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The 9th Circuit determined that forcibly mashing a suspect's thumb into his phone to unlock it was akin to fingerprinting him at the police station. JOE LANCASTER | 4.19.2024 12:50 PM As we keep more and more personal data on our phones, iPhone and Android devices now have some of the most advanced encryption technology in existence to keep that information safe from prying eyes. The easiest way around that, of course, is for someone to gain access to your phone. This week, a federal court decided that police officers can make you unlock your phone, even by physically forcing...

Fortress Safe has recalled 61,000 biometric gun safes which use fingerprint technology to unlock after a child managed to open one and kill himself. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and Fortress ordered the withdrawal of the safes from the market because the biometric reader on the lock can be opened by unauthorized users. It is unclear how or why the glitch has occurred. In their recall, the government agency said they are aware of a lawsuit against Fortress alleging a 12-year-old died after obtaining a firearm from one of these safes and shot himself. Further details on the...

The world’s first “smart gun” hit the market Thursday, complete with a life-saving fingerprint unlocking system that prevents “unauthorized” people such as kids and criminals from firing it. The cutting-edge 9mm handgun locks out everybody except the owner and users specifically approved by the owner — technology that could improve gun safety in America, according to reps from the gun-making firm Biofire. “Right now it seems like the entire country is always processing a new tragedy involving children and guns,” the Colorado-based firm’s CEO Kai Kloepfer told The Post. “We are offering a real solution, at a time when solutions...

Generative adversarial network produces a "universal fingerprint" that will unlock many smartphones Researchers at NYU and U Michigan have published a paper explaining how they used a pair of machine-learning systems to develop a "universal fingerprint" that can fool the lowest-security fingerprint sensors 76% of the time (it is less effective against higher-security sensors). The researchers used "generative adversarial networks" (GAN) to develop their attack: this technique uses a pair of machine learning systems, a "generator" which tries to fool a "discriminator," to produce a kind of dialectical back-and-forth in that creates fakes that are harder and harder to...

Burdened by guilt over her knowledge surrounding the case, Marla Cooper came forward earlier this year, claiming she had a 40-year-old family secret protecting her uncle, a man named Lynn Doyle Cooper. Marla Cooper said she was eight years old when her uncle, whom she called LD Cooper, came to her home, badly injured, for Thanksgiving in 1971 - the day after the infamous incident. He claimed his injuries were the result of a car crash. Later, she said, her parents came to believe that L.D. Cooper was the hijacker. Mrs Cooper never saw her uncle again after that day...

The National Institute of Informatics (NII) in Japan claims that taking and publishing photos of subjects who are flashing the popular two-fingered 'V' or peace sign could lead to identify theft. It warns that fingerprint recognition technology is now so advanced that even casual snapshots can be used to retrieve fingerprint information. The report also says the technology is widely available and easy to use.

One of the main lines of evidence used by the Obama administration to justify its global warming regulations doesn’t exist in the real world, according to a new report by climate researchers. Researchers analyzed temperature observations from satellites, weather balloons, weather stations and buoys and found the so-called “tropical hotspot” relied upon by the EPA to declare carbon dioxide a pollutant “simply does not exist in the real world.” They found that once El Ninos are taken into account, “there is no ‘record setting’ warming to be concerned about.” “These analysis results would appear to leave very, very little doubt...

WASHINGTON Climate science has progressed so much that experts can accurately detect global warming’s fingerprints on certain extreme weather events, such as a heat wave, according to a high-level scientific advisory panel.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela will begin installing some 20,000 fingerprint scanners at supermarkets nationwide in a bid to stamp out hoarding and panic buying, which the government blames for long lines and widespread shortages of basic goods. ... On Saturday, President Nicolas Maduro said that seven large private retail chains had voluntarily agreed to install the scanners. "I ask for the the comprehension of all of Venezuela, to understand this problem, because there is a lot of manipulation taking place," Maduro said at the inauguration of a state-run supermarket. Economists say the effort is bound to fail. They blame...

The 1,800 or so criminals who have killed, robbed or assaulted innocent people with guns in the District of Columbia so far this year were hauled into the police station to be fingerprinted, photographed and to undergo a criminal-background check. Now, legal gun owners who have committed no crime are getting the exact same treatment. That is neither constitutional, nor fair. The latest gun-control scheme that starts on Jan. 1 will force every legal firearm owner in the nation’s capital to go in person to police headquarters to renew their registration certificates. The Metropolitan Police Department filed proposed rules last...

