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Smartphones can be fooled by fake, digitally composed fingerprints

nytimes.com

1–10 of 114 posts

Re: Smartphones can be fooled by fake, digitally composed fingerprints

#2
This is the IEEE paper referenced in the article:

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7893784/?reload=true

PDF version:

http://www.cse.msu.edu/~rossarun/pubs/RoyMemonRossMasterPrin...

Abstract:

This paper investigates the security of partial fingerprint-based authentication systems, especially when mul- tiple fingerprints of a user are enrolled. A number of con- sumer electronic devices, such as smartphones, are beginning to incorporate fingerprint sensors for user authentication. The sensors embedded in these devices are generally small and the resulting images are, therefore, limited in size. To compensate for the limited size, these devices often acquire multiple partial impressions of a single finger during enrollment to ensure that at least one of them will successfully match

Re: Smartphones can be fooled by fake, digitally composed fingerprints

#3
There's no reason to cite a Google-translated version of this article when a suitable, well-explained English article exists in the New York Times: https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/04/10/technology/fingerprint...

As the article notes, you really need more than one imprint in order to get into a phone - the authors suggest that five distinct imprints could get into about 40-50% of phones, which fits within the 5 try limit imposed by many systems.

Re: Smartphones can be fooled by fake, digitally composed fingerprints

#4
post #2

This is the IEEE paper referenced in the article: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7893784/?reload=true PDF version: http://www.cse.msu.edu/~rossarun/pubs/RoyMemonRossMasterPrin... Abstract: This paper investigates the security of partial fingerprint-based authentication systems, especially when mul- tiple fingerprints of a user are enrolled. A number of con- sumer electronic devices, such as smartphones, are begi…

I skimmed the paper but I don't see which iPhone they were able to unlock with this method. Do you know if the resolution of the fingerprint scanner differs between iPhone models?

Re: Smartphones can be fooled by fake, digitally composed fingerprints

#6

Totally not relevant, but holy cow Google Translate is getting good. I swear I've read articles in plain English that were less comprehensible than this translated on, by a mile.

I didn't look closely at the link or url and didn't realize that I was reading Google Translate until I saw your comment. That's scary good translation.

Re: Smartphones can be fooled by fake, digitally composed fingerprints

#7
Honestly, I've never cared about the fingerprint reader for security. I just see it as a better way to prevent my phone from turning on in my pocket and butt-dialing someone.

I never put a password on my phone before the fingerprint reader. The apps that I care about protecting have password functionality built-in.

Re: Smartphones can be fooled by fake, digitally composed fingerprints

#8

Totally not relevant, but holy cow Google Translate is getting good. I swear I've read articles in plain English that were less comprehensible than this translated on, by a mile.

Does this have to do with German being such a structured language? Just a guess here, but it may explain things a bit.

Re: Smartphones can be fooled by fake, digitally composed fingerprints

#9

Totally not relevant, but holy cow Google Translate is getting good. I swear I've read articles in plain English that were less comprehensible than this translated on, by a mile.

True but isn't the job a lot easier because it's going from German to English, which are closely related? I don't want to take away from Google's achievement but wanted to point that out to set expectations.

Re: Smartphones can be fooled by fake, digitally composed fingerprints

#10
post #9

Totally not relevant, but holy cow Google Translate is getting good. I swear I've read articles in plain English that were less comprehensible than this translated on, by a mile.

True but isn't the job a lot easier because it's going from German to English, which are closely related? I don't want to take away from Google's achievement but wanted to point that out to set expectations.

Yes. Chinese to English is still awful.
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