Bad Science: Biometric security is weak.
Saturday, 24 November 2007 08:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dahttp://www.badscience.net/2007/11/make-your-own-id/
Biometric fingerprint data's not as secure as you might hope. Not only can it be foiled by a gelatin cast of your finger, or even a digital photo of your fingerprint turned into a geletin cast of your finger, but apparently the numeric conversion of your finger's data, stored in the biometric database, or on your ID card, or what have you, can be translated back into your fingerprint according to a paper by mathematicians at MSU. Check that link for details- and a MythBusters episode where they make a gelatin fingerprint and go around foiling locks with it.
(As it happens, my cousin Simon is a sociologist who writes about the unreliability of forensic fingerprinting. It's a neat topic!)
Thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rhythmaning for pointing to the article and reminding me about Ben Goldacre's blog / Guardian column, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif)
bad_science. I used to read his column, back before RSS feeds. :)
Speaking of awful security, I can't imagine how angry I would be if my data (or my children's) were on those lost CDs in the UK post. Angry and scared, most likely.
Indeed, I wonder who's stupid enough to send around unencrypted CDs by the non-registerd postal service here in North America.
Biometric fingerprint data's not as secure as you might hope. Not only can it be foiled by a gelatin cast of your finger, or even a digital photo of your fingerprint turned into a geletin cast of your finger, but apparently the numeric conversion of your finger's data, stored in the biometric database, or on your ID card, or what have you, can be translated back into your fingerprint according to a paper by mathematicians at MSU. Check that link for details- and a MythBusters episode where they make a gelatin fingerprint and go around foiling locks with it.
(As it happens, my cousin Simon is a sociologist who writes about the unreliability of forensic fingerprinting. It's a neat topic!)
Thanks to
rhythmaning for pointing to the article and reminding me about Ben Goldacre's blog / Guardian column, bad_science. I used to read his column, back before RSS feeds. :)Speaking of awful security, I can't imagine how angry I would be if my data (or my children's) were on those lost CDs in the UK post. Angry and scared, most likely.
Indeed, I wonder who's stupid enough to send around unencrypted CDs by the non-registerd postal service here in North America.
