Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article

To: All
I'd like to point out to supporters of this that this will not protect you against identity theft. If anything, it will make identity theft much easier and harder to prove for the victim.

These fingerprint scanners have already been subverted and thus proven to be not nearly the foolproof biometric identifier they are heralded as.

Let us fast forward a few years from now. Fingerprint scanners are just about everywhere and many, if not most people use them because they are just so darned convienient. Now, let's say that Alice and Bob go to a resturaunt. They order and consume a meal, then Bob pays for it using that wonderfully convienient fingerprint system. Alice and Bob leave the resturaunt. While bussing their table, Charlie, their waiter, sets the glass that Bob was using aside.

Later on, he lifts the prints from the glass and takes them home. Once home he uses a kit that has become fairly common amonst criminals like himself to create a little latex copy of Bob's fingerprint that he can wear.

Charlie goes on a spending spree. No alarms go off at the credit card company because all the purchases were digitally "signed" with Bob's "unique" fingerprint. Once the fraud is discovered by Bob he's going to have a heck of a time proving that he didn't make the purchases because of the inherrant trust the system gets by virtue of the fact that "everyone knows fingerprints are unique".

Fingerprint scanners are not a cure-all for the problem of identity theft. As a matter of fact, until people start understanding the weaknesses of such systems, they may be even more dangerous than credit cards because of (incorrect) assumptions people will make of their security.

35 posted on 02/09/2005 12:28:02 PM PST by zeugma (Come to the Dark Side...... We have cookies!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]


To: zeugma

Yeah that's so much easier for Bob than using your carbon from a regular style credit card transaction, God knows there's no chance that due to the sweat on the glass, multiple times of picking up the glass, and whatever shine coating the dishwasher put on the glass to make it look nice there's no chance Bob would be completely unable to get a usable print and it would be so easy for him to figure out which of those prints he got is from the finger you actually use for your biometric identification.

Sorry, while the system isn't perfect it's much better than what we currently have.


37 posted on 02/09/2005 12:33:22 PM PST by discostu (quis custodiet ipsos custodes)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 35 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson