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

Apple’s Fingerprint ID May Mean You Can’t ‘Take the Fifth’

wired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 141 posts

Re: Apple’s Fingerprint ID May Mean You Can’t ‘Take the Fifth’

#101

Post by sjwright »

marvin wrote: post #81
nodata wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since the phone is covered in the password anyway, it would be interesting to see if it stands up to a gummi bear attack: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/05/16/gummi_bears_defeat_f...

Have we seen this fingerprint reader yet? IBM/Lenovo ThinkPads use a reader that's just a tiny strip, so you actually have to swipe your finger instead of just planting it on the reader. This at the very least defends against simple attacks. But I mean, a fingerprint is a physical thing which can be cloned, just like a key. And you also leave prints everywhere you go. It's not a silver bullet in authentication. All e…

Anyone who wants to go to that amount of trouble will find brute-forcing 10,000 possible pin codes to be just as easy.

Re: Apple’s Fingerprint ID May Mean You Can’t ‘Take the Fifth’

#102

Post by stavrianos »

My understanding was that the right against self-incrimination was largely meant as a patch, to prevent suspects being tortured into confessing by devaluing their confessions. If that's the point, I don't see any reason for a court not to compel a harmless, painless fingerprint swipe.

Re: Apple’s Fingerprint ID May Mean You Can’t ‘Take the Fifth’

#103

Post by anigbrowl »

coldtea wrote: post #57
crazygringo wrote: post #37

The way everyone's talking, you'd think Apple was taking away the four-digit PIN! But they're not... The fingerprint ID is just another option , which you don't have to use . So titles like this are just incorrect. Fingerprint ID isn't taking away any of your rights, because you can still use the PIN just like you always have . I mean seriously, what the heck is going on here? Why on earth are people getting worked u…

> The way everyone's talking, you'd think Apple was taking away the four-digit PIN! But they're not... The fingerprint ID is just another option, which you don't have to use. That's never how it works. Today it's "just another option", a few years down the line it's mandatory. And "not having to use" does not equal "people will not use it unless they are fully aware of possible consequences" anyway.

Today it's "just another option", a few years down the line it's mandatory.

Bullshit.

Re: Apple’s Fingerprint ID May Mean You Can’t ‘Take the Fifth’

#104

Post by anigbrowl »

coldtea wrote: post #88
crazygringo wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a few years down the line it's mandatory That's just FUD. And saying baseless things like "that's never how it works", that's just fearmongering, not contributing to the conversation. It doesn't even make sense. There are millions (hundreds of thousands? you get my point) of fingerprint readers out there. Suddenly Apple builds one in, an additional feature , and people start inventing conspiracy theories. People ar…

> That's just FUD. And saying baseless things like "that's never how it works", that's just fearmongering, not contributing to the conversation. It doesn't even make sense. It makes perfect sense -- you just need to follow the historical precedents, instead of looking for some inevitable logical reason why that would happen. Technologies introduced with the potential to control and restrict people (or users) have alw…

Technologies introduced with the potential to control and restrict people (or users) have always expanded their scope and reach.

Yes, that's why you can't get on the internet except through AOL any more.

Walled garden software was few and far between all through 1980-2010.

What nonsense.

Re: Apple’s Fingerprint ID May Mean You Can’t ‘Take the Fifth’

#105

Post by jonknee »

sjwright wrote: post #101
marvin wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have we seen this fingerprint reader yet? IBM/Lenovo ThinkPads use a reader that's just a tiny strip, so you actually have to swipe your finger instead of just planting it on the reader. This at the very least defends against simple attacks. But I mean, a fingerprint is a physical thing which can be cloned, just like a key. And you also leave prints everywhere you go. It's not a silver bullet in authentication. All e…

Anyone who wants to go to that amount of trouble will find brute-forcing 10,000 possible pin codes to be just as easy.

Not when the data erases after a low number of misses.

