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The Government Wants Your Fingerprint To Unlock Phones (dailygazette.com)
schwit1 quotes this report from the Daily Gazette: "As the world watched the FBI spar with Apple this winter in an attempt to hack into a San Bernardino shooter's iPhone, federal officials were quietly waging a different encryption battle in a Los Angeles courtroom. There, authorities obtained a search warrant compelling the girlfriend of an alleged Armenian gang member to press her finger against an iPhone that had been seized from a Glendale home. The phone contained Apple's fingerprint identification system for unlocking, and prosecutors wanted access to the data inside it.
It marked a rare time that prosecutors have demanded a person provide a fingerprint to open a computer, but experts expect such cases to become more common as cracking digital security becomes a larger part of law enforcement work. The Glendale case and others like it are forcing courts to address a basic question: How far can the government go to obtain biometric markers such as fingerprints and hair?"
It marked a rare time that prosecutors have demanded a person provide a fingerprint to open a computer, but experts expect such cases to become more common as cracking digital security becomes a larger part of law enforcement work. The Glendale case and others like it are forcing courts to address a basic question: How far can the government go to obtain biometric markers such as fingerprints and hair?"
The harder a government tries, the faster a market for hard-to-crack devices will grow.
New option: set a finger to use which will cause the device to wipe. (I can think of an appropriate digit to use).
Smell my finger! Now pull it. Wouldn't matter anyway. My phone demands a password every XX hours no matter what.
I would assume not so far as to deny someone's 5th-amendment privilege to decline to self-incriminate. But IANAL.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
If this starts happening people will just use a multi layer logins ie a sequence of fingers prints instead of just one or a fingerprint and a pass sequence. Also regarding terrorists, they just use burner phones for no more than a day or two now and use cryptic key words that mean nothing to your average key word search engine.
This is a PSA completely unrelated to the article and for educational purposes only.
You can painlessley sand off your fingerprints in about 3 minutes. What are they going to do if you literally do not have fingerprints? Okay so you can't unlock your phone normally either then anyway but I think Slashdot people are smart enough to not use pathetic attempts at biometrics.
There is no difference in the task - but it used to be you got put in the police archive for easy identification, NOT that you gave up all your personal files to the police.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
If you're government worker, you need to turn in your fingerprints every year anyway. I'm not sure if the government has the capability to pull my fingerprint records and be able to spoof the fingerprint sensor on my iPhone. Not that I have anything sensitive on iPhone.
So I guess I am screwed. But there is hope for everyone else.
Ugh.
Self Defense - A Human Right www.a-human-right.com
Since when was it uncommon for someone allegedly involved (directly or otherwise) to be fingerprinted? So they made someone do it to a phone instead of an ink pad this time. What's the task difference here?
Here's the thing.
Say you're wanted for organized crime or terrorism charges. The cops get enough evidence to get an arrest warrant for you, and a search warrant for your properties.
When they arrest you, you get fingerprinted. During your arrest, per the terms of their search warrant, they confiscate every electronic device in your house.
You weren't alone when they arrested you though. Your live in girlfriend Tina was there, as was your buddy Mike, and a friend of his, Chico.
During your arrest, those three will most likely be searched for weapons, cuffed, have their names/ids ran, but this is not being arrested. This is temporary detainment pursuant to the execution of a search/arrest warrant. This won't show up on their criminal record. They won't be fingerprinted or interrogated. Once its determined that they do not have any weapons on them, or anything illegal found while searching for weapons, and don't have any arrest warrants, they will be let go. They'll let Tina grab her purse, after checking it for weapons, just like they'd let mike and chico grab their wallets had they left them laying somewhere, and things like clothing, jackets, shoes, etc. But nothing else.
The problem is, Tinas nice new iPhone 6 is sitting on the kitchen counter charging. It wasn't in her pocket or purse when they came in, so its confiscated pursuant to the search order.
