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OPM Says 5.6 million Fingerprints Stolen In Cyberattack
mschaffer writes: The Office of Personnel Management data breach that happened this summer just got a little worse. The OPM now says that 5.6 million people's fingerprints were stolen as part of the hacks. The Washington Post reports: "That's more than five times the 1.1 million government officials estimated when the cyberattacks were initially disclosed over the summer. However, OPM said Wednesday the total number of those believed to be caught up in the breaches, which included the theft of the Social Security numbers and addresses of more than 21 million former and current government employees, remains the same."
And this is why fingerprints are NOT good credentials.
In stealing the real finger prints. Should have randomly wlked the databases and reassign all finger-prints (even better individual fingers) to other persons, also other info (partial phone numbers, name, dates, what not) . So database would be worthless - trancate the SQL database logs a few times to be sure. :)
See if the backup actually works or not. :)
If you do not restore your database, how do you know it works??
Relying on any so-called completely unique feature of every human being that may be currently impossible or at least extraordinarily difficult to replicate makes the implicit assumption that no technology could potentially invented that will make forging it possible or viable.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I demand that we vigorously close the barn door by implementing a robust biometric authentication infrastructure to prevent this from happening again!
This same song-and-dance seems to play out with every big hack now:
Week one:
"It was just a few people who had some data limited compromised"
Week two:
It was just a few people who had most of their data compromised, but not their passwords
Week three:
"It was a lot of people, who had most of their data compromised, but not their passwords"
Week four:
"They got everything on everyone"
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
This can't be stealing - the originals are still there !
It's just that they made a copy of the data.
--- RIAA
Just change the fingerprints on all accounts and you're safe again.
That is a totally ridiculous solution and yet it seems so reasonable (I'm sure someone will say, "it is the only way to be sure.")
With impending guvmint shutdown sometimes I wonder who's minding the store? There's gotta be a "In Soviet Russia" answer to this one.
mfwright@batnet.com
The Chinese have my background investigative report and my fingerprints for my government job. Next they will be shutting down the government for no reason.
Very detailed histories of a persons family, including SSN's, were part of the heist via Form SF-86. Being a longtime defense department contractor whose security clearance details were likely compromised I am pissed. The forms included personal info from friends gracious enough to vouch for my veracity as a trusted agent for the US government. We were expected to protect paper and electronic copies of this form as we would other sensitive data. The joke appears to be on us.
You can have my fingerprints when you pry them from my cold, dead.....oh.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Just reset your fingerprint, this time please use numbers, letters and other symbols.
....but over the last years, I've started to really cheer in glee every time there's a horrible breach of sensitive data.
Only after a percentage of people are thoroughly harmed and screwed by the escape of sensitive information, will the world realize that there simply is no sound way to keep secrets safe. It is a logical fallacy for one to think they can make a system that is perfectly secure as every measure has a countermeasure
Therefore, the only option that will remain after a sufficient number of people get fleeced, fucked and flogged will be to never collect it in the first place. To collect it, is to invite evil-doers to an all you can eat buffet.
So celebrate the evil blackhats of the world!! Huzzah! For us to see progress, they must steal their billions, destroy lives, maim murder and pillage! Sure, we technology buffs understand risks and speak loudly about the NSAs, Facebooks and all the other "user abusers" of the world. But we clever geeks can never convince the masses to change their ways because our message is inconvenient.
No sir. Until enough good people are fucked, the assholes of the world will keep winning the minds of innocent fools with lies like "If you've done nothing wrong you should have nothing to hide". How about this one, "We collect your information in order to better serve you". Orwell is spinning in his grave.
Ending my rant: Good people need encryption and privacy the most, but they won't realize this until they've been burned by fire. So burn baby burn.
How to fake fingerprints, in case you want to know what to do with them.
Building Better Software
So what? It's not the person, it's data ABOUT the person -- in other words, metadata.
And everyone knows that metadata isn't real data; that's why the government is busy collecting so much of it.
------
(Yes, I realize metadata would be where you actually found those fingerprints. But look-- soon you'll be able to find them everywhere!)
((And besides, I thought "privacy was dead, get over it."))
If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
A lot of climbing provides a reasonable workaround
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
>"OPM Says 5.6 million Fingerprints Stolen In Cyberattack"
Which is why fingerprints and DNA should *NEVER* be given, taken, or stored as biometrics.
Deep vein scan. THAT is the only reasonable biometric. It is of almost no value if stolen, can't be misused easily, isn't left all over the place like fingerprints and DNA, is quite unique, contains no sensitive information about the person, is very difficult to fake, can't be easily collected or read without the user's knowledge, is fast and easy to collect and also to use.