Amazon One – Palm recognition for Amazon Go • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon One – Palm recognition for Amazon Go

#31

Post by dustinmoris » Tue, Sep 29, 2020, 11:18 AM UTC

poisonborz wrote: post #22

Coupling un-alienable, (purposefully) unchangeable biological marks to any account is always horrible idea. And not just the privacy part, for one, it can (only) be unwillingly altered (eg. by an accident), the same way as fingerprints, so a secondary backup code is needed anyway, making the whole setup a bad sort of convenience feature. The proper solution would be a safe hardware key mechanism.

That's just not true. By definition all our identities are basically linked to a biometric, namely our face.

If you walk into your bank and want to withdraw a large sum from your account, someone at the counter looks at your face and a shitty small photo taken from you either on their system or on your passport to determine if there is a "face match".

A proper technological solution to the current more insecure human verification process of your biometric is only an improvement, not a horrible idea as you suggest.

Re: Amazon One – Palm recognition for Amazon Go

#32

Post by dustinmoris » Tue, Sep 29, 2020, 11:21 AM UTC

Similar to FinGo (https://fingo.to) and Hitachi VeinID Five (https://digitalsecurity.hitachi.eu/products/veinid-five/).

All these new biometrics share one common theme:

Better privacy for a user. FaceID has the problem that I can't hide it. As soon as I walk somewhere cameras can capture and match my face against their own records, however if I never registered my face ID with Amazon then they will know that I am possibly a recurring customer, but not know who I am. Palm IDs, VeinIDs, etc. are biometrics which I can easily hold back from disclosing. Only when I actively insert or present my finger/hand/palm I allow another device to scan my hand and do a match analysis. This means that I as a user am in better control of when and to whom I want to disclose my identity.

Re: Amazon One – Palm recognition for Amazon Go

#33

Post by brian_herman » Tue, Sep 29, 2020, 11:28 AM UTC

nafizh wrote: post #30

'One reason was that palm recognition is considered more private than some biometric alternatives because you can’t determine a person’s identity by looking at an image of their palm.' Umm, if this is true, how are you identifying the person then?

Yeah, I was confused at this statement too.

Re: Amazon One – Palm recognition for Amazon Go

#34

Post by mmm_grayons » Tue, Sep 29, 2020, 11:45 AM UTC

dustinmoris wrote: post #32

Similar to FinGo ( https://fingo.to ) and Hitachi VeinID Five ( https://digitalsecurity.hitachi.eu/products/veinid-five/ ). All these new biometrics share one common theme: Better privacy for a user. FaceID has the problem that I can't hide it. As soon as I walk somewhere cameras can capture and match my face against their own records, however if I never registered my face ID with Amazon then they will know that I am…

Or we could (radical idea here) not use biometrics. I don't mean to be dismissive, but what advantage does this provide over opening a web site and hitting "pay" or maybe some sort of NFC tap? This looks like biometrics for the sake of being cool and flashy, which is not a trade-off I'm willing to make.

Re: Amazon One – Palm recognition for Amazon Go

#35

Post by n_t » Tue, Sep 29, 2020, 11:45 AM UTC

nafizh wrote: post #30

'One reason was that palm recognition is considered more private than some biometric alternatives because you can’t determine a person’s identity by looking at an image of their palm.' Umm, if this is true, how are you identifying the person then?

I think they are saying that humans cannot associate palm prints to an individual, unlike face (or even eyes in certain cases). It's just security by obscurity kind of thing but yes, not very convincing argument for privacy.

Re: Amazon One – Palm recognition for Amazon Go

#36

Post by BerislavLopac » Tue, Sep 29, 2020, 11:48 AM UTC

nafizh wrote: post #30

'One reason was that palm recognition is considered more private than some biometric alternatives because you can’t determine a person’s identity by looking at an image of their palm.' Umm, if this is true, how are you identifying the person then?

My guess is that they meant that a person couldn't determine someone's identity, unlike with, say, facial recognition.

