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Hacker Club Publishes German Official's Fingerprint
A number of readers let us know about the Chaos Computer Club's latest caper: they published the fingerprint of German Secretary of the Interior Wolfgang Schäuble (link is to a Google translation of the German original). The club has been active in opposition to Germany's increasing push to use biometrics in, for example, e-passports. Someone friendly to the club's aims captured Schäuble's fingerprint from a glass he drank from at a panel discussion. The club published 4,000 copies of their magazine Die Datenschleuder including a plastic foil reproducing the minister's fingerprint — ready to glue to someone else's finger to provide a false biometric reading. The CCC has a page on their site detailing how to make such a fake fingerprint. The article says a ministry spokesman alluded to possible legal action against the club.
Come on guys, where is the "haha" tag?
Hardly. The CCC is a highly prolific club and is very likely keen on some legal "retaliation", as it would generate even more public attention on that matter.
Since the Home Secretary stated, that storing fingerprints is no privacy concern, he would be hard pressed to explain his stance.
"Between strong and weak, between rich and poor [...], it is freedom which oppresses and the law which sets free"
You don't have to go to any special measures really to do this. I mean plastic and all those synthetic rubber moulds and stuff that the average person couldn't do is a bit excessive. Remember on mythbusters when they tried to beat that "unbeatable" fingerprint lock on a door and managed to do it by printing off the fingerprint with a laser printer and licking it? Yeah, biometrics is a joke. And really good biometrics like DNA aren't practical or fast and the retina scan, well you do that every day for a year and see if you don't go partically blind. I can't care hoe safe they think it is. Facial recognition is pretty useless and easy to beat too. Until they find something that's 100% unique and fast and accurate, they should forget about biometics.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
There was actually a Mythbusters episode that showcased how you could take a fingerprint found on a can and use it on a DoD approved biometric fingerprint scanner. It's really a useless method of security.
As a matter of fact, Yes.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.
Yes, this was done a couple of years ago in Sweden as a Master Thesis, which was described in Swedish Engineering paper Ny Teknik http://www.nyteknik.se/efter_jobbet/kaianders/article32986.ece (sorry, swedish only). The student Marie Sandström tested a simple yello, which was created using the same method as mentioned in the article above, on three commercial fingerprint-readers on the CeBit fair in 2004.
It doesn't seem hard at all at a 'normal' reader (see Mythbusters episode.
The high-end, ridicilously expensive fingerprint readers are a lot harder to crack though; But I wouldn't say uncrackable.
Do you really get a good enough copy? How hard is it? (After all, any security can be broken somehow. So an essential aspect is the "cost" of breaking the security) Already been done. here's a video demonstration, again courtesy of our friends at CCC. Just takes a digital camera, a bit of wood glue, a bottlecap, a transparency and a bit of skin-friendly glue to apply the fake to your finger.
Make love, not sigs
well yes it is nice that you don't have to panic if you forget to lock a door or something there. But I suspect my reality is wasted on your attempt at sarcasm.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Since when was germany worse than china when it came to rights...
China is a pathetically low standard to compare to.
Wait, godwin is that you???
You're a moron.