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'I Tried the First Phone With An In-Display Fingerprint Sensor' (theverge.com)
Vlad Savov from The Verge reports of his experience using the first smartphone with a fingerprint scanner built into the display: After an entire year of speculation about whether Apple or Samsung might integrate the fingerprint sensor under the display of their flagship phones, it is actually China's Vivo that has gotten there first. At CES 2018, I got to grips with the first smartphone to have this futuristic tech built in, and I was left a little bewildered by the experience. The mechanics of setting up your fingerprint on the phone and then using it to unlock the device and do things like authenticate payments are the same as with a traditional fingerprint sensor. The only difference I experienced was that the Vivo handset was slower -- both to learn the contours of my fingerprint and to unlock once I put my thumb on the on-screen fingerprint prompt -- but not so much as to be problematic. Basically, every other fingerprint sensor these days is ridiculously fast and accurate, so with this being newer tech, its slight lag feels more palpable. Vivo is using a Synaptics optical sensor called Clear ID that works by peering through the gaps between the pixels in an OLED display (LCDs wouldn't work because of their need for a backlight) and scanning your uniquely patterned epidermis. The sensor is already in mass production and should be incorporated in several flagship devices later this year.
What a boring article.
Is it reliable? Does it recognize my fingerprint every time and every other fingerprint none of the time?
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Aren't optical scanners rather easy to fool? Some earlier scanners were vulnerable to a "replay attack" that was simply breathing on the scanner after someone else had used it. The iPhone scanner uses capacitance: not unhackable though it is a quite bit harder. I can imagine it's hard to integrate such a scanner in the screen though; apparently Apple gave up on that.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
This comes right on the heels of the news that China is 'encouraging' private entities to share their surveillance with the government to build a massive biometric database and tracking system, and that India's biometric database got hacked. , !
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-china-facial-recognition-surveillance-20180107-story.html
https://qz.com/1174285/aadhaar-indias-biometric-id-project-putting-the-identities-and-personal-data-of-millions-at-risk/
Honestly, why is a fingerprint scanner built into the display better than one on the back? On my phone, the scanner is high up in the center of the back, right where my index finger goes naturally when I grab the phone. This makes one-handed operation smooth and easy.
Seems to me a scanner on the front is just an ergonomically inferior gimmick. Perhaps some enlightened soul can cure my ignorance...
--- Often in error; never in doubt!
When are we going to see bio-metrics treated as ID, not auth? Until then, the fact that my phone has a sensor is useless to me.
-- The morphemes of your disquisition are ascertainable, but they have eschewed an ambit of transpicuous exposition.
...Where a cellphone-unlocking fingerprint sensor can be called "traditional."
...the tech Apple eventually decided to not use? What a bunch of lusers. Sad!
Now that it's shown to be possible to scan a fingerprint without an obvious fingerprint scanning area, be ready for the fingerprint wars. Any touchscreen anywhere, from a gas station pump to an ATM to a plain glass door, could be outfitted with a collection device to gather all our greasy fingertip data. And with the courts assuming that you have no expectation of privacy with third party data, everywhere is open season for state actors.
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If this becomes the norm to where you can't buy one without it, I'll start selling finger anonymizers... otherwise known as fingertip condoms. Because I don't want my fucking finger print in your database or in any device that I'm not root and have full control of.
Digital is, by definition, imperfect. Analog is the way to go.
Something else they cant lay claim to being the 1st to do, but you bet your ass they'll find some way to spin it.
The thing is this sensor isn't even made by Vivo, it is made by Synaptics. And it isn't part of the display, it sits under it and peers though the gaps between pixels in the OLED panel. Likely apple could have had it in their own product if they weren't so bullheaded in figuring out how to do it themselves. There are reasons companies specialize in human input devices, video chips, CPUs. Apple want's to be the jack of all trades, but we all know what that means, they'll likely be the master of none, or very few.
But a 3rd tier company did. (BBK electronics...Oppo, OnePlus, Vivo). You can bet if Apple comes up with one at a later date, it will be applauded as "stellar" and "cutting edge". I think they have so much invested in that silly look at the phone thingy, they won't ever do it though.
For a long time I used face recog on my S8+. It was neat. But there are reasons why the security settings suggest turning it off in order to enhance security. If someone wants to access the data on your phone, all they need is the phone and the user - being held under duress? - or a really good picture. Likewise with the finger print scanner you can physically force someone to unlock their phone even if they don't want to, or use a lifted fingerprint. I never tried the photo bypass, but I was able to lift a fingerprint and artificially apply it to unlock the device.
Although it took an awkward situation to turn off facial recognition. Long story short, I had left the Youtube app open, paused the video, and locked the phone. Facial recognition on the S8+ is lighting fast. Without my intending to the phone saw enough of my face at an angle I am still surprised worked and unlocked in a room full of people - much to my surprise. The volume was turned up all the way and the paused video auto played. The people in the room were SJW, the channel was Andy Warski. I am lucky I wasn't skinned alive.
iPhone, blah blah. Problems with that also, too long don't want to write.
Back to using a PIN only, the best security feature I could ask for would create a condition on the screen where only someone looking directly at it can see it.
Do I have anything that super secret on my phone to hide? No, if I had anything so sensitive it would not be on my phone at all regardless of measures including encryption. But that is not the point. Is using a PIN perfect? Of course not, but neither is locking the door to your house.
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I wanted the video and it looks interesting.... however, I would bet a broken screen = a bricked phone.
it applies only if THE attorney general approves, and the person is believed to be outside of the US.
Sound like a great way to quietly build a biometric database.
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So you lock your phone for security right?
1. Phone lost and data is safe from strangers
2. Phone stolen and expectation that data fairly safe
A pin solves both but a fingerprint scanner means I only need to be knocked out and my phone is open with a quick tap of my unconscious fingers.
Needless to say I'll stick with a pin thx
Apple did have prototypes with behind the glass fingerprint readers. But they realized how much better FaceID would be, and they threw everything they had into making it work...
That was the right choice. TouchID is an archaic technology now, a relic of the old times.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
And how reliable is it if I use a potato peeler to remove your fingertips? Can I use those flesh slices get in to your phone?
You can leave that peeler at home sir! Since this fingerprint scanner is entirely optical, it should be very easy to fool with a lifted fingerprint reprinted onto anything.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Give this guy a medal.
Vivo is using a Synaptics optical sensor called Clear ID that works by peering through the gaps between the pixels in an OLED display
1984. Exactly.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
the date the first slashdot article appears about person who has their finger cut off in the traditional science fiction style.
Biometric authentication uses authentication credentials that are almost public and cannot be revoked. The challenge for the attacker is only to reproduce them, and once done, the system needs to be replaced, since there is no "password change".