Now, the police have your fingerprints, as you've been arrested, booked, and charged with a crime. The problem is, your fingerprints dont unlock Tinas phone. They wont just turn the phone over to Tina. It might have incriminating evidence on it. But Tina was never arrested or booked, so they do not have her fingerprints on file, so can not try to fool the phone with a copy of her fingerprints.
That's the difference here.
And the police fingerprints are still good enough to be used to defeat the best fingerprint scanners. There's been no noticeable improvement in the technology since the paper on defeating it was published in 2002.
https://cryptome.org/gummy.htm
The crack was confirmed by MythBusters in 2011.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
There has been no basic change in the technology. Fingerprint scanners are still trivially beaten.
See this Slashdot article from October 2014: Virginia Court: LEOs Can Force You To Provide Fingerprint To Unlock Your Phone. And that's not the first.
(IANAL.) The idea is that forcing you to reveal something you know (passcode, etc) is testifying and thus could be self-incrimination and not constitutional, but that forcing you to provide something about yourself is totally kosher. The analogy is being compelled to give up a key or DNA vs a safe combination - the former is searchable, the latter is not. Fingerprints are routinely taken upon arrest, even if the person is released without charges. Physical descriptions or stuff on/about you is not testifying. The argument to make here is a fourth amendment one about being "secure in ones papers" - but they have a warrant so that doesn't do any good anyway.
What it comes down to is the fifth amendment is a very important, but very circumscribed, right - not a get out of jail free card. Which shouldn't have been a surprise, really, otherwise the police would never be able to prosecute much of anything.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
They got a warrant. None of my other "persons, houses, papers, and effects" are secure against a warrant, so why should my phone be?
You may not think that there are other situations where the State could require my cooperation to investigate my alleged crimes, and yet those situations exist commonly. Fingerprints or DNA, for example, are coerced confessions from my body to be used by the state against me - and there's a long history (sometimes sordid) of their acceptance and use. They are coerced cooperation - try not giving fingerprints or DNA and see how far you get.
The only significant issue I see is that the coerced cooperation required to open my phone, opens a huge window into my private business that doesn't have much of a parallel pre-cellphone. But that isn't much different than a search warrant for my house - the warrant must be specific, but that doesn't mean that the police who search my house won't investigate every document, container, and closet that may (or may not) be covered by the warrant.
And the worms ate into his brain.
don't remember password, type wrong 3 times (adjustable) - oh, sorry, device wipes... have to be quick though with typing...
No finger print sensing BS.
How far can the government go to obtain biometric markers such as fingerprints and hair?
They can go as far as just taking you around the back of the courthouse and shooting you. Of course those governments don't tend to be popular, but it happens. It all depends how much power the people give the government, until a critical mass is reached where the government no longer needs the people and can just give itself power. Guess which phase the US is in today.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
The government can compel you to give over certain things that you posses, and the use of fingerprints is so old that there is no question that they can do with that pretty much what they want.
What is protected is your right not to give testimony against yourself. A password is covered. A fingerprint is not. Facial recognition would not be covered either. Remember that before using those whiz-bang new features.
Law enforcement is always so much easier when you can force suspects to "confess". Only now, instead of beating people with a rubber hose, they can force someone's finger onto a part of a screen. Once the phone is open they can "find evidence" of whatever crime they want to accuse you of. After all, the FBI crime labs are routinely caught falsifying/manufacturing evidence in order to get convictions against people they don't like.
So they can just seize it under the liberal seizure laws and keep it forever. If you want it back, you do what they say. Otherwise, they can hold it forever.
Learn to love Alaska
... because the "key," analogy fails.
When police knock on our door with a warrant, the warrant specifies what they are looking for.
Recall the example of overreach in the case where an individual is suspected of stealing a TV and LEO looks in desk drawers and cubbyholes.
Officers are not allowed to toss your house, looking for a TV.
A smart device contains information that is private to other, unknown, persons .
I may have photos of you. I may have emails from you. I may have text messages from you, and I may have your phone number.
Hell, I could have a list of passwords to all my banking stuff on there.
--
Citizens should have a place to store shit without LEO getting its fucking hands on it.
