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Home Secretary Requests Fingerprint-Activated iPods
John Reid, Home Secretary, has called upon tech manufacturers to improve the security on their gadgets to help with his recent push to frustrate criminals. Inviting Apple, Sony, and several others to his crime fighting summit Reid hopes to attack the rising robbery numbers in the most recent Home Office figures.
...because nobody would ever find the owner's fingerprint in their home!
This is yet another case of legislation coming up with the wrong solution to the right problem.
There is no such thing as security when you have physical access to the device. It's a useless "summit" that will do little more than raise the cost of these devices on consumers.
...thieves have not only been stealing the iPods, but cutting off their victim's fingers as well. Given this new threat, the Home Secretary is calling for iPods controlled by brain waves.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
"Our systems are full of vulnerabilities, our windows don't lock, and you can open the door to the main office with a credit card, but at least my iPod is secure!"
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/2 1/2326240
.... But how does this stop criminals/terrorists/undefined bad guys?
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
In communist Russia, phones steal YOU!
For the criminals!
And the solution is to force vendors to give the government more tools to monitor you!
Oh, wait, you aren't citizens, but subjects. Your rights are privileges granted by the monarch, and so can be revoked at the pleasure of the government.
What's a Home Secretary?
Smokey, this is not 'Nam, this is bowling. There are rules.
Why fingerprint-activated iPods? So no one but me can find out what's on my iPod? (Like I care if anyone knows that I listen to Disturbed, Metallica, or Puddle of Mud?) So no one will steal it? How fast before the thieves figure out how to disable the fingerprint scanner? All this'll do is drive up the cost of iPods, as if Apple didn't already charge and arm and a leg for the things.
My blog
Wifi enabled players + municipal wifi + device ID + central revocation list = frustrated criminals.
[Insert pithy quote here]
Now when they steal my iPod not only will they get a few thousand pounds worth of music, they will also get the fingerprint data I was forced to use as the password for my bank account.*
You don't have enough fingers to generate unique passwords for everything!
*Yes, I am aware they could be stored as a hash. Some electronics companies will probably do so - but all of them? And how many will use a good hash that has decent properties for the application? I'm guessing at one, and that will only be due to an accident.
Beep beep.
would offer the ultimate in security for the theft adverse iPod owner.
So why mess about with half measures like fingerprint activation? After all, if you stick it someplace where the sun don't shine, ain't nobody gonna know you're iPodding. Ignoring the obvious question of who the hell would try to steal an anally inserted iPod, who would purchase an (obviously) stolen / used anally insertable iPod?
Why the market for stolen iPods would close up tight.
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Trying to get a handle on this kind of theft is like trying to get your hands around some liquid. There's just no way to contain the stuff, it's going to come leaking out between your fingers somehow.
This reminds me a bit of the statistic I heard where more and more people are, in the face of those microchip car keys, just breaking into homes and stealing the keys rather than breaking into the car. If they need me to activate my device before they can take it, they're just going to pull a gun or knife on me.
Let's demand fingerprint-activated guns!
A user activatable but then non-reversible lock that requires your iPod to check in with Apple every time it syncs to ensure its serial number isn't on a list of stolen ones. Then provide a means to access any/all serial numbers you have registered to you and lock them down.
If you don't want your iPod tied to to needing a net connection to sync, don't enable the feature. If you want to know that anyone who mugs you for it gets a worthless lump of metal and plastic - and you're fine with the trade off - turn it on.
It doesn't even need to be that universally used to take a bite out of crime. If people quickly learn the $50 iPods guys in the pub offer them (which, let's face it, they know are stolen but think they're getting a great deal and so don't care) may well not work, they're not going to hand over the $50. You don't have to disable every last stolen one to make buying a stolen one enough of a gamble that people stop doing it and thus they stop being desirable to steal.
Yes, it would become a potential pain for retailers who accept returns but a simple app could let retailers check the iPod hadn't been locked down before accepting returns. Given Apple "authorizes" retailers, this would give them a finite list of people to distribute it to and increase the value of being an authorized retailer.
"I'm sorry sir. Your identity has been compromised, and we are revoking all known authenticators. Your physical characteristics are no longer valid to autheticate your personal identity. You have been added to the list of unconfirmable citizens. Please turn in your face and fingers to the Department at the earliest possible opportunity."
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
...just won't work. I can't quite put my finger on it though.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
One of the biggest problems with biometric authentication is the lack of ability to revoke a compromised biometric key. Sure you can revoke rights based on a fingerprint, but then you've no way to use it again. Lifting fingerprints with gelatin isn't really that hard. See http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0205.html#5 for more information on the gummy-bear fingerprint reader bypass technique.