Re: Amazon One – Palm recognition for Amazon Go

#37

Post by suvelx » Tue, Sep 29, 2020, 11:50 AM UTC

mmm_grayons wrote: post #34

dustinmoris wrote: post #32

Similar to FinGo ( https://fingo.to ) and Hitachi VeinID Five ( https://digitalsecurity.hitachi.eu/products/veinid-five/ ). All these new biometrics share one common theme: Better privacy for a user. FaceID has the problem that I can't hide it. As soon as I walk somewhere cameras can capture and match my face against their own records, however if I never registered my face ID with Amazon then they will know that I am…

Or we could (radical idea here) not use biometrics . I don't mean to be dismissive, but what advantage does this provide over opening a web site and hitting "pay" or maybe some sort of NFC tap? This looks like biometrics for the sake of being cool and flashy, which is not a trade-off I'm willing to make.

The only benefit I can think of, is that biometrics has no way of me loaning my credentials.

If my age verification was tied to my palm, I'd have to cut off my hand to let a teenager buy booze with it.

But I still don't feel this is a compelling argument.

Re: Amazon One – Palm recognition for Amazon Go

#38

Post by BerislavLopac » Tue, Sep 29, 2020, 11:50 AM UTC

poisonborz wrote: post #22

Coupling un-alienable, (purposefully) unchangeable biological marks to any account is always horrible idea. And not just the privacy part, for one, it can (only) be unwillingly altered (eg. by an accident), the same way as fingerprints, so a secondary backup code is needed anyway, making the whole setup a bad sort of convenience feature. The proper solution would be a safe hardware key mechanism.

You don't need an accident. I was on chemo earlier this year, and I had to re-register my fingerprints both on my phone and on my laptop.

Re: Amazon One – Palm recognition for Amazon Go

#39

Post by dustinmoris » Tue, Sep 29, 2020, 11:53 AM UTC

mmm_grayons wrote: post #34

dustinmoris wrote: post #32

Similar to FinGo ( https://fingo.to ) and Hitachi VeinID Five ( https://digitalsecurity.hitachi.eu/products/veinid-five/ ). All these new biometrics share one common theme: Better privacy for a user. FaceID has the problem that I can't hide it. As soon as I walk somewhere cameras can capture and match my face against their own records, however if I never registered my face ID with Amazon then they will know that I am…

Or we could (radical idea here) not use biometrics . I don't mean to be dismissive, but what advantage does this provide over opening a web site and hitting "pay" or maybe some sort of NFC tap? This looks like biometrics for the sake of being cool and flashy, which is not a trade-off I'm willing to make.

Here's an example which something like Amazon One can solve, but a card cannot:

When I go to the grocery shop and I buy alcohol then I have to wait at the self checkout till until a member of staff comes to verify my age before I can pay for my shopping basket. That involves me showing them an ID (e.g. my driving license) and them having to verify my biometric (face) by looking at me and then looking at my driving license. This is time consuming and requires additional staff at self checkout tills, making them less "self checkouty".

On the other hand (or palm should I say :P) I could age verify myself only once at an Amazon One kiosk and then have my legal age linked to my verified palm. Now I can go and buy alcohol and when I present my palm then the checkout till knows that it's me (because unlike a driving license or credit card or phone I can't hand my palm to someone else). It knows that I'm of legal age to buy alcohol and therefore was able to do three things in one go: age verify, pay and reward points all via a single hand gesture. That is a win for the consumer and the shop as they don't need that extra staff anymore and there's less of a human bottle neck, leading to faster checkouts.

Re: Amazon One – Palm recognition for Amazon Go

#40

Post by IshKebab » Tue, Sep 29, 2020, 11:54 AM UTC

nafizh wrote: post #30

'One reason was that palm recognition is considered more private than some biometric alternatives because you can’t determine a person’s identity by looking at an image of their palm.' Umm, if this is true, how are you identifying the person then?

Perhaps using some electrical or acoustic properties? They're very cagey about how it works, so I doubt it is just a camera.

> Q: What is the device actually scanning when it creates my unique palm signature? > > A: the technology evaluates multiple aspects of your palm

Ok then.