Turning a Smartphone Display Into a Biometric Scanner

New submitter jan_jes writes: Recent mobile phones integrate fingerprint scanners to authenticate users biometrically and replace passwords, making authentication more convenient. Researchers at Yahoo Labs have created a new technology called "Bodyprint," which turns your smartphone's touchscreen display into a biometric scanner. It allows the touch sensor to scan users' body parts (PDF) such as ears, fingers, fists, and palms by pressing them against the display. Bodyprint implements the four-eye principle for locking sensitive documents — accessing the document can require the presence of two or more people involved with the project. Another application is authenticating a user to answer a call by scanning their ear pressed against the phone.

Comments

ewwww....

[turkeydance]

coming to a club near you.

This technological turn has the potential

[Anonymous Coward]

... for producing some really disgusting patents.

Biometric snake oil

[Anonymous Coward]

Fingerprint scanners and other biometric authentications are a joke. To reduce false negatives they have to reduce the sensitivity, which makes the false positive rate around 1/200, which is the security of a 2-letter password.

Re:Biometric snake oil

[Anonymous Coward]

There are so many different proprietary implementations and algorithms out there, not all of them are the same as the example you gave.

Re:Biometric snake oil

[Anonymous Coward]

this is useless for scanning hands though? it doesn't seem to take the fingerprints into account so anyone with a hand roughly the same size can auth into your phone?

Re:Biometric snake oil

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but the difference is that a 2-letter password can be cracked by a single person. With this biometric thing, you have to go find 200 different people to press the phone up to their ears.

Re:Biometric snake oil

[Anonymous Coward]

I was speaking generally, just like OP.

Waiting for the intersection with dating sites

[abulafia]

Not that losers need another reason to whip it out, but this has potential for demanding proof of all those '11" uncut' claims.

With apologies in advance

[wonkey_monkey]

fingers, fists, and palms

Does she, indeed?

Precision and recall don't make it secure

[Anonymous Coward]

They haven't even considered the possibility of hacking it with, say, a 3D-printed ear. Fingerprint scanners are routinely hacked. This seems even easier because all you need is a 3D scan or a few photos of someone's ear.

Re:Precision and recall don't make it secure

[Anonymous Coward]

3D printed objects are not conductive. The technology uses the touchscreen to sense the ear, so your 3D print needs to be conductive to be detected.

Re:Precision and recall don't make it secure

[rHBa]

So 3D print a mould and pour in a conductive material. That stuff MythBusters use all the time would be conductive wouldn't it?

Re: Precision and recall don't make it secure

[Anonymous Coward]

Conductivity is not how touch screens work. You could use one of those layered paper printers and just get it a little over damp.

Low-hanging fruit...

[Etherwalk]

Shouldn't a four-eye principle require two ordinary people or one person with glasses? (Contact lenses obviously don't count.)

(As a side note, it's hard to believe that was ever really a slur).

Re:Low-hanging fruit...

[StikyPad]

Not to be confused with the Five Eyes principle, which means that the government's just going to read it anyway.

other body parts

[Puppet Master]

It allows the touch sensor to scan users' body parts... Is it just limited to ears, fingers, fists, and palms? Does it have to be your body part? Honey, bend over, I need to unlock my phone.