Personally, I think biometrics are great as a username equivalent, but should not be relied on for authentication. There is sound reason to have (1) something you have with (2) something you know in a good authentication system. The ability to revoke and re-generate either component is needed.
-Michael
Why finger prints?! Why not just use the good `ol numeric 4-digit password? Seems to be working fine for the majority of people who use banking machines every day.
The magical number is: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Thief-proofing and iPod reduces the chance of a mugging victim needing to go out to buy another iPod.
So, a faulty and easy to defeat mechanism will be added to an already paying-for-premium device to raise the cost even further without providing true benefit to the consumer. Lovely. Just lovely.
The question becomes... will this information(the fingerprint information) be sent back to Apple via an update? Will this be tied into law enforcement systems so that non-criminals are indexed along with criminals? Will this be used to produce defacto arrest warrants for people, based on their music consumption?
But mainly... just an expensive add on bloatware that shouldn't be there in the first place.
Winged Power Photography
You will have to pry it from my cold dead fingers.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070430/ap_on_hi_te/mi nd_reading_toys
Instead of securing iPods, and eventually TVs, Blenders, Toasters, Cars and Flashlights (or 'torches') maybe the Home Secretary could try securing Criminals in Jail. Besides, I am sure that turning over an unusable iPod to a mugger would be prosecutable as fraud.
http://visualizecommonsense.com/
There is no such thing as security when you have physical access to the device. It's a useless "summit" that will do little more than raise the cost of these devices on consumers.
... but there could be punishment!
Well, maybe not security
I propose that we build a small quantity of plastic explosives or thermite into every new portable device. They will take commands from the GSM cellular network and, upon command from the manufacturer, on receiving word from the original purchaser that the device has been stolen, explode/melt and blow/burn pieces of the device into the criminal's (or person who received said stolen property) face/hands/thighs. It will also have the handy side-effect of securely deleting confidential data. We'll just need some laws to indemnify manufacturers and owners from said criminals' lawsuits, and after that, we'll just let the problems work themselves out.
I foresee this having a slight negative impact on the used-equipment-on-eBay market, but overall I think it'll be a good thing.
What could possibly go wrong?
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Wouldn't it be much better to improve the education system and take other measures to actually reduce the level of crime?
What Mr. Reid proposes is that I should take measures that cost me money to reduce the value of my possessions to criminals. It would make it also harder for me to sell my iPod on eBay if I want to replace it with a better model. It would be much better to give kids a decent education so they can find decent jobs instead of becoming criminals, and/or to make the risk of detection and the punishment for crime higher to actually deter criminals.
The Mythbusters already proved that the fingerprint scanners are ridiculously easy to defeat. Why are people still promoting this?
Like the endless parade of anti-IP-infringement measures, like the endless surveillance and mail-sifting programs, this is yet another result of a bunch of people facing (or creating) a social problem, and then trying to convince themselves that a nifty gadget will fix it.
And it's the latest in a long parade.
What they've got is a culture that favors the instigator, rather than the victim, in robbery, street violence, and general antisocial behavior. Here are their solutions so far:
--Cameras
--Electronic tags
--New Databases (rather like many large companies, the UK government loves greating A New Database to solve any kind of problem)
--Magic dream iPods that can't be stolen or some such rubbish
It's a simple choice -- you can either address a problem, or you can talk about how cool it would be if a gadget would make it go away.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
Nobody went on a rampage in England...killing 33 college students and wounding even more.
Kind of hard to do that with a knife, or a bow and arrow.
Blar.
Only if I can use both of my middle fingers to unlock it.
I'm ambidexterous, you know.
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
What, you mean my car's head unit's non-changeable bluetooth pin of 1234 isn't secure?
lock and that was a high end door lock that the according to the manufacturers, the "liveness-sensing" reader has never failed.4 )#Episode_59_.E2.80.94_.22Crimes_and_Myth-Demeanor s_2.22
the ones likely to be in ipods are likely to be a lot less costly and are like a lot easer to beat.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythBusters_(season_
Yeah, now they'll cost an arm, leg and finger! As in, I assume that your finger will allow me to play your iPod, even if it is not attached to your hand!
This has been seen through out history. as an advancement in security increase, theives also use increased technology. there for this is not a perminent fix and to be honest there never will be. it is a matter of staying one step ahead in a world where technology grows exponentioally.
Hmm... I have a strong feeling that, like all other security measures we encounter, they will be far more inconvenient to legitimate users than they will be to "criminals".
