Galaxy Note 7 Iris Scanner Explained (androidauthority.com)

An anonymous reader writes from a report via Android Authority: The Galaxy Note 7 was just announced and one of the most intriguing features is its iris scanner. Android Authority has a report explaining how it works: "According to the company, the device stores your registered iris information as an encrypted code safely in its hardware using its KNOX security platform. Whenever you want to access content, such as a protected app, the device first captures your iris pattern for recognition, extracts and digitizes it, and then proceeds to match it with the encrypted code to provide access. You can be sure that no one else apart from you can access your device in case it is stolen or lost because the Note 7 registers the iris information of only one person. Samsung has made all this possible by including a dedicated iris camera for recognizing the composition of the user's eyeballs. The dedicated iris camera uses a special image filter to receive and recognize the reflected images of the irises through an infrared light on the other end of that panel. The light emitted from the Galaxy Note 7's display allows the scanner to receive data even in low light environments." The iris scanner can be used to access private information via Samsung's Secure Folder feature. Samsung also plans to partner with major financial institutions to incorporate its iris scanner into mobile banking applications.

Comments

sunglasses, contacts, allergies oh my!

[turkeydance]

wink wink

Re:sunglasses, contacts, allergies oh my!

[AchilleTalon]

Just in case you haven't notice, this isn't the iris scan that is stored on the phone and used. The iris scan is used as input for a one-way encryption function. Just like any password encryption function except you don't have to remember a password here. Sending the encrypted result useless by itself unless someone wants to use it to crack another site using your iris scan with the very same encryption function and seed.

Re:sunglasses, contacts, allergies oh my!

[macs4all]

wink wink

That was exactly my thought, since I have worn glasses since the third grade.

I would hate to have to raise my glasses everytime I wanted to unlock my phone. Conversely, my fingers are almost always uncovered.

I think I saw that movie

[ChunderDownunder]

Evil villain lances President Trump's left eye using a barbecue fork then detonates nuclear arsenal using iris scan.

Re:I think I saw that movie

[Anonymous Coward]

I know you're joking, but iris scanners don't work with dead eyes, since the pupil dilates and the iris gets much smaller. Retina scanners still work with eyeballs on barbecue forks, not iris scanners.

I learned this from a friend who worked at an iris scanning company, so take it for what it's worth.

Re:I think I saw that movie

[MancunianMaskMan]

I saw this other movie... some undesirable character is arrested and government agencies use force to hold his eye open to unlock his phone... thereby saving themselves the trouble of suing the phone manufacturer to back-door the phone. "A Smartphone Orange" I think it was called.

Re:I think I saw that movie

[cdrudge]

I have a friend that works at a barbecue fork company and he said that their forks work reliably well for both iris and retina scans, as well as those tasty cocktail sausages and meatballs in bbq sauce.

Take that for what it's worth.

Do not stare into iris scanner

[Anonymous Coward]

With remaining eye.

password fallback?

[DrYak]

Don't worry, you'll probably be able to fall back to using your secure password.

You know, the thing that look like base64-encodednoise from /dev/random... that you've completely forgotten about because you've always used the iris function right up until the bd conjunctivitis that started this morning.

Or the long password which is basically just two words followed by a number and even a "!" For good measure (hey, they asked to use a special). You know it's a good one because the 3 websites where you use it showed you a green bar in their security meter.
(What you don't know, is that 2 of these website got their DB hacked, they only used salted SHA-1 (hey, but it's salted) and your password is among the 75% of the million hash leak that got bruteforced within the first 2 days, because it's such a common pattern)

Re:password fallback?

[AmiMoJo]

Just write your password down and keep it at home somewhere. If someone steals your phone, even the cops, they won't have that password. If you are really paranoid you can destroy it later.

Or keep it in your password manager.

Re:password fallback?

[jon3k]

This hit way to close to home.

Re:No Sharing Allowed

[beanpoppa]

You do realize, just like the fingerprint scanner, you don't HAVE to use the iris scanner.

Really?

[basecastula]

No, thank you.

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

As opposed to you who fucks actual sheep?

