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Biometrics Are Making Espionage Harder
schwit1 sends this story from Foreign Policy: In the age of iris scans and facial recognition software, biometrics experts like to point out: The eyes don't lie. And that has made tradecraft all the more difficult for U.S. spies. After billions of dollars of investment — largely by the U.S. government — the routine collection and analysis of fingerprints, iris scans, and facial images are helping to ferret out terrorists and immigration fraudsters all over the world. But it has also made it harder for undercover agents to remain anonymous.
Gone are the days of entering a country with a false passport and wearing a wig and a mustache to hide your true identity. Once an iris scan is on record, it becomes nearly impossible to evade detection. 'In the 21st century, you can't do any of that because of biometrics,' said retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Gone are the days of entering a country with a false passport and wearing a wig and a mustache to hide your true identity. Once an iris scan is on record, it becomes nearly impossible to evade detection. 'In the 21st century, you can't do any of that because of biometrics,' said retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Genuine question as I have no expertise in this whatsoever...would crafted contact lenses help out here?
You don't say...
Nonsense! James O'Keefe has crossed the border masquarading as Osama bin Laden. And thousands of serious "undocumented Americans" do that without even any attempts to disguise themselves — and do not encounter much molestation neither during nor after the act.
TFA tells us, the technology to fight it is there. Now we just need the will to use it — instead we currently have a will not to.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Am I somehow supposed to feel bad that due to the extensive tracking by Big Brother of everything that we do that all of a sudden Big Brother is having a hard time of it?
Boo fucking hoo.
You assholes created this surveillance society. You don't get to bitch when the same fucking issues we all face suddenly bit you in your own ass.
That these clowns are now stepping in the pile of shit they helped to create is too fucking bad.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Because it sounds like you're placing nearly absolute confidence in a solution where a back-end server storing biometric template data is one compromise away from being used to make all your efforts completely useless. Gone are the days when someone intent on espionage needed a wig and fake mustache; now they can compromise your back-end server, overwrite some template data, and become a whole other person that you firmly believe should be trusted and provided all kinds of privileged access.
What you've done is come up with a system where the good guys can't change the passwords, but the bad guys can. It's among the dumbest ideas ever.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
the world needs fewer spies and more honest people.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
So the contact lenses with the fake iris prints don't work?
No they don't. A real iris pulses slightly as your heart beats. A biometric sensor can detect that.
In reality, only rarely. Geeks like to claim that security benefits are overstated, but in their criticism, they often overstate the simplicity and ease with which it can be beaten. One item of faith for many geeks is the jelly fingerprint. Yet 15 years ago I encountered fingerprint scanners that would not be fooled by that, and it wasn't exactly cutting edge tech even back then. It used a combination of pattern, temperature, electric conductivity and pressure
You are a bad country if you were doing it that way. Most spies are not registerd as such. They are people who have a job in an other country and do the spying on the side.
Crossing borders is not an issue. And if they are recognised as spies, they are burned and will not be used again.
FYI, James Bond is fiction.
And even if they would want to get into a country, they can. Look at people illegaly smuggeling others and succeed. Now imagine that you somehow make those illegal people legal.
And they could even give you a new passport. Happens all the time. New passport, ID and what not.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Wow, I can't believe this is even worthy of a post.
This is bullshit, just someone looking for more money.
First off the NSA is tapped into everything, they are already spying on all of us.
Second, the NSA can hack into any computers across the world that is storing the biometric data and change the data.
Third, you rarely have spies that no one knows about, and honestly, it's easy enough to make those. You can find someone in the twenties/thirties that have never worked for the government in anything, make some fake data about them, and suddenly have a new spy. If you keep going to the military or FBI, or those sort of people for spies then yes, it a lot easier to figure out.
Fourth, It's election years.
Be seeing you...
At least its rental not rectal...
Maybe that's the reason of that alien anal probing... biometrics!
English is not my first language. Corrections and suggestions are welcome.
Yeah! Geeks are overrated. However, as a nerd I would say you simply have to target the database instead of trying to confuse the detector. Once you very private characteristics will have been stolen, you will be in deep trouble.
Achille Talon
Hop!
I guess they'll have to do it the old-fashioned way, then: sleep with someone who knows the secrets.
no, you just need to get to the guards, the person scannning, or whatever human element is between you and the system. All this techno wizardry is silly. humans are now, and will forever be the weakest link.
Oh no you didn't. That beard is hot, particularly the way he doesn't trim it.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Which is likely exactly what this whole story is really about. It seems a likely bet that the NSA has hacked some key biometric databases and are looking to protect this hack for as long as possible with some military knob running around spreading PR=B$ about how secure biometrics are and how they can not get around it. These asshats would not admit the sky was blue unless they had a specific reason and advantage in doing so, otherwise they would continue try to obfuscate it's existence. So at a bet, a bunch of American criminals are running around the world doing something quite naughty at this time, hiding behind falsified biometric data. I wonder which countries, have started using more biometric security (compromised at it's core) and in which locations. Just like them monitoring and recording all US post and parcels.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen