Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Smartphones can be fooled by fake, digitally composed fingerprints

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 114 posts

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

#61

Post by huxley »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #52
djrogers wrote: post #21

I shouldn't be surprised, but the reporting on this makes it sound way different than the actual research. Specifically, none of the research appears to have been performed on, or tested against ACTUAL SMARTPHONE implementations - for example: "Experiments on a capacitive fingerprint dataset, similar to the one used by Apple TouchID, showed that it is possible to break 6.88% of users’ account in 5 attempts if the FMR…

>I shouldn't be surprised, but the reporting on this makes it sound way different than the actual research. Specifically, none of the research appears to have been performed on, or tested against ACTUAL SMARTPHONE implementations That is exactly what the article says. Specifically: The researchers did not test their approach with real phones, and other security experts said the match rate would be significantly lower…

While the article does say that ... eventually, the headline and the first two and a half paragraphs undermine your point.

Since most people won't actually read and digest the full article, but instead go by the headline "That Fingerprint Sensor on Your Phone Is Not as Safe as You Think" and read the first paragraph or so, none of the caveats matter much, people will walk away with the impression that this is a verified fact.

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

#62

Post by jamiesonbecker »

Nearly all biometrics, except for physically invasive ones, are easily stolen.

All are forgeable.

Biometrics can never be revoked once compromised.

They're like the social security number of logins. Completely useless.

Using biometrics for security or identity violates practically every rule for secure credentials. They exchange convenience for extremely minimal security.

Perhaps the oft-cited username, not a password?

No, not even useful for that: for a mobile phone, a username isn't even needed in most cases because there's usually only one user on the device. It lends no additional security -- merely an extra step.

For a phone, a fingerprint is probably less secure than a swipe pattern.

It's security theater. Why do we keep equating biometrics with security?

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

#63

Post by crystaln »

There are all sorts of reasons fingerprints are not a highly secure authentication mechanism. Just as there are all sorts of reasons passwords and other techniques are imperfect. Password entry can be observed. Chosen passwords are frequently insecure, particularly on smartphones where brevity is so important.

Fingerprints are an excellent mechanism for almost all threat vectors for your average consumer smartphone. Your friends, enemies, and criminals would have to go through enormous, expensive, and clearly unethical efforts to access your phone. Given the convenience and security of this, I'm entirely happy with the security of my thumbprint-encrypted iPhone.

It's important for people who are dissidents or engaging in criminal activity to be aware that their brain is more secure than their fingerprint, although that seems entirely obvious to anyone capable of maintaining a high security lifestyle.

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

#64

Post by djrogers »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #52
djrogers wrote: post #21

I shouldn't be surprised, but the reporting on this makes it sound way different than the actual research. Specifically, none of the research appears to have been performed on, or tested against ACTUAL SMARTPHONE implementations - for example: "Experiments on a capacitive fingerprint dataset, similar to the one used by Apple TouchID, showed that it is possible to break 6.88% of users’ account in 5 attempts if the FMR…

>I shouldn't be surprised, but the reporting on this makes it sound way different than the actual research. Specifically, none of the research appears to have been performed on, or tested against ACTUAL SMARTPHONE implementations That is exactly what the article says. Specifically: The researchers did not test their approach with real phones, and other security experts said the match rate would be significantly lower…

The article currently linked here is not the same one originally linked. It was changed after I made my post.

That said, the headline still explicitly calls out smartphones.

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

#65

Post by bobbles »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #52
djrogers wrote: post #21

I shouldn't be surprised, but the reporting on this makes it sound way different than the actual research. Specifically, none of the research appears to have been performed on, or tested against ACTUAL SMARTPHONE implementations - for example: "Experiments on a capacitive fingerprint dataset, similar to the one used by Apple TouchID, showed that it is possible to break 6.88% of users’ account in 5 attempts if the FMR…

>I shouldn't be surprised, but the reporting on this makes it sound way different than the actual research. Specifically, none of the research appears to have been performed on, or tested against ACTUAL SMARTPHONE implementations That is exactly what the article says. Specifically: The researchers did not test their approach with real phones, and other security experts said the match rate would be significantly lower…

Maybe because the headline is: That Fingerprint Sensor on Your Phone Is Not as Safe as You Think

when in fact, probably they are

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

#66

Post by WatchDog »

jamiesonbecker wrote: post #62

Nearly all biometrics, except for physically invasive ones, are easily stolen . All are forgeable. Biometrics can never be revoked once compromised. They're like the social security number of logins. Completely useless. Using biometrics for security or identity violates practically every rule for secure credentials. They exchange convenience for extremely minimal security. Perhaps the oft-cited username, not a passwo…

For most people biometrics offer a better security posture than some of the alternatives. The average user is at much greater risk of someone watching them enter a PIN/Password than having them capture and forge their biometrics.

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

#68

Post by jameshart »

mistercow wrote: post #49
crazygringo wrote: post #20

> "Dr. Memon said their findings indicated that if you could somehow create a magic glove with a MasterPrint on each finger, you could get into 40 to 50 percent of iPhones within the five tries allowed before the phone demands the numeric password, known as a personal identification number." I don't understand how this is possible at all. I've always assumed that each fingerprint is essentially turned into a hash, an…

> it correctly identified me (flashing my name) from the other 1,000+ members each time That tells you very little. Figuring out which print you're closest too is different from figuring if you match any of the prints on file. How well it does one doesn't really tell you how well it does the other. Also 1,000 isn't very many. That only requires the same entropy as a 3-digit PIN.

If everybody was issued a unique PIN, sure, but if the PINs are picked at random you need a much larger pool of numbers to make 1000 unique values likely.

If 1000 people chose a three digit PIN completely at random, the odds of any one person's choice being unique are about 36% ((999/1000)^999) - i.e., about 360 people will get a unique number, the rest will share theirs with at least one other person. In fact, it's almost certain (about 99.9%) that one of the 1000 possible PINs will be picked by five people (see https://math.stackexchange.com/a/25878). That formula estimates that there's even a 75% chance that your group of 1000 people contains one group of six who all picked the same PIN.

If you go up to five digits, for a pool of 100,000 possible PINs, then the odds that one of a thousand random PINs is unique go up to 99%, so you likely only have 10 or so people who share a PIN. Six digits, you get to 99.9%, which means about half the time 2 people have a PIN collision.

So no, capturing enough uniqueness from a fingerprint (given that you don't get to allocate the fingerprints, they get chosen for you at random) to reliably pick out one person from 1000 requires at least as much entropy as a six digit PIN - probably more.

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

#69

Post by fosk »

libeclipse wrote: post #67

> But I’d rather see Apple make me enter the PIN if it’s idle for one hour. Does this ever really happen though? It's rare for my phone to sit there for more than 15 minutes without me messing with it.

You are missing the point. It's not for you to re-enter the PIN every once in a while, it's to prevent a potential attacker with physical access to your phone to unlock it, exactly when the phone itself it's not phisically with you (and so you have nothing to mess with).

Anyways it would only mitigate the risk without fixing the root problem.

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

#70

Post by derefr »

r00fus wrote: post #55
DINKDINK wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It seems that using commercial fingerprint software and captive systems 'similar to the one used by Apple TouchID' is very different from actually testing your theories against, you know, Apple TouchID. In theory, there's no difference between theory in practice; In practice, there is. ;] OTOH, Here is a supposed example of an attacker circumventing TouchID iPhone-access controls: "The video shows in detail how CCC…

That hack uses lab conditions. They have a clear wine glass with a high resolution scanner. More real-life conditions (smeared print, non-glass surface) would be interesting to reproduce. My guess is that it ups the ante significantly for cost of hacking.

In "real life"—unless there was some absolute urgency to the problem—you wouldn't try to reconstruct a smudged partial print; you'd just use social engineering/espionage tactics to get a good print.

(Remember that iOS locks and/or wipes devices after 10 failed attempts. You want to go to however much effort is required to be perfect the first time.)

I can think of a number of situations one could create where a person would have no incredulity about actually inking their fingers and carefully applying fingerprints to a piece of paper. Committed adversaries aren't scared of crimes like "impersonating a police officer", remember.

Post reply on HN