Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Subverting Fingerprinting

Posted by kdawson on from the on-a-stalk dept.

squizzar writes in with news of a 27 year old Chinese woman who was discovered to have had her fingerprints surgically swapped between hands in order to fool Japanese immigration. "It is Japan's first case of alleged biometric fraud, but police believe the practice may be widespread. ... The apparent ability of illegal migration networks to break through hi-tech controls suggests that other countries who fingerprint visitors could be equally vulnerable — not least the United States, according to BBC Asia analyst Andre Vornic." Time for some biometric escalation. Could iris scans be subverted as easily?

3 of 169 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Watching 'Bladerunner' too many times? by MichaelSmith · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Or how about just carving a custom print into the finger. Maybe something like the laser surgery they do on corneas or tattoos.

    --
    http://michaelsmith.id.au
  2. Fraud? by maxume · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Is it really fraud? Is there some promise that everyone has made to never make alterations to their bodies?

    (I think it's dumb, but I don't see how it is fraud, she didn't actually impersonate anyone or anything)

    --
    Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
  3. What about publishing them openly? by Richard_J_N · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How about a public (anonymised) repository of fingerprints. The idea is this: I can't change my prints, nor can I get back control once the government has taken them. But I could publish them to the world. That makes the print very easy for anyone else to fake. In other words, plausible deniability.