Can the iPhone Popularize Fingerprint Readers?

Nerval's Lobster writes "Apple's iPhone 5S features a fingerprint scanner embedded in the home button. Of course, fingerprint-scanning technology isn't new: Bloomberg Terminals feature a built-in fingerprint reader to authenticate users, for example, and various manufacturers have experimented with laptops and smartphones that require a thumb to login. But the technology has thus far failed to become ubiquitous in the consumer realm, and it remains to be seen whether the new iPhone — which is all but guaranteed to sell millions of units — can popularize something that consumers don't seem to want. Security experts seem to be adopting a wait-and-see attitude with regard to Apple's newest trick. 'I'd caution right away, let's see how it tests and what people come up with to break it,' Brent Kennedy, an analyst with the U.S. Computer Emergency and Readiness Team, told Forbes. 'I wouldn't rely on it solely, just as I wouldn't with any new technology right off the bat.' And over at Wired, technologist Bruce Schneier is suggesting that biometric authentication could be hacked like anything else. 'I'm sure that someone with a good enough copy of your fingerprint and some rudimentary materials engineering capability — or maybe just a good enough printer — can authenticate his way into your iPhone,' he wrote. 'But, honestly, if some bad guy has your iPhone and your fingerprint, you've probably got bigger problems to worry about.'"

Comments

if someone has your iPhone.....

[phantomfive]

If someone has your iPhone, they have your fingerprint.

Re:if someone has your iPhone.....

[noh8rz10]

that's extraordinarily true, considering how smudgy and oily my phone gets (i have a glandular thing)

Re:if someone has your iPhone.....

[daem0n1x]

I eat two donuts at a time, you insensitive clod!

iPhone + fingerprint?

[jonbryce]

"But, honestly, if some bad guy has your iPhone and your fingerprint, you've probably got bigger problems to worry about."

Surely if they have your iPhone, they already have lots of copies of you fingerprints smeared all over it?

Re:I'm gonna strike it rich

[Nidi62]

I want to be the first to show how you can use the same old fingerprint reader defeating techniques on an iPhone.

Better make sure there's not already a patent on that

Fingerprints? I don't think so

[Russ1642]

Best Animaniacs adult humour: www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xmAC9Qu908

Re:To be honest

[jimbolauski]

Not just beards, neck beards.