Re: Apple’s Fingerprint ID May Mean You Can’t ‘Take the Fifth’

#106

Post by minor_nitwit »

crazygringo wrote: post #37

The way everyone's talking, you'd think Apple was taking away the four-digit PIN! But they're not... The fingerprint ID is just another option , which you don't have to use . So titles like this are just incorrect. Fingerprint ID isn't taking away any of your rights, because you can still use the PIN just like you always have . I mean seriously, what the heck is going on here? Why on earth are people getting worked u…

I've commented on how it's less safe - blah blah blah. But I think you're right. This is no bigger deal than the face unlock option in Android, which is coincidentally also very insecure. The difference is, in the case of Android, nobody inflated the security implications, it was simply a neat trick to open your phone, that smart people won't use.

Re: Apple’s Fingerprint ID May Mean You Can’t ‘Take the Fifth’

#107

Post by some_guy_there »

ihsw wrote: post #64
rayiner wrote: post #48

This article actually gets the law right, as it stands today. I'm not sure if it's super relevant information, but it's correct. The 5th amendment says: "No person... shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself..." Witness is a legal term of art, which refers to someone who gives oral testimony recounting their own experiences. Handing over a key or touching a button is not testamentary an…

Not quite. > When a person has a valid privilege against self-incrimination, nobody — not even a judge — can force the witness to give that information to the government. The Fifth Amendment explicitly outlines that you cannot successfully "plead the fifth" in response to a grand jury compelling you to testify.

No it does not, and the right against self-incrimination also holds when you are called for testimony under grand jury. See for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Hubbell.

Perhaps you are confusing the first and the second clause of fifth amendment?

Re: Apple’s Fingerprint ID May Mean You Can’t ‘Take the Fifth’

#108

Post by benologist »

DanBC wrote: post #89
crazygringo wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a few years down the line it's mandatory That's just FUD. And saying baseless things like "that's never how it works", that's just fearmongering, not contributing to the conversation. It doesn't even make sense. There are millions (hundreds of thousands? you get my point) of fingerprint readers out there. Suddenly Apple builds one in, an additional feature , and people start inventing conspiracy theories. People ar…

I agree that people are making idiotic claims But did you know how many fingerprints are currently being gathered and kept by US government? Here's a 2008 article. ( http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/03/25/us-security-finger... ) They take a lot of fingerprints, but don't seem to catch many people. > The U.S. government has been collecting digital fingerprints and photographs of nearly all non-citizens aged 14 and…

The reason they don't catch many people is because they're fingerprinting tourists and most likely first time visitors to the US. I'm surprised they caught anyone at all.

Re: Apple’s Fingerprint ID May Mean You Can’t ‘Take the Fifth’

#109

Post by kevinwallace »

jonknee wrote: post #105
sjwright wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone who wants to go to that amount of trouble will find brute-forcing 10,000 possible pin codes to be just as easy.

Not when the data erases after a low number of misses.

The data doesn't erase itself. The phone, in its original state, erases its copy of the data, but that doesn't help if you're operating with (a) a copy of the data, or (b) a modified phone, which is likely given an adversary that doesn't find cracking 10,000 PIN combinations to be a significant hurdle.

In particular, tools automating (b) already exist: http://gizmodo.com/5896992/the-xry-cracking-tool-is-unimpres...

Re: Apple’s Fingerprint ID May Mean You Can’t ‘Take the Fifth’

#110

Post by adamconroy »

gfodor wrote: post #99
adamconroy wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Attacking apple is still dwarfed by drivel praising apple. It also goes with the territory for any successful entity. I have been annoyed by people complaining about Microsoft since the 90s. Close to 2 decades of criticising. Turns out they were right.

The endless criticism of Microsoft over the last 20 years was generally that they're not open source and had anti-competitive practices (ex, the browser wars.) How exactly has Microsoft's comeuppance had anything to do with these aspects? Their fall has been due to their shitty design sense and their inability to see the PC era ending.

The criticism has also been that they were acquiring/copying and bullying their way to dominance, which finally seems to be their downfall in an era where innovation and leading the market is a winning strategy. My comment related to the parent's observation that attacking Apple is in vogue not specifically to the fingerprint tech.

I would suggest that Apple is heading the same way but not literally. They are certainly closed source, about as bad as it gets, they are using their financial and political muscle to bully competitors and suppliers, they are coming back to the field in terms of innovation....

Post reply on HN