But the most significant news to come out of the event is a new security feature on the iPhone 5S called Touch ID, which is an app that allows users to use their fingerprint to access information in their phone. The new function is essentially a fingerprint identity sensor in the home button on the phone that enables users to unlock their device. However, it can also be used as a substitute for passwords when making purchases, including in Apple's iTunes Store. "Your fingerprint is one of the best passwords in the world. It's always with you," said Dan Riccio,...

Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s latest crime-fighting idea had a lot of people riled up on Friday. The mayor wants to fingerprint more than 600,000 people who live in public housing. He said it would be done to make the projects safer. Bloomberg was responding to questions about Federal Judge Shira Schendlin’s ruling on the stop-and-frisk program when the topic shifted to security and the New York City Housing Authority. Bloomberg said there has to be a way to make the projects safer. “Five percent of our population lives in NYCHA housing, 20 percent of the crime is in NYCHA housing –...

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Latino community and immigrant outreach groups plan to rally at the Georgia Democratic Party headquarters in Atlanta to protest a program that gives immigration authorities access to the fingerprints of arrestees. The rally in Atlanta is one of several set for Tuesday at Democratic Party offices around the country. The groups are calling on President Barack Obama to end the Secure Communities program. Opponents of the program say it lands immigrants arrested for investigation of minor violations in detention and erodes their trust in police. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement program is being used in 44 states and nationwide...

Applicant Fingerprint processing delay notice: TXDPS has been notified by the FBI that all Fingerprint based background checks will be temporarily suspended beginning April 28, 2010 - May 3, 2010. The FBI Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) will be working with the U.S. Census Bureau to process more than 484,000 Fingerprints for Census Bureau workers. Beginning May 4, 2010, TXDPS and the FBI will resume processing applicant fingerprints. It is important to note that the backlog of processing the fingerprint based background checks could take an additional two weeks. All applications will processed as quickly as possible once the FBI...

A Chinese national who is believed to have manipulated her fingerprints to slip past Japan's fingerprint identification system has been arrested for violating the Immigration Control Law, the Metropolitan Police Department's Organized Crime Control Bureau announced on Monday.

A portrait of a young woman thought to be created by a 19th century German artist and sold two years ago for about $19,000 is now being attributed by art experts to Leonardo da Vinci and valued at more than $150 million. The unsigned chalk, ink and pencil drawing, known as "La Bella Principessa," was matched to Leonardo via a technique more suited to a crime lab than an art studio — a fingerprint and palm print found on the 13 1/2-inch-by-10-inch work. Peter Paul Biro, a Montreal-based forensic art expert, said the print of an index or middle finger...

Art Market Fingerprint points to $19,000 portrait being revalued as £100m work by Leonardo da Vinci 12 October 2009   ATG correspondent SIMON HEWITT gains exclusive access to the evidence used to unveil what the world’s leading scholars say is the the first major Leonardo Da Vinci find for 100 years.   New scientific techniques have uncovered evidence that this picture is a previously unrecognised work by Leonardo da Vinci.  Is this 13 x 9in (33 x 24cm) portrait, in chalk, pen and ink on vellum, mounted on an oak board, a long-lost work by Leonardo da Vinci? That...

OMAHA (KPTM) - A new city ordinance is on the books, requiring second hand gun shops to fingerprint anyone selling a gun. Omaha police say it will help cut violence, by taking illegal weapons off the street. For decades, people selling anything at Mid-City Jewelry and Loan have had to put their finger in ink. It's a city requirement that takes less than five minutes. "We do that on anything that we loan on, whether it's a gun, or a diamond or a TV or a stereo or tools. That's just our process. Always has been," said Don Hoberman, the...

BAGHDAD –– Seven Iraqi investigators completed the Latent Fingerprint Analysis Course at the High Institute of the Baghdad Police College, July 29, in preparation for work in crime scene investigation (CSI). The students demonstrated their newly acquired skills to international media present for the graduation ceremony. Students were interviewed about their work in the course and how it has prepared them for future work in CSI. Overwhelming enthusiasm was the order of the day as the students showed their skills in lifting fingerprints off of various types of items, like paper bags, aluminum cans, cotton shirts and pieces of glass....