It's such an old story in the tech industry, and probably spans back throughout most of mankind's recent history now that I think about it. Just that little bit of extra hassle to do what you're trying to do, that actually won't do much of anything against your average "criminal". For a quick example, note the fact that effectively all computer games since the late 90s require that you keep the game CD-ROM in the CD drive while you play the game.
It's not a huge deal, per se, but it's yet another one of those things that we put up with in order to "stop the criminals", or whatever (even though the so-called criminals laugh at the pathetic "security" as they remove it with a couple clicks).
Then Homeland Security suggested building a stun gun into the ipod for a nasty shock if the finger print security check fails 3 times.
In this case (John Reid), a government minister who is the parliamentary rottweiler - he orchestrates the UK part of the "war on terror", coming up with random "solutions" like this.
"She's furniture with a pulse"
...that'll teach them criminals for sure!
I called it a mighty Sperm Whale, she called it Finding Nemo.
Most thieves (in break-in/burglary scenarios) don't give a rats-arse if something is thumb-print protected. They merely look for shiny, valuable looking objects to take.
silly, silly, silly.
Politics will sooner or later make fools of everybody... - Dick Armey
If people wanted this.. Apple would make it. They apparently don't, why force them to have it?
Bringing liberty to the masses. - http://freetalklive.com/
John Reid is really, really keen on keeping Biometric information for all UK citizens as part of a national ID project. Naturally enough, a large proportion of the UK population is uncomfortable with the idea. I suspect that this new idea is an attempt to encourage people into thinking that biometric identification is a part of everyday life.
As other poster's have pointed out there are other methods of protecting these sorts of devices (think of your car stereo for example) so it's reasonably clear to me at least that Reid has an ulterior motive.
Why not provide a way to have your iPod customized to the point that it would dent resale value?
If only Apple provided a way to have something like "grahamsz is da c00lest evar" permanantly engraved on my ipod then nobody would want to be seen dead with it (especially not me)....
... because it doesn't seem to be in England and Wales.
You wrote: "Doesn't change the fact that, by trampling on individual rights to self defense, Blair et al have increased, rather than decreased, crime." But the crime rate seems to have been headed downward since the mid-1990s, with a slight uptick in 2006.
Crime Statistics for England and Wales
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
It will take a lot of money to fund, but there has to be a way to make a fingerprint scanner that won't be fooled by wet gummi bears and other obvious hacks, but yet cheap enough to be used in low cost consumer devices (USB sticks, etc.)
Biometrics as a whole just seems to still be great for James Bond movies, but still hasn't seemed to move out of the Stone Age for reliability, compared to the tried and true system of a key and a PIN.
Khan: I'll agree to your terms, if.... if.... in addition to yourself, you turn over to me all recordings and album covers regarding the band called "Genesis".
Kirk: Genesis? Which one, Peter Gabriel or Phil Collins?
Khan: Don't insult my intelligence, Kirk!
The home secretary has the unenviable task of trying to persuade the public that they want a national identity card and their personal information stored on a 'secure' database. Of course, the majority don't want that and so we're seeing pressure from all corners of government to degrade our privacy at our expense - cameras tracking your movements on the roads, online voting (we all know how secure that is), cameras that play children's voices to tell you not to drop litter etc, fingerprint scanning children in schools, and now he wants all our gadgets to have fingerprint scanners too.
At best, this quote from C.S. Lewis applies:
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences.
Yes, lets lock down EVERYTHING in the country, and then to improve security even more, give all the keys to the govenment.
We could not tackle or fix the real problem, no way. The fact we are creating a society where there is NO RIGHT OR WRONG... the only questions one should ask before doing something is "will it benefit me" and "can I get away with it". (the government and big business teach us this lesson every day)
Lets tackle our problems with lack of morality with technological means. Ya right, that will work.
Apple will love this. You need a way to reset the protection in order to resell the ipod. If there is a way to reset it, it renders the protection useless. All you will then thrawt is a curious little brother or sister.
Mr. Reid was then quoted as saying "I don't want none o y'all wankers lookin' at my pr0n!"
The point is that a hot ipod will only get 10% of the retial value from the fence. How much effort will the criminal go to to get $25?
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I know I'm sleeping better at night knowing that Homeland Security is focusing it's attention and resources to the critical matter of protecting the nation's valuable mp3 players. Forget about border security, cargo inspection or tracking illegal immigrants. That stuff is peanuts.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4396831.st m
Engineering is the art of compromise.
In the end, iPods and similar items are not sufficently valuable to bother with extensive access controls. It's doubtful that the UK police could even be bothered to investigate the theft of an iPod.
As for the content, well, that's what backups are for :-)
But yet they expect me to pay my taxes! The failures of government seems like a red herring here. The government forbids citizens from doing many things that criminals do anyway.
