Researchers Hack Biometric Faces

yahoi sends in news from a week or so back: "Vietnamese researchers have cracked the facial recognition technology used for authentication in Lenovo, Asus, and Toshiba laptops in lieu of the standard logon/password. The researchers were able to easily bypass the biometric authentication system built into the laptops by using photos of an authorized user, as well as by presenting multiple phony facial images in brute-force attacks. One of the researchers will demonstrate the hack at Black Hat DC this week. He says the laptop makers should remove the facial biometrics feature from their products because the vulnerability of this technology can't be fixed."

Comments

Re:hacking? Huh?

[Verteiron]

Here's an up-to-date partial list of security researchers who have been threatened with legal action for releasing research on security vulnerabilities:

http://attrition.org/errata/legal_threats/

It should give you an idea of why people are concerned.