at various online websites with a simple swipe of your finger. I don't know who steered them down this path, but they should be fired.. promptly.
I can recall several dotbombs that had this same business model (an e-wallet that had all your info in it already so all you needed to do was purchase from participating vendors and a username/password/whatever was all you'd need to make each purchase), and they all failed miserably. Anyone remember flooz? Maybe i'm just a cynic and these guys will have a fresh new approach that will catch on like wildfire.. but it seems a nonstarter to me, since none of the failed dotcoms so much as required you to have a biometric scanner in your home.
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
Inevitably, this issue will come up. Traditionally, if your credit card or bank card is compromised, you can simply cancel it and acquire a new one but what about biomatric data used for identification ?
If there is a fraudulent transaction, and someone can argue (albeit wrongly) "the only way the transaction could have happened is with your fingerprint" - won't this make it harder to dispute a charge?
Indy Media Watch-Proctologist of the Internet
First it starts as a convenience somewhere, catches on with all the dumb lazy citizens, then becomes ubiquitous, then it becomes mandatory!
A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both. Dwight D. Eisenhower
One thing that worries me is at what point are you rich enough for somone to cut your finger off? What I don't like is that it's kind of like assimilating your financial standing with your physical body.
That seems wrong on plenty of levels, the simplest of which is that when someone mugs you, conventional wisdom says that unless you're far more prepared than they are, you give them everything you have. When 'everything you have' begins to include your right index finger, then mugging is way easier in a crowded subway with a pair of garden clippers.
Yeeeow. I'd rather be poor. I'd rather use cash. I'd rather have a placeholder for value that a)is not protected by the government thereby predicating their automatic involvement (I don't like them all that much, and the more they stay out of my business, the better. If a friend steals something from me, I'll resolve it within my community), and b)someone can steal reasonably easy without hurting me. Money's just money. And as long as this doesn't become the dominant way to purchase things, making other systems obsolete, I'd be OK with it, because I ain't f-ing using it.
"Hey honey? Take my finger to the 7-11 and get me a pack of cigarrettes, would you?
Please stop stalking me, bro.
Why bother? Just steal the hash data that is generated by the scanner and use a hacked driver to inject it into a browser or whatever. Passwords can be changed. Fingerprints can't be (painlessly). Let's hope that this system is using both fingerprints and passwords/keys. And let's hope it won't become ubiquitous - I like my anonymity, TYVM.
-b.