Slashdot Mirror
Nose Scanners — the New Face of Biometrics?
An anonymous reader writes "Forget fingerprints and ID cards, this photo story shows how the latest thing in biometrics is nose scanning! Bath university researchers have claimed that the nose will soon be able to be used as a way of identifying a person. Apparently the 'PhotoFace system captures a 3D image of a person's face by taking several photos lit from different angles to throw shadows on the face and then building a model of facial features. The software determined that there are six main nose shapes: Roman, Greek, Nubian, Hawk, Snub and Turn-up.' Some cool pictures make this worth a click — but what happens if a person breaks their nose?!"
Biometrics are going to use your DNA for verification, which is the only fool-proof system. I mean, come on, how would you fake someone else's DNA? ::cough::GATTACA::cough::
Living With a Nerd
Seriously. Wow. What a waste of energy and resources. It's called a nose mold, costs like ten cents. Security theater at it's finest.
This is really a bad idea. The nose is actually one of the few parts of the body that grows (and changes) your entire life. Never mind swelling from colds, etc.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Add a CowboyNeal option and you've got the next Slashdot poll.
Set your phasers on "funky"!
For the first time ever, scientists at the Slashdot institute have actually managed to produce an article summary that is longer than the article linked, as well as providing new information not available in the article itself! How is this possible?
Actually, it's snot as bad as that.
Sorry, it had to be said.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
This would finally have enabled Douglas Adams to use the awesome power of his nose for the forces of good.
He had a famously large hooter.
See this link for Douglas's own views on his nose.
Michael Coyne
http://turthalion.blogspot.com
I'm Tycho Brahe, you insensitive clod!
Life just keeps piling on for the poor suffering adolescent geek. Now when he develops a giant zit on his nose, he doesn't just have to worry about the derision of his peers, but his nose-scanning locker won't open.
On the positive side, if anyone beats you up and breaks your nose, they can now be sued for aiding and abetting terrorism by making the 'nose database' useless...
It would be just as secure and applying for an ID card would be a real hoot.
No sig today...
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/08/dna-samples-used-by-crime-labs-faked-in-research-lab.ars
Granted, they say it carries markers of having been lab-tampered, but that detecting the markers requires currently-unusual sophistication. Interesting, though.
picpix image polls. create - share - vote. fun!
Lemme get this straight. Bath, a town internationally known for its Rugby Football team, is proposing we use noses for biometric ID?
Rugby being the game for which the phrase "full contact sport" is not so much an understatement as a warning of imminent loss of life? Like American Football only without the pads and helmets? The game where a broken nose is probably the most common injury?
The Bath Rugby team probably have only one intact nose between all 15 players.
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
I'd rather see the words: "Please insert nose to verify identity." than "Processing colonic map." on the ATM of the future.
Dewey, you fool! Your decimal system has played right into my hands!
Why don't they just scan the whole face?
As if the nose were more unique than the rest of the face plus the nose.
A nose by any other name would still smell
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Come on, TSA!
You've already got the millimeter body scanners rolling out across the US and rest of the world. Kick it up a notch! Go straight for the biometric genital scanning!
Pfft, privacy. You don't need privacy. You need safety. Now drop your drawers!
Don't let the security-crazed among us start thinking about what other stickout-y parts of the human anatomy they could photograph from six angles, digitize and put on our passports. All to keep the children and kittens safe, of course.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Seriously. No one cares for biometrics. Aside from making for very sick dismemberment jokes in spy movies, biometrics haven't done much to go mainstream.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
And they stole it from an opposing prop forward.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
There was an old cartoon from back in the 80s when the first really painful desktop security measures were put in place... back when people still ran unpatched OSs and downloading updates (via dial-up modem) wasn't common.
I think it was "The Fifth Wave" series. Wish I could find it to post a link.
Basically, it was a manager turning to an employee looking stubborn at his computer terminal and saying "Now c'mon, Bob, you know nose scanning is our best defense against unauthorized computer use!" The nose scanners were cups on thick cords hanging from the ceiling like airline oxygen masks.
Biometrics is a cute marketing trick, but it's no substitute for good security process. That's why I like signing in to my laptop using the "fingerprint" of a small area on the underside of my scrotum. Any legitimate reason to doff one's pants at work is good. "I'm just logging in." or "Whoops, there goes my screensaver. Zzzzzzzip...."
Erik
Did the submitter read the story?
While able to process images more quickly than conventional biometric identification techniques such as whole face recognition, the system's recognition rates were comparatively low and researchers recommend it as an addition to existing biometrics rather than a replacement.
It doesn't really matter what the biometric is of, the whole idea has been shown to fail. It turns out that a key feature necessary for authentication is that a credential can be revoked and a new one issued whenever it has been compromised. That is just not practical for biometrics. If it can be measured, someone can capture that measurement and create a fake.
As shown on Mythbusters, the more expensive the fingerprint reader was, the easier it was to fake it out, but all of them failed one way or another.
If we start lining up and shooting marketing departments, we might one day be able to produce a biometric system that would only fall for very difficult surgical duplications (and so raise the bar quite high), but such systems would likely cost several orders of magnitude more than other equally secure methods that we already have available. Meanwhile, in those few cases where the access is important enough to resort to the surgical approach and someone does so, we're right back to the inability to issue a new ID.