If it's not a smart device, then where is it?
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Sounds like a mistake to use your fingerprint as a password in that case, then. Not law enforcement's fault.
That's OK. The girlfriend had her phone in a case, and the case has her fingerprints on it (and that's assuming the phone has an anti-fingerprint coating on all of it and not just the glass).
New Apple Iphone theft includes victim with missing index finger. Brilliant, why don't they just add cyanide to the chemtrails? WTF are they beating around the bush for?
Fingerprinting is not new--not only is it required of criminal defendants as a matter of course, but many states take fingerprints for other reasons such as admission to the bar.
The Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination does not apply because certain information is not considered "testimonial" in nature. You are not testifying when providing a fingerprint. While this is a slightly different case because the fingerprint is being used to unlock a phone, ultimately they are still not using testimony to unlock the phone--they are using a physical characteristic of an individual. So it will still be considered non-testimonial, and the appeals court that reviews the matter will agree.
The Fourth Amendment still protects you from a random search of your phone, but there was a warrant in this case.
Real lawyers write in C++
Biometrics can be used safely to identify you, not to authorize you.
Small but important difference.
Why go all the trouble to get a warrant etc, when reading out publicly available hi-res photographs from surveillance cameras showing the finger of the target would be more than enough to print a fine replica of the fingerprint on a 3D printer, to be applied / pressed on the fingerprint sensor by some FBI agent at a later time? C'mon, image data processing has come a long way to read your fingerprints from most photos with a decent enough lighting and resolution. Transferring that to the sensor is trivial from here.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
Convenience it may be but obviously don't use it for anything actually important.
But you should totally use Apple pay and connect your bank accounts and credit cards to that phone. What could possibly go wrong?
By the time they have convinced me to press my finger to the fingerprint sensor of my phone, they will find a nicely encrypted storage.
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
Since you cannot rely on each scan being exactly identical to the previous one, can you even use it to encrypt anything?
How is this check done in hardware? Would it be possible to simply override the hardware and send the "these fingerprints match" signal?
seems like a good reason to use some other form of unlock than fingerpirnts
Honestly, fingerprint dusting is so easy that I'm surprised it's so supposedly "secure". I mean, the phone is covered with fingerprints. Dust for them and construct fakes and voila, there's your phone. Which is why we should all push for Iris scanners on our phones instead.
I've always wondered why people would think that fingerprints are a highly secured method of authentication. You leave the things around everywhere you go and you can't change them if they are compromised. Imagine if you dropped little strips of paper with your password (that could never be changed) written on it everywhere you went. How long would your "highly secured" password last if someone decided they wanted into your account? Especially if that person was the government?
Heck, if the government has your phone, chances are they have your fingerprint on your phone (or have access to somewhere you've been that you've left your fingerprints). Even if they don't have you in custody (and thus didn't fingerprint you), they can use those fingerprints to gain access to your phone.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
...since the terrorist phone case and how easy it would be to force someone to unlock a bio-locked phone. What I'd like to see is Apple/whatever Android phones have that level of biometrics to either require a passcode or self-destruct if the wrong registered print is used to try and unlock it.
The girlfriend wasn't accused of any crime, but they needed her fingerprint to access the data? That seems different from booking fingerprints.
Note: many professional licenses require fingerprints on file (Florida Real Estate agents, for one - and that covers about 15% of the population here at last census), will the police need a court order to release the fingerprints on file or can they just access them at will in the course of fishing expeditions?
In at least one well-known case, it was held that a subpoena for the contents of a phone (protected by a password) to be used or provided depends on one factual question. The same question that applies to documents locked in an old-fashioned safe that has a combination.
If there is a question about whether or not the phone belongs to the defendant, providing the password would be admitting ownership. That would be testimony, which is protected by the 5th.
On the other hand, if the defendant admits it's his phone (or safe) , they have no 5th amendment right to interfere with a lawful subpoena just because unlocking the documents requires a combination that they know in their head, rather than one they wrote down.
