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I don't write my own headlines on News.com
A few weeks back, C|Net's News.com asked me to shorten my previous post about the faulty EPIC report for publication on their site. I pretty much rewrote it from scratch to condense the same points into 700 words. They published it yesterday in the "Perspectives" section. There are already some great, substantive comments at the bottom of the story. My flippant answers are forthcoming in place.
The photo at the head of the story is kind of creeping me out. I must have been thinking of pie when it was taken.
May 18, 2005 | Permalink
Comments
Phil, the one thing I'm always concerned about with biometric authentication is the potential for thieves to actually TAKE the body part necessary. I know that's alarmist, but I believe it has already happened, and it just gives people who are able to commit such crimes the motivation. Are there forms of biomentric authentication that would prevent against this possibility? Perhaps something that would require the detection of a pulse while the within the finger in question while it was being scanned?
Posted by: Levi Wallach | May 20, 2005 3:22:28 PM
I believe that most modern fingerprint biometric systems are supposed to stop functioning less than an hour after death or severance of the finger due to deformation of the tissues. This makes cutting off a finger impractical most of the time, since if you have to use it within the hour, you might as well just force the whole person to comply. Still, there are always stories of exactly this sort of thing happening, although many of them sound apocryphal.
I think that there are also biometric systems that, as you suggest, attempt to detect a pulse in the scanned body part. This is usually meant to prevent “fake finger” attacks (you can do a lot with gummy bears) but should also render chopped-off digits unusable.
Posted by: Phil Libin | May 21, 2005 3:04:01 AM