Too slow

[GrahamJ]

I don't think this will last because it's slower than a good fingerprint scanner.

Contrary to the reviews I'm seeing it's a winner

[BlueCoder]

I still wish it had a 7500 battery but I'll take it. It at least has an SD card slot. I still will wait 6 months for the price drop. But it beats the 4 finally.

Re:Can't wait...

[justcauseisjustthat]

Samsung's copying others now, Microsoft put it in the Lumia 950/XL almost a year ago, and ZTE's Grand S3 had about 18 months ago.

too much noise

[brasselv]

the article reads like a barely disguised, PR buzzword filled press release:

"the device first captures your iris pattern for recognition, extracts and digitizes it, and then proceeds to match it with the encrypted code to provide access."

maybe the technology is interesting, but i wouldn't wager on it based on anything with this level of buzznoise-to-content ratio.

Does it pass the Simon Phoenix test?

[sethstorm]

That is, does it require a live eyeball that has not been forcibly removed from its socket?

Re:Does it pass the Simon Phoenix test?

[Dorianny]

That is, does it require a live eyeball that has not been forcibly removed from its socket?

"Research has shown that post-mortem eyes can be used for biometric identification for hours or days after death, despite the decay that occurs"

Although I suspect that if you are missing an eye or just plain dead, your phones security is probably the last of your worries

Re:Does it pass the Simon Phoenix test?

[Lost Race]

The key here is that if a disembodied eyeball or corpse can be used, it creates an incentive to kill or mutilate someone with sufficiently important info on their phone. So even while that person is alive and well, this phone adds to their worries.

Even if you don't use the feature, an attacker might assume you do. Even if your phone doesn't have the feature, an attacker might try it anyway. Thanks, Samsung (et al).

Re:Does it pass the Simon Phoenix test?

[Righ]

Also, now we need to carry organ transplant boxes full of eyes and hands every time we nick a phone with intent to fence it for cash for bad scag. Thanks Samsung and Apple.

Photo of iris?

[goombah99]

So how does a photo of an iris not defeat this? Selfies!

Re:Photo of iris?

[Overzeetop]

If it's a capture in the IR, then a selfie - or any common photograph - may not contain all the information necessary to verify the user. Just as Intel's Hello feature is not fooled by photos of the user.

Re:Contrary to the reviews I'm seeing it's a winne

[Overzeetop]

I can't believe that Zerolemon won't have a battery case that will last several days within a month or two of release. Replaceable batteries are nice, but portable chargers are getting more common and more compact, and with those you don't have to completely shut the phone down and reboot to swap in a new battery. That's one of the things LG definitely got wrong with their G5 battery - a 20mAh internal cell to allow "hot-swapping" would have been a killer feature.

Re:No Sharing Allowed

[crow]

With the fingerprint scanner, you can add multiple fingerprints. This can be useful for reading the same finger in a different orientation, recording fingerprints from both thumbs, or letting multiple people unlock the same phone. There's no technical reason that they couldn't do the same with the iris scanner.

In my case, I like to let my wife unlock my phone so that she can handle it if someone texts me while I'm driving (or other similar situations). I'm sure lots of other people have legitimate reasons for wanting to have multiple people easily unlock the same phone.

Re:No Sharing Allowed

[Zontar The Mindless]

Back in the day, everyone who didn't live alone shared their phones with their families.

Used to be, a phone number meant a home or office. Now it means someone's ass pocket.

Perfect! Now you'll volunteer your iris scan

[Tyr07]

Screw having to try and pass a law that requires people to scan their eyes and have them documented, we'll just include them on phones and people will use them as a cool feature!

I'm sure in their terms of use they're allowed to store your retina scan, but promise not to do even with it, even though nothing legally stops them.

Re:Perfect! Now you'll volunteer your iris scan

[macs4all]

Screw having to try and pass a law that requires people to scan their eyes and have them documented, we'll just include them on phones and people will use them as a cool feature!

I'm sure in their terms of use they're allowed to store your retina scan, but promise not to do even with it, even though nothing legally stops them.

Exactly.

