Fingerprints

AI Can Now Fake Fingerprints That Fool Biometric ID Scanners

Artificial Intelligence researchers used a neural network to create fake fingerprints that could be a hacker’s dream tool. Five researchers, led by Philip Bontrager of the New York University engineering school, developed what they have called “DeepMasterPrints.” The Guardian reported that the research was presented at a biometrics conference in Los Angeles in October. As…

Privacy & Security Jennings Brown Nov 15

Wendy’s Faces Class Action Lawsuit Over Collection of Staff Fingerprint Data

Fast-food chain Wendy’s is facing down a lawsuit in Illinois over its use of fingerprint scanners to track employees at work in retail locations, according to court documents obtained by ZDNet. The complaint, a class action filed by former Wendy’s employees Martinique Owens and Amelia Garcia, argues that Wendy’s use of Discovery NCR Corporation fingerprint…

Privacy & Security Tom McKay Sep 23

Fingerprint Analysis Could Finally Get Scientific, Thanks to a New Tool

There wasn’t anything particularly unusual about the court-martial at the Fort Huachuca military base in Arizona at the end of February. But when the analyst from the Department of Defense forensic laboratory presented a report on fingerprint evidence, it included an element that had never been used with fingerprint evidence in a courtroom in the…

Tech News Nicole Wetsman May 15

MasterCard Wants to Turn Your Thumbprint Into a PIN Number [UPDATED]

On Thursday, MasterCard announced a “next generation biometric card” which embeds fingerprint recognition into debit cards. That may not be good news. The card requires customers to place their thumb on an embedded chip while it’s placed in card readers. Customers will still have to enter their PIN, but the transaction won’t be approved unless…

Tech News Sidney Fussell Apr 20

Your Computer Might Become an Expert Lip Reader to Keep Your Data Safe

Despite being the most common way to protect computers and sensitive data, passwords are a terrible security solution. So scientists at Hong Kong Baptist University are teaching computers to read a user’s lips as a far more secure method of biometric security. Choosing a password that’s both unique enough to be secure and simple enough…

Privacy & Security Andrew Liszewski Mar 14

Timelapse Footage of Sweating Fingerprints Ready to Smear Your Smartphone

Thousands of nearly invisible sweat pores live amongst the spiraling ridges on your fingertips. They only reveal themselves if you’re patient enough to wait for them to start working. Luckily, the good folks of YouTube’s Timelapse Vision Inc. channel were kind enough to create footage of sweating fingerprints that look like a car crash: you…

Sploid Andrew Liszewski Feb 23

Twitter and Facebook Randomly Crack Down on Terrorist Videos After EU Warning

Monday, Twitter announced it would come together with Facebook, Microsoft and YouTube to stop terrorist content online by creating a shared database of “‘hashes’ — unique digital ‘fingerprints’ — for violent terrorist imagery or terrorist recruitment videos or images that we have removed from our services.” This announcement comes on the heels of a warning…

Tech News Eve Peyser Dec 5

Feds Claim They Can Enter a House and Demand Fingerprints to Unlock Everyone’s Phones

Under the Fourth Amendment, Americans are protected from unreasonable searches and seizures, but according to one group of federal prosecutors, just being in the wrong house at the wrong time is cause enough to make every single person inside provide their fingerprints and unlock their phones. Back in 2014, a Virginia Circuit Court ruled that while…

Privacy & Security Hudson Hongo Oct 16

Ultra-Thin Dongles Make It Easy To Add Biometric Security To Your Old Laptop

Using your fingerprint to verify your identity is not only more secure than a password, there’s also no complex string of characters for you to forget or repeatedly mistype. But if you’re also determined to use your ancient laptop until the day it dies, Synaptics’ will soon have an easy and unobtrusive way to upgrade…

Privacy & Security Andrew Liszewski Jun 6

Scientists Can Now Establish Your Gender From a Fingerprint

Fingerprints may be unique, but without an existing record they can’t help identify a person. Now, though, researchers can use chemical analysis of the prints to identify the gender of whoever left them behind. A team of researchers from the University at Albany has developed a technique which uses the chemical composition of a fingerprint…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe Nov 27

In 1948, the First Mass Fingerprinting Operation Snagged a Horrific Child Killer

It was an unbelievably monstrous crime: a three-year-old who was in the hospital recovering from pneumonia was snatched from her bed in the middle of the night, sexually assaulted, and murdered. It appeared the girl had been held by her legs and swung skull-first into a wall until she died. Who could have done such…

Tech News Cheryl Eddy Oct 20

Hackers Stole 5.6 Million Sets of Federal Employee Fingerprints

The Office of Personnel Management hack keeps getting worse. We already know over 21.5 million federal employees had their personal information hijacked from the OPM’s servers. And now the government agency admits that 5.6 million federal employees had their fingerprints stolen. Wired confirmed that OPM’s tally for compromised fingerprints is a lot higher than previously…

Privacy & Security Kate Knibbs Sep 23

3D Fingerprint Scans May Be the Ultimate Security Tool

Compared to a password that’s either too simple to be effective, or too hard to remember, a fingerprint is a great security tool. But they’re not infallible, in fact, they can be easily replicated with just a photo. So researchers are taking fingerprint security one step further and scanning them in three dimensions. The idea…

Privacy & Security Andrew Liszewski Jul 1

The Bloody Thumb Print That Changed The World Of Crime-Solving Forever

Fingerprints were used for identification in ancient China and Babylonia to mark business deals and correspondence. Though they were studied extensively since then, their value as a crime-solving tool wasn’t embraced until the 1880s — and it wasn’t until 1892, in Argentina, that they nailed their first murderer. A horrible crime scene greeted local investigators…

Tech News Cheryl Eddy May 14

This Shade Of Purple Can Ruin Your Life

This is Ruhemann’s purple, and you can probably figure out, from the picture, the legal reasons it will ruin your life. Now let’s talk about the chemistry behind that. It’s easy to see a fingerprint on the side of a glass of water, or in blood on a wall. But what if a killer is…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell May 8

New Software Turns Nearly Any Touchscreen Into A Biometric Scanner

In an effort to fix our broke-ass password system, manufacturers are looking to the world of biometrics, sticking fingerprint scanners into everything from photocopiers to, um, school buses. Now, a team of Yahoo researchers might’ve come up with a way to extend biometric recognition to anything with a touchscreen. https://gizmodo.com/the-tech-that-will-kill-passwords-dead-1660746026 To identify the ridges and…

Privacy & Security Chris Mills Apr 24

Qualcomm’s New Fingerprint Recognition Could Be Better Than Touch ID

With the launch of the iPhone 5S, Apple set a high bar for finger print recognition with TouchID. Until now Android phones have failed to compete—but now Qualcomm is launching a fingerprint sensor that could change that. At the Mobile World Congress, Qualcomm has announced a new finger print reader—called Sense ID—that uses ultrasound to…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe Mar 2

Hackers Reproduce A German Politician’s Fingerprint From Photos

A member of the Chaos Computer Club has shown how you can use photos to reconstruct a person’s fingerprint — and to prove his point, he replicated the thumbprint of the German defense minister, Ursula von der Leyen. For years, security experts have been warning about the inadequacies of fingerprint biometrics. It’s a particularly worrying…

io9 George Dvorsky Dec 29

The Tech That Will Kill Passwords Dead

Passwords are broken. Most people pick crappy passwords, and thatinevitably leads to trouble.(We’re looking at you Sony Pictures.) Good passwords are basically impossible to remember. Heck, even the dude who invented passwords thinks they’re a total nightmare. The time to kill the password is overdue, and thankfully there’s some promising technology that will enable us…

Privacy & Security Adam Clark Estes Dec 4

Cops Can Make You Fingerprint-Unlock Your Phone, and That’s Not Okay

A Virginia Circuit Court judge recently said that it was not okay for cops to force suspect’s to unlock their phones with a passcode. (Thanks, the Constitution!) However, the judge also ruled that it was okay for cops to force suspects to unlock their phones with a fingerprint. Wait, what? The case in question is…

Privacy & Security Adam Clark Estes Nov 3

Fingerprints

AI Can Now Fake Fingerprints That Fool Biometric ID Scanners

Wendy’s Faces Class Action Lawsuit Over Collection of Staff Fingerprint Data

Fingerprint Analysis Could Finally Get Scientific, Thanks to a New Tool

MasterCard Wants to Turn Your Thumbprint Into a PIN Number [UPDATED]

Your Computer Might Become an Expert Lip Reader to Keep Your Data Safe

Timelapse Footage of Sweating Fingerprints Ready to Smear Your Smartphone

Twitter and Facebook Randomly Crack Down on Terrorist Videos After EU Warning

Feds Claim They Can Enter a House and Demand Fingerprints to Unlock Everyone’s Phones

Ultra-Thin Dongles Make It Easy To Add Biometric Security To Your Old Laptop

Scientists Can Now Establish Your Gender From a Fingerprint

In 1948, the First Mass Fingerprinting Operation Snagged a Horrific Child Killer

Hackers Stole 5.6 Million Sets of Federal Employee Fingerprints

3D Fingerprint Scans May Be the Ultimate Security Tool

The Bloody Thumb Print That Changed The World Of Crime-Solving Forever

This Shade Of Purple Can Ruin Your Life

New Software Turns Nearly Any Touchscreen Into A Biometric Scanner

Qualcomm’s New Fingerprint Recognition Could Be Better Than Touch ID

Hackers Reproduce A German Politician’s Fingerprint From Photos

The Tech That Will Kill Passwords Dead

Cops Can Make You Fingerprint-Unlock Your Phone, and That’s Not Okay

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