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Child uses sleeping mom's thumbprint to buy $250 worth of Pokémon toys

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Re: Child uses sleeping mom's thumbprint to buy $250 worth of Pokémon toys

#3
post #2

"used her mother's thumb to unlock a phone and open the Amazon app as mom napped on the couch" Or she made it up.....

The mom?

I have a small child that's been coming up to me with my phone and trying to nonchalantly guide my finger to unlock it since she was 4. She's never done it in my sleep (that I know of), but I don't for a second doubt she'd be able to do it if she was motivated to.

Re: Child uses sleeping mom's thumbprint to buy $250 worth of Pokémon toys

#5
post #2

"used her mother's thumb to unlock a phone and open the Amazon app as mom napped on the couch" Or she made it up.....

This is one of those stories where even if it is partially or entirely fabricated, the probability of something like it happening somewhere is nearly 100%. The odd thing about the story may be that this is the one that happened to get to the news, given how many times such things have probably happened.

(Similarly for the DailyWTF stories that people often claim can't be real. Well, even if the story you're looking at is made up, it's still happened a dozen times in the last week. Count yourself lucky that you can react in disbelief to these sorts of stories.)

Re: Child uses sleeping mom's thumbprint to buy $250 worth of Pokémon toys

#6
post #4

So is the 21st century version of stealing cash from your mom's purse?

Yup. In my opinion, this isn't a problem that needs solving. I bet with thumbprint security, money is more secure from house hooligans than it was when held in a wallet.

Re: Child uses sleeping mom's thumbprint to buy $250 worth of Pokémon toys

#8
post #2

"used her mother's thumb to unlock a phone and open the Amazon app as mom napped on the couch" Or she made it up.....

This is the problem with "news" stories like this... and why I hate them. We would have no way of knowing if this happened or not. It's plausible, but plausible isn't the same as "it happened". One could say at best its value is as a cautionary tale to other parents, but I'm willing to bet that if you're a parent you've probably seen the potential for this sort of thing develop in your child already... of course that's speculation, too :-)

(As an aside... who the hell decided that autoplay video/audio was legit?! Yeah, I'm an old guy... and once upon a time that sort of thing was avoided... but really.)

Re: Child uses sleeping mom's thumbprint to buy $250 worth of Pokémon toys

#9
post #3
post #2

"used her mother's thumb to unlock a phone and open the Amazon app as mom napped on the couch" Or she made it up.....

The mom? I have a small child that's been coming up to me with my phone and trying to nonchalantly guide my finger to unlock it since she was 4. She's never done it in my sleep (that I know of), but I don't for a second doubt she'd be able to do it if she was motivated to.

As an upcoming parent, these are the things that scare me. Where my kids start exhibiting what look disturbingly like addictive behaviours. Is this just how kids naturally are, or are screens just so compelling?

I remember loving the TV as a kid but recall that somehow, magically, my parents kept me off it outside TV hours without use of a password. I need to figure out that secret before its too late!

Re: Child uses sleeping mom's thumbprint to buy $250 worth of Pokémon toys

#10

I get relatively annoyed about the facile pedantry of this argument, but this is exactly the poster case for it, so here goes: fingerprints are usernames, not passwords.

Huh, I've actually never looked at them from that perspective, but it makes total sense.
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