I suppose you agree that Iran and North Korea deserve nuclear weapons, right? I mean, the NPFT is not perfectly enforced...look at Pakistan. So why should Iran and North Korea not have their own nuclear weapons?
Blar.
If you don't want your stuff stolen, don't have stuff worth stealin.
Sounds like a first step towards ..
using biometrics to enforce DRM
Why doesn't Reid try to figure out ways that police officers can be freed from the mountain of paperwork they're forced to create every shift so they can go out on the nosey for scabby crims to smack about/arrest with the minimum necessary force? Then they'd maybe stop some of the muggings where people are getting hurt and killed.
Even if this fingerprinting scheme were adopted, all it'd do is give fences a reason to give the crim buttons for ipod. It wouldn't stop a thing. It might make the muggers more vicious as they'll have to be more prolific to cover their crack tab for the night and really don't want to spend their time asking nicely.
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors - Plato
.. hack off your finger as well.
And, worse still, in twenty years time, when Ipods will be about as cool as Jane Fonda style legwarmers, people will be able to tell that you used to be one of these pathetic Ipod owners by just counting your fingers!
From a macroeconimic perspective, wouldn't it be cheaper to just give away free Ipods than pay for healthcare and disability pensions?
Why is this moderated as offtopic? A UK government official advocated a technological means of lowering/mitigating crime. The parent poster responded with an alternative proposal. I'm not saying that the previous poster was correct, simply that it seems pretty on topic to me.
don't we have bigger fish to fry I mean as long as people have had prised valuables other people have stolen them there is nothing new here. now people carry around a lot more valuables on then they used to. Before it was just a wallet maybe a nice watch. now we carry Ipods and cellphones and pda's digital cameras ext. not only that but our kids cary a lot more valubals then they used I mean back before cell phones and I pod what would be the point of robbing a kid say 12 or so what lunch money? my little brother who is 13 years old carries one nice ass cellphone everyday to school probably worth at least a $100-$150 and almost no money a few bucks for lunch maybe.
Steve Jobs - easily the most stubborn man in high tech meets our alcoholic, belligerent, bullying Minister of the Interior.
At last, Dr. (economics (Marxist ones at that)) John Reid will come up against someone every bit as awkward as him - although unlike Reid, Steve Jobs sounds like he knows what he's talking about.
Apple and Sony will tell Dr. Demento that they don't make their products in the UK, nor do they design their products in the UK and that the UK only represents a tiny part of their market so they see no need to burden themselves with additional costs just so that John Reid can bolster his chances of leading a clapped out Labour Party by looking tough on crime.
I just hope Steve Jobs is a little more blunt about it and shows Reid just where he can stick a music player in order to deter thieves.
The Swiss keep their weapons locked up AT HOME in case the nation is attacked, not as a system of defense against other citizens.
Do you support Iran and North Korea in their pursuit of nuclear arms? They want the ability to shoot back if some nuclear armed state attacks them.
Blar.
If nuclear weapons are what the feel they need to defend themselves from others, then they will make them. The same goes for criminals, no amount of law will prevent them from getting weapons if that's what they feel they need to ensure their success. No amount of international posturing is going to prevent a country from just building nukes in secret, much like no law will prevent criminals bent on success from obtaining guns. We can't just wave a magic wand and expect nukes and guns to go away, and we also can't expect everyone else to intentionally place themselves at a disadvantage to others. We have nukes, and that scares people, and so they want nukes as well, to put us on even footing. We won't give up our nukes because they might not give up theirs, and there forms a loop of mutual fear. The same is true for guns, knives, or any other weapon. Any way you care to look at the situation, we all lose as long as this loop of mutual fear exists. Breaking the loop is non-trivial. You can't stuff the genie back in the bottle.
As far as nuclear weapons, I like to think that if some crackpot actually DOES nuke someone else outside of an openly declared and internationally supported war, there would be such a response from the rest of the world that said crackpot would be immediately and utterly annihilated. No sane human being would witness such an event and say "Well, they deserved it, they believed differently than we do!", much less an empowered nation of mostly sane humans.
As much as I hate the idea of needless death, I hate the idea of my own needless death even more. I refuse to be an easy mark for someone who believes they are entitled to the fruits of my labor by virtue of their lawlessness. I make myself as hard a target as feasible, and if that means I must attempt to kill someone, then I am fully prepared to do that. I have many safeguards before going to that extreme - I have locks on the doors, signs posted, and the law of the land behind me to dissuade the casual from victimizing me. Only those who have decided that their life is worthless enough to waste in the pursuit of my television will get far enough for me to kill them. I am a big fan of de-escalation doctrine, but it is not a solution to all problems. Sometimes are threatened by the violent. If you are not prepared to respond with 110% of the violence you are threatened with, you will become a victim. You don't need to be violent in the first place, but you must be prepared to respond in kind. They are the ones who decide to get violent, not you.