Can't an app be made that simply does not store any of this history and evidence on the phone ? It's not as if I can't get information from a distant server when I want it most of the time. The phone could otherwise hold music and other innocuous content.
Nullius in verba
Better yet, use a password which gives more combinations than a PIN code. As for storing information, Android does include that functionality in the form of device encryption. You have to enable it, but it's certainly there. Communication... S/MIME encryption should already be supported by the email app and doesn't require any intermediate servers to know your key.
For real-time chat 3rd-party apps are the only solution. I'm still looking for one based around x.509/SSL certificates, though. I don't trust home-baked encryption and none of the apps out there seem to want to discuss the details of what's underneath their promises.
Remember this?
Apple's got a security feature where the phone verifies all components of the fingerprint-security system installed on the thing today are the ones that were installed yesterday since iOS9, much to the chagrin of the poor fuckers who got some part of the system repaired by non-Apple shops prior to iOS9. They fixed that on 9.3, but I doubt hacking the system is actually non-trivial.
On the other hand, to get a warrant all you need is a) a limited area to search (such as a phone), b) a reason to search it (aka: "probable cause"), and c) a LEO to swear that b) is true to a Judge via "oath or affirmation."
For the iPhone power up or 48 hours of lock screen requires a 6 digit passcode not a finger print.
But Tina was never arrested or booked, so they do not have her fingerprints on file, so can not try to fool the phone with a copy of her fingerprints.
That's the difference here.
Has it been proven that your fingerprints on file are adequate for the police to break into your phone? The CCC hack required a very very detailed process and a really good print.
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For the iPhone power up or 48 hours of lock screen requires a 6 digit passcode not a finger print.
Or strong alphanumeric password with possibly many many bits of entropy - like mine. Does their TouchID precedent allow for forcing you to produce your password? I thought at least that was protected under the 5th amendment?
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
... devices can evaluate the state of mind of the person using whatever pass code is required to ordinarily access it, and then failing to allow such access if what would otherwise be the correct pass is provided while under any kind of duress?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Really?
So, I issue a personal challenge. I will pay you $500, in cash, if you build me a fingerprint spoof made from a latent print that will break into a 2013-2015 HP Enterprise laptop. As part of the deal, I will require that you log the hours you spent, the money you spent, and all the attempts you made, to fulfill this requirement.
If your knowledge of this area is gained from Mythbusters, you are sadly behind the curve. I will admit, however, that the fact that I have to call out a specific class of machines from a specific manufacturer to issue a challenge is a sad statement on the state of affairs of fingerprint anti-spoof technology.
Let me know if you wish to take me up on this offer.
And the worms ate into his brain.
If your fingerprint does anything more than let you answer a call or rear a text message, you're doing it wrong.
Fingerprints are not secure, unless you always wear gloves you're leaving the key to unlock your phone on the phone itself.
"Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
1 finger unlocks the phone, other 9 wipe it.
Also... Back in my teenage days I once got SOOOO drunk my pals thought it would be fun to test if I had any sensation left - by putting a lighter under my left index finger.
Permanently altered that fingerprint due to scar tissue.
I'm pretty sure there are various other ways one could alter one's fingerprints rather easily and quickly.
Causing those 1 to 9 odds to suddenly look a lot more like 100%.
Look like being the operative word.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Neo: "You give me my phone, and I give you the finger." Agent Smith: "What good is a phone, when you cannot sp-wait, actually, that'll be just fine, Neo."
Welcome to contempt of court. Enjoy your indefinite stay in jail until the judge lets you out.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
I don't know where you are, nor have hands-on access. MythBusters reprised the 2002 paper: Feel free to repeat the experiment, yourself, with a scanner, a printer, and a permanent marker to print the expanded scan, correct broken lines with a fine marker, then reduce the scan. And yes, I've done this about 3 years ago, at a data center with a laser printed paper fingerprint, moistened, on my own fingerprint. I'm not sure which model it was, but it was a useful proof of concept. The claims of "this is a 3D scanner and therefore cannot be fooled" seem to be complete nonsense.
