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Feds Walk into a Building and Demand Everyone's Fingerprints to Open Phones

forbes.com

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Re: Feds Walk into a Building and Demand Everyone's Fingerprints to Open Phones

#111

Post by r00fus »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #101
yardie wrote: post #10

This is why my unlock is not tied to biometrics. Once I realized the government can compel you to unlock your phone without a warrant using your fingerprint it became a much less compelling feature. The same for facial recognition.

They don't even need to compel you. They get your fingerprint in the booking process and then they can reuse it however they please.

Does that really work on iPhones? Plus, if they ever get my phone, I'd do my best to ensure it's powered down (needs password to unlock from boot).

Re: Feds Walk into a Building and Demand Everyone's Fingerprints to Open Phones

#112

Post by morganvachon »

munin wrote: post #110
morganvachon wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easy: Your contact list. You may not care who sees your list, but the people on your contact list would probably be upset if their private email address, cellphone number, chat name, home address and other personal data were exposed to the general public. Ditto any conversation you had with them via text; you may not care who sees the conversation, but your partner/friend/boss may object to having their privately tex…

Do you ever find it ironic that you are trying to combat totalitarian fear-mongering with an argument that in part is literally "think of the children?"

It was just an example; besides, sometimes "think of the children" is the correct stance. If that is your only counter to my point, then I feel safe in my position. :-)

Re: Feds Walk into a Building and Demand Everyone's Fingerprints to Open Phones

#113

Post by nickpsecurity »

M_Grey wrote: post #106
nickpsecurity wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" you're stripping away the air of respectability, law, and order." Counterexample popped in my head was parents with a belt asking for iPhone unlocked. Still has respectability, law, and order in most places. I wonder if there are other counterexamples.

If you need to belt your kid to get access to their device, you've already gone well past the fail-state of parenting.

I've met some real hellions that I couldn't quite attribute to the seemingly-good parents. Your statement is probably true 90+% of the time, though.

Re: Feds Walk into a Building and Demand Everyone's Fingerprints to Open Phones

#115

Post by kordless »

roel_v wrote: post #70
yardie wrote: post #10

This is why my unlock is not tied to biometrics. Once I realized the government can compel you to unlock your phone without a warrant using your fingerprint it became a much less compelling feature. The same for facial recognition.

From a glance at your profile, you hardly seem to be a person a government would be interested in (maybe you're a drug king pin in your off hours, don't tell me if you are). What is your threat profile? If you loose your phone and some kid racks up a few hundreds $ in whatever one can buy through a phone nowadays, is that threat worth less to you than the convenience of fingerprint phone locking? Why would you give u…

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Benjamin Franklin

Re: Feds Walk into a Building and Demand Everyone's Fingerprints to Open Phones

#116

Post by hiram112 »

eternalban wrote: post #61
lisper wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's what happens when large numbers of people decide they care about safety and security more than they care about freedom. That doesn't necessarily make it any better, but to attribute this outcome to mindlessness is to badly miss the point. The first step to solving a problem is to understand what the problem actually is .

Let's put this in its political context. We are citizens of a constitutional republic . A republic, as far as I understand it, implies that a (thoughtful, responsible, .., elected) minority is afforded the delegated power to legislate, judge, and administer. The 'actual problem' seems to be in the selection/delegation process. The minority that is currently in charge has framed the question as that of "safety and sec…

We were supposed to be nation of 'Jeffersons', or at least educated people with skin in the game. Only educated and land owning males were allowed the vote.

I'm sure part of the reason non land owners, slaves, women, etc. were not allowed to vote was in order to keep a certain group in power, but there have been many writers who correctly predicted what happens when everyone is allowed to vote:

"A democracy can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury."

The fact that you have something like 1/2 the citizens working and subsidizing the other half, along with our 24 hour news cycle that cannot be trusted anymore than Pravda at its worst, and I think we will probably look back and realize allowing everyone a vote is a bad idea, or no better than a monarchy or some other rule by a select few.

Not that I have a better idea, though

Re: Feds Walk into a Building and Demand Everyone's Fingerprints to Open Phones

#117

Post by boulos »

Kudos wrote: post #55

If my device has been powered off, it can't be unlocked with a fingerprint. For me that's enough of a trade-off to take the risk.

I was going to say the same thing, but then the article says:

> For that reason, the warrant authorizes the seizure of ‘passwords, encryption keys, and other access devices that may be necessary to access the device,’” the document read.

So the "power off the device, now it's a password" seems to be something they were prepared for. The article is unclear as to whether or not this was granted, but if so it'd be seemingly unprecedented.

Re: Feds Walk into a Building and Demand Everyone's Fingerprints to Open Phones

#118

Post by boulos »

A bunch of people mentioned turning off the device, to require a pin or password. The article though explicitly seems to claim the warrant included anything imaginable to unlock a device:

> For that reason, the warrant authorizes the seizure of ‘passwords, encryption keys, and other access devices that may be necessary to access the device,’” the document read.

Re: Feds Walk into a Building and Demand Everyone's Fingerprints to Open Phones

#119

Post by raihansaputra »

dlp211 wrote: post #86
stryk wrote: post #85

This is one reason I've always wanted to have two separate authentication credentials for one user. Unfortunately, I've yet to find an acceptable or easy way to implement that on any device that would need it (your phone, your laptop, any device which you want to keep stuff private). For example: have one authentication method that unlocks the device to the typical desktop environment, command line, or whatever -- ju…

Truecrypt had something like this for PC's. The project shut down though.

Veracrypt (the most popular fork of Truecrypt) has this ability too. And some Truecrypt user still trust Truecrypt after the latest audit found no signals of backdoors.

Re: Feds Walk into a Building and Demand Everyone's Fingerprints to Open Phones

#120

Post by tzs »

hiram112 wrote: post #116
eternalban wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's put this in its political context. We are citizens of a constitutional republic . A republic, as far as I understand it, implies that a (thoughtful, responsible, .., elected) minority is afforded the delegated power to legislate, judge, and administer. The 'actual problem' seems to be in the selection/delegation process. The minority that is currently in charge has framed the question as that of "safety and sec…

We were supposed to be nation of 'Jeffersons', or at least educated people with skin in the game. Only educated and land owning males were allowed the vote. I'm sure part of the reason non land owners, slaves, women, etc. were not allowed to vote was in order to keep a certain group in power, but there have been many writers who correctly predicted what happens when everyone is allowed to vote: "A democracy can only…

> We were supposed to be nation of 'Jeffersons', or at least educated people with skin in the game. Only educated and land owning males were allowed the vote.

What states include being educated as an input to their voter eligibility determination?

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