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Feds Walk into a Building and Demand Everyone's Fingerprints to Open Phones

forbes.com

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Re: Feds Walk into a Building and Demand Everyone's Fingerprints to Open Phones

#121

Post by chias »

sliverstorm wrote: post #50
basch wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yet this law was made for identification purposes, not unlocking safes.

Right, and considering fingerprint's long history as identification, it seems like it would be both impossible & unreasonable to try to split the two uses. Can we really say "You only obtained his fingerprint for the purpose of identifying him, you can't use it to unlock the phone"? And, we can't reasonably try to end the use of fingerprints as ID...

> Can we really say "You only obtained his fingerprint for the purpose of identifying him, you can't use it to unlock the phone"?

That seems to me to be a very reasonable thing to say. It seems to me that we have plenty of mechanism in place to say "you have X, you can use it for Y, and not Z, because using it for Z violates someone's rights". As a super contrived strawman example, if your computer ever gets confiscated by law enforcement, while they may be permitted to search it, they can't just play Fallout 4 or mine bitcoins on it.

Another instance I think is similar in concept: juries are instructed to disregard things (i.e. pretend they don't have a piece of information for the purposes of a trial) all the time, when access to this information would be improper.

Re: Feds Walk into a Building and Demand Everyone's Fingerprints to Open Phones

#122

Post by abgawrv »

carterehsmith wrote: post #92
pm24601 wrote: post #22

And this is why I don't use my fingerprint, passcode only for me.

I am curious. So... how often are you actually in a situation like that? You know, police with a search warrant. Or, do you feel that there is a reasonable possibility that will happen to you?

It does happen by mistake. My apartment was raided by police and I know four others who have been raided too. In two of those cases, the people who were raided had nothing to do with any kind of illegal activity. The other three were drug related, of course.

Re: Feds Walk into a Building and Demand Everyone's Fingerprints to Open Phones

#123

Post by tedunangst »

tzs wrote: post #120
hiram112 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We were supposed to be nation of 'Jeffersons', or at least educated people with skin in the game. Only educated and land owning males were allowed the vote. I'm sure part of the reason non land owners, slaves, women, etc. were not allowed to vote was in order to keep a certain group in power, but there have been many writers who correctly predicted what happens when everyone is allowed to vote: "A democracy can only…

> We were supposed to be nation of 'Jeffersons', or at least educated people with skin in the game. Only educated and land owning males were allowed the vote. What states include being educated as an input to their voter eligibility determination?

The presumption was that being a land owner was correlated with education. If not formal education, then at least an active interest in being informed about current affairs.

Re: Feds Walk into a Building and Demand Everyone's Fingerprints to Open Phones

#124

Post by helthanatos »

c22 wrote: post #27
helthanatos wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good passkeys also should only exist to be checked on the device. Fingerprints can be in databases and on the device itself. Not sure how fingerprint scanners react to replicated fingerprints, but the right people can probably replicate them pretty well. I would only consider a fingerprint a more secure authentication measure because it can't be recorded by cameras.

Finger prints can be (and have been) recorded by cameras.

I meant it's a lot harder to record fingerprints... It's relatively easy for a camera from almost any angle to record touches on the phone (especially with many phone's animations that show the number touched)

Re: Feds Walk into a Building and Demand Everyone's Fingerprints to Open Phones

#125

Post by raphman »

rdtsc wrote: post #96
toomanybeersies wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard fingerprints described as "Authentication, not authorisation", which I think is a better description of the role they play (on the iPhone, at least), and the role they should play. They authenticate who you are, they aren't trivial to fake. However, they shouldn't authorise access to a device on their own. Your fingerprint works as a somewhat more secure, medium term swipe-to-unlock for your phone.

> I heard fingerprints described as "Authentication, not authorisation", I understand once you've authenticated who the user is, authorization is just a mask of what they are allowed to do. It is like saying "after you've given your username (GMail account) to Google, it should allow you to read your email. If you happen to be an administrator for Google Business account you can also see other accounts or settings et…

One could see fingerprint and user/pw as two different roles - with different levels of authorisation.

(Somehow similar to sudo which asks for the user's password the first time but assumes that the logged in user is allowed to execute further sudo commands without pw auth. Even if sudo does not really implement two different user roles here.)

Re: Feds Walk into a Building and Demand Everyone's Fingerprints to Open Phones

#126

Post by raphman »

rdtsc wrote: post #96
toomanybeersies wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard fingerprints described as "Authentication, not authorisation", which I think is a better description of the role they play (on the iPhone, at least), and the role they should play. They authenticate who you are, they aren't trivial to fake. However, they shouldn't authorise access to a device on their own. Your fingerprint works as a somewhat more secure, medium term swipe-to-unlock for your phone.

> I heard fingerprints described as "Authentication, not authorisation", I understand once you've authenticated who the user is, authorization is just a mask of what they are allowed to do. It is like saying "after you've given your username (GMail account) to Google, it should allow you to read your email. If you happen to be an administrator for Google Business account you can also see other accounts or settings et…

[dead]

Re: Feds Walk into a Building and Demand Everyone's Fingerprints to Open Phones

#127

Post by candiodari »

metafunctor wrote: post #60
candiodari wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you travel ? In much if not all of Europe not giving your password, even to a random search when passing through (not entering the country), is a crime. Therefore legal advice is to provide custom agents and other police with access to any device upon request and then.

I call BS. Do you have any sources to back up this claim?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law#Legislation...

Re: Feds Walk into a Building and Demand Everyone's Fingerprints to Open Phones

#128

Post by disposablezero »

Our new startup is an emergency fingerprint-dissolving appliance: nose-plugs and novcaine are premium features, but you can DIY burn the skin of your fingerprint pads off for free with lasers. Next year, we'll also have a slicing add-on product in this category which complements the lasering for extra tinfoil security. We also plan to heavily encourage apps and accessories.

;)

Re: Feds Walk into a Building and Demand Everyone's Fingerprints to Open Phones

#129

Post by Johnny555 »

M_Grey wrote: post #64
tedunangst wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A locked phone is a lot less interesting to a burglar. If the convenience of touch ID means more people lock their phones, that's not an empty promise.

How many people lock their phones against burglary?

how many people lock their phones for any other reason?

I only lock my phone in case it's lost or stolen, I don't lock it to keep the government out of it, since pretty much everything on my phone is available in Google's Cloud services (except for my password protected password manager), which the feds can gain access to with a valid search warrant.

Re: Feds Walk into a Building and Demand Everyone's Fingerprints to Open Phones

#130

Post by teekert »

eternalban wrote: post #3
M_Grey wrote: post #2

Just another reason to forgo the convenience of biometrics in favor of a password/phrase that exists only in your mind. At least for now, that's something you can't be compelled to produce. Really though, this descent into a police state is such a pathetic outcome for this country. Dangerous, scary, and tragic, but also... pathetic. This is what happens when a sizeable majority don't even participate in the electoral…

Reading this from the Forbes article: https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3143273/Mass-Fing... Relevant bits start at page 5 (III - LEGAL DISCUSSION). Compelling a person to provide his or her fingerprint does not implicate, let alone violate, the Fifth Amendment. "[B]oth federal and state courts have usually held that [the Fifth Amendment] offers no protection against compulsion to submit to fingerprinting."…

But my phone is mine, it contains deeply personal things that I put on there without the intention of sharing them. How is forcing me to unlock my phone anything other than forcing me to testifying against myself?

If they could, they would read your mind too.

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