And that's why Apple disables the fingerprint reader - after 3 unsuccessful attempts to use the fingerprint reader, 48 hours of no fingerprint, or on a power up.
And people think Apple's method is "asinine" for requiring a passcode. The only reason Apple has a fingerprint reader was to make phones more secure by having more people actually USE a passcode. Because passcodes are a pain when you're having to enter them in 1000 times a day, so a good majority of users don't do that. The fingerprint reader lets you have a passcode but not have to go through the hassle of entering it thousands of times a day.
So the next step will be to have distress fingers, i.e. if I use my left thumb, the phone will lock up and I need to enter my code, TouchID will not work by itself anymore.
Problem solved. Apple, you listening? Wait, you don't have to. Any expert in security knows about canaries and distress signals, so you're probably working on it already, right?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
The problem with biometrics are they are fixed. So once they are stolen, you are screwed. Duplicating a fingerprint is easy. Iris scans are probably simple enough to defeat given the right equipment. Even some future DNA scan could be defeated, in theory. Keep in mind, no matter what form of security is used, it has to be digitized in some way. That is a crack in security.
-- Will program for bandwidth
(Yes, this is a serious, non-sarcastic post.)
Yikes, that scenario had never occurred to me. I just turned TouchID off on all my devices. Entering my (>4 character) passcode isn't really that hard.
This sort of story is why I like Slashdot. This was interesting and useful. Thanks to the submitter and the editor.
"Don't blame the log for the fire." --Andrew Ratshin
I always thought Randall should do a followup to this XKCD comic with "hold him down and swipe his finger on his phone to unlock it."
Fingerprints are not passwords. If you use them that way, you're an idiot.
At best, fingerprints are shortcuts for your USERNAME. You can use them in systems like that - school library and dining hall systems are perfect, you're not interested in "security", you're just interested in determining the correct child to a certain degree of accuracy quickly.
Your password should still be something that only you know.
People using fingerprints for passwords are deliberately making their machines less secure.
The US Government wants to force people of interest to use their fingerprints to unlock phones
FTFY. Fixed the stupid capitalisation too.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
(IANAL. Either) The courts had indicated in a dissent that they may oppose forcing someone to turn over the combination to a safe. They set no precedent, and made no ruling to uphold that statement. Furthermore, the court is different now.
So, then wouldn't Apple's software signing key be technically obtainable through a warrant? Clearly it would, but I don't think you'd find a judge willing to sacrifice the security of everyone with an iPhone for any cause. Despite the hysteria that they are all corrupt despots.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
I thought that TouchID could be bypassed by a fake finger with a fingerprint printed on it. (Source: YouTube) Making someone unlock a phone with their own finger seems like an unnecessary step.
Calvin:Do you believe in the devil? Hobbes:I'm not sure man needs the help.
Printing with raised ink (or laser-compatible goldleaf type material) and folding it into a curve would defeat slightly more sophisticated hardware.
Having read that twice, I'm not sure what you're asking.
The police can probably hang on to Tina's phone indefinitely, sure. They could physically compel Tina's fingerprint at the time of the raid, but I really doubt that could get Tina convicted. However, they can probably determine that it's Tina's phone, and I don't know what happens then. Even if you know the PIN, you can't be compelled to reveal or use it, since that could be self-incrimination. (Revealing the contents of the phone is not considered self-incrimination. Revealing that you can access it is potentially self-incrimination.)
So the police have an iPhone in the evidence room that they can't read. This can't be unusual.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Matsumoto's paper has been on my hard drive for five years now. You seem to be under the mistaken impression that "all fingerprint sensors are the same".
I've built fingerprint spoofs from gelatin, graphite coated gelatin, wood glue, laser printers, silicone rubber, etc. I've collected latent prints for this work, as well as cooperative prints ("Is it OK if I pour this liquid silicone over your finger to collect your print?") I've done statistically significant measurements of the likelihood of success of breaking into systems with those spoofs. I can truthfully say that I know a great deal more about this than you.
I've given a specific set of hardware, and a specific incentive, for you to back up your claims. Note that I don't claim that ALL fingerprint sensors are difficult to break into - I could give you a list of the easiest ones. In that regard, you are correct. However, there are some manufacturers (of both fingerprint sensors and laptops) who do care about security, and shouldn't be painted with the same sloppy brush.
And the worms ate into his brain.
A four-digit PIN is pretty good security if the attacker can try only ten combinations before the key is wiped. Even if that option isn't enabled on an iPhone, the lockout delay will make it difficult to brute-force it in any reasonable time. (If I were actually using my iPhone for illicit purposes, I'd have a six-digit PIN and the wipe option enabled.)
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Tell that to this guy https://nakedsecurity.sophos.c...
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
I wondered if they could just use her fingerprint without her even being present.
Good thing iPhones aren't up to using retinal scanners yet. Then again, an eye for an eye, I guess...
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Good thing we don't use our fingers to hold the phone. Hold it, we do. As a starting point: https://srlabs.de/spoofing-fin...
It's almost as bad as leaving the combo for the gun safe lock next on the gun safe.
I leave mine inside it!
A Fingerprint should never ever be used for passwords, along with every other biometric. You should only use biometrics for the login identity, not the password. Biometrics are far too easy to lift or duplicate.
There's no law which prevents them from seeing things they aren't looking for. Yeah, your phone may contain nudie pics. Your house may also contain nudie pics. That doesn't mean police can't get a warrant to search a house, or that such a warrant would be improper, given probable cause.
Any of the items you mentioned which may be on a phone may also be in a house or a car. With a warrant, properly obtained, authorities can rightfully search a house, car, or phone.
In the US there are limits that LEOs must abide by. The case in point made by the gp revolves around looking inside desk drawers when searching for a stolen TV. Anything in plain sight is fair game. Anything found in a place that could reasonably be expected to possibly hold the item being searched for is fair game. Everything else is off limits. It's not reasonable to expect that someone hid a 32" TV in a 3"x12"x12" desk drawer. If the drawer were open and the bag of weed was plainly visible then it becomes fair game. If the LEO smells marijuana he could request a new warrant to search for marijuana, then the closed drawer of the desk would be fair game because it could reasonably be expected to contain a stash of weed.
This limit should also extend to your phone. If they are searching your phone for communications to confirm that you spoke with someone, then the warrant should be restricted to the call logs on the phone. If pictures are within a password protected application, then a warrant for call logs would not give LEOs the right to demand that you unlock that application. Unfortunately all of this would require that the judges granting the warrants understand the technology and understand when LEOs were being overly broad with their warrant request. The judge could then require the LEO to limit the "places to be searched" on the phone to just the relevant sections. Defense attorneys will have to successfully challenge the warrant in court as being overly broad and get evidence excluded though before anyone will tighten up the warrant requests.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
You mean an eye for an i.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
> This limit should also extend to your phone. If they are searching your phone for communications to confirm that you spoke with someone, then the warrant should be restricted to the call logs on the phone
And perhaps a search of communications (again based on good probable cause, with a proper warrant) would also include text messages, Snapchat, Facebook, etc I suppose? It's interesting because unlike a TV, which can't fit in a drawer (though the remote can), communications can fit in many applications.
This is why the advice is: If you think you're about to get arrested, shut your phone off. With an iPhone, upon first boot, it requires the passcode; the fingerprints won't work. The latest precedent that I know of (late 2015) is that you can be compelled to provide your fingerprints, but not your passwords.
Simple solution: use your pinky finger as your unlock finger. By the time the authorities figure out that your index finger isn't working, you will have exceeded the iPhone try limit, and be forced back to using the passcode.
And point out what you found makes one scanner superior to the other?
This is a gross violation of the 4th Amendment right to be secure in our papers and effects. Worse our computational devices are more intimate and part of us that mere paper could ever be. As they become ever more extensions of our brain forcing access may fairly be compared to directly wiring your brain to testify against you. Enough with these petty tyrants!