Well now that we have a way, lets officially blacklist that country singer X. Arrest everybody that has X on their iPod!
I fail to understand the big fuss here. My trusty iPAQ 2790 has had this feature for ages now. See the review here. So; better go back to using decent PDA's instead of iPODs perhaps? ;)
Think of it this way, guys. This is an opportunity for Apple to "Reinvent the Fingerprint Scanner."
I can see it now, Uncle Jobs on the stage unveiling this amazing reinvention. I think it will inject neurotoxin into whoever's print does not match. An on top of that, it will shout "Exterminate!" like a Dalek! But what if your print doesn't scan correctly and you are injected? Easy, just rescan your print correctly and it will give you a dose of an antidote!
This is exactly what I was going to say. A LOT of crime could be prevented if people were just a bit more careful what they do and display in public.
Don't you just hate it when people reply to your signature?
Fire him. On the spot. For sheer stupidity and completely getting his priorities wrong. Jeeeesus - are this the problems he should care about?
Tie the media files to an individual.. And report their use.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
How about we use that serial number for some good?
Each iPod makes a connection to the computer and iTunes. Why not have it report its serial number? If your iPod is stolen, you can just report it as stolen and it should render it useless. Would not be very hard for apple to at least institute a list of stolen iPod serial numbers? As it stands, they do nothing about it. I bet that if I stole somebodys iPod I could then go to apple support, register it, and send it back to apple for repairs, no questions asked.
It prevents the obvious, trivial risk (petty theft). It's the perfect biometric app since, unlike other proposals use of biometrics (ID cards, credit card authorisation, building access, etc), the biometric is present and presented at the point of use only. Biometric data need never leave the device, or even be present (it could be used as a key for disk contents, for example). It's not necessary that the device be proof against determined attack.
Yes, the robber won't know that you have a new, fingerprint-protected ipod, but like vaccination, once enough of them are in circulation theft should drop.
The second risk protected against is loss of data, again in the case of a trivial attack. That is, my phone has various phone numbers (e.g. home numbers of business colleagues) that I don't really want floating around. My home phone number is likewise floating around in others' phones, and I would bet that almost none of them are password-protected. This would make me feel better if the phone were stolen or just lost.
So where's the problem? It won't pose an onerous burden, doesn't screw the user (there's no data centralisation), helps for two common risks. What's not to like?
(yeah, I know it would need a few fixes for shared ipods etc. Not a big deal).
The UK will soon be renamed "nightmare surveillence island," and everyone will be in an exciting televised competition to escape.
This would be a really good idea, kind of like a lojack for your ipod :)
Website Just Down For Me? Find out
Fortunately, this country doesn't have any real crime outside of ipod theft, I guess.
Its not about the theft of the ipod; its about the theft of the copyright music that is on that ipod which only the legitimate owner of that ipod has any right to listen to!
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
thieves aren't trying to steal the contents of the drives, they're trying to steal the device itself
Well you obviously don't work for some music industry association.
If you did then you'd know that the whole problem with people stealing ipods is that they will get access to sounds which they do not have any right to hear!
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
In any society you have your thieves.
The number of thieves is set by the level of happiness in that society; the more happiness the less thieves, and vice versa.
England is a miserable place, especially if you are poor, therefore more thieves in England.
Making it MORE difficult for thieves will make the thieves LESS happy, so even MORE thieves.
Eventually England will be a place where EVERYONE is a thief of lesser or greater degree, because the IDIOT Brits believe that they can eradicate thieves by INSANE and Draconian laws, instead of simply making people HAPPY.
Oh wait....thats already happened.......
and BTW this 'issue' has sweet frick all to do with iPods or any other innocent electronic device.
I've been through three generations of ATMs in this job and no matter how many extra security features are tacked on to them, they're never 100% secure. The best thing you can do is make it so difficult for a thief that it's not worth their time, effort and the risk if getting caught. After that, you just stick it out in the feild and pray.
But then someone will just go all low tech on it and simply point a sawn-off at the guy who knows the combination until he opens the door to the ATM.
Here's a handy set of ideas to El Presidente Blair and our illustrious Labour Party:
1) Give proper funding to our police forces so they can work to prevent / investigate crimes
2) Stop pushing bureaucracy and targets on our police so they can actually go out on the streets and do their jobs
3) Punish criminals properly, not reward them
4) Stop pushing stupid ideas to deflect the blame from the real problems