Remember, this is the same company that thought it was a great idea to have your TV spy on your household 24/7 JUST like in "1984", then send all that data to the Ministry of Truth (a/k/a Samsung).

Introducing Semen and Vaginal Fluid Unlock

[BrendaEM]

New Brief: New technology developments from FoneLock allows uses to unlock their phones with their body fluids. For the first time you can use a very personal way of securing your cellphone. Note: fluid test results may be uploaded and shared with our advertising partners on unpatched insecure servers and notebook computers left at drinking establishments.

Re:No Sharing Allowed

[Angeret]

Considering how dry beanpoppa's response was, you sound like you wrote your comment after sitting on a nest of fire ants. He was right - you don't have to use the scanner (or the fingerprint reader, or pattern lock, etc) and you could use the fallback of a password anyway. The comment he replied to didn't come across as a joke in any way so you losing it complaining about someone else losing it was not your smartest move.

No more drunk dialing my ex

[houghi]

As my eyes will be all red, I won't drunk dial my ex.

(It is a joke, I don't have an ex. They are all still with me. In my basement.)

Re:No Sharing Allowed

[AchilleTalon]

These days are gone. Quit the nostalgia and embrace the brave new world. All alone together!

Re:No Sharing Allowed

[edtice1559]

Your wife could unlock it with a passcode. But please don't have her hold it in front of your eye while you are driving!

Compelling...

[Stumbling Sober]

Just like with fingerprint readers, you can be compelled by authorities to provide this in order to unlock your device. Whereas a password, that can be forgotten, is not subject to the same rules.

Re:Can't wait...

[macs4all]

until Apple invents this technology and releases the first smartphone with an iris scanner in 2018

If you are referring to a company copying another's invention, I think that Samsung already won the "prize" for that...

Re:Spoon with a sharpened front edge...

[macs4all]

You need to cleanly scoop around the eyeball,

Making sure that you don't get the eyeball and the brain mixed up.

Who cares? I'm sure the person with a spoon-removed eye would rather be dead anyway.

Re:No Sharing Allowed

[macs4all]

So instead of having a shared family phone, we'd have to buy one for every member. Great for Samsung, but bad for me, so then bad for Samsung.

I thought that was a pretty stupid move, too.

Re:Reminds me of buying the latests game box for t

[macs4all]

So my galaxy 7 doesn't have the iris scanner. So Now I must take it out on the driveway and stomp on it and go spend another 650 enslave myself to another 2 year contract so I can have the Iris scanner. March on Consumer Bot to the land of planned obsolescence. I don't think I'll drink the kool-aid anymore.

Remember, this is the company that created over FIFTY "new" phone models in ONE YEAR, FFS!!!

So, just wait another few microseconds, and it will be superceded with an even more newer-est model...

Re:No Sharing Allowed

[jrumney]

Or you set your car's Bluetooth as a trusted device, so your phone stays unlocked in the car.

Well...

[DrYak]

Just write your password down and keep it at home somewhere.

Which is 100% guaranteed to be the exact place you'll be when the allergy kicks-in (doktor's tip: usually most of the seasonal allergies happen outdoor. There are very few allergen that vary seasonally found indoor) or any of the other problems that can render your iris suddenly unusable.

Or keep it in your password manager.

I just hope for you that yours isn't *in* said protected smartphone (though it's a good choice: it's something that you carry around)
But on your laptop. Or securely synced over the cloud to most of your computers.

If someone steals your phone, even the cops, they won't have that password.

No, but both can already have a copy of your iris.

For thieves, it's simply called "a not too blurry photo of your face"
(Common, who are you kidding? Most cheap fingerprint readers can be defeated simply by scotch tape. And the protection added against such exploit can simply be circumvented by heating the scotch tape.
Do you really think that mass produced Iris scanner - a.k.a. the cheapest infrared camera they can get their hand on - is going to be *that* good ? propably heating a bit a blck-and-white hires laser print of somebody's iris is all it's going to take...)

For cops, its holding "your eyes forcibly open while holding your phone in front of your face".
(Hey, you didn't answer any question, you didn't even communicate : it's not violating your fifth amendment any more that taking your fingerprints / your DNA sample is)