You must not read a lot of tech forums. Please see the initial announcement threads on slashdot and engadget for just two examples. Or maybe just some examples from one BBS thread here (be sure to expand the quotes below so you can see between them they hit all my points exactly):
This would be plausible if the iPhone’s sensor didn’t require capacitance to be present in a pattern that matches the fingerprint – no chopped off digits or high resolution print outs will work. It may be possible to do some Mission:Impossible style overlay that adjusts the capacitance of an existing fingerprint to match a scan of somebody else’s, but by that point you’ve probably got bigger things to worry about than whether the super spy wants to read your phone.
Severed fingers and casts made from fingerprints need not apply:
[The iPhone 5S fingerprint sensor] can detect the ridge and valley pattern of your fingerprint not from the layer of dead skin on the outside of your finger (which a fake finger can easily replicate), but from the living layer of skin under the surface of your finger, using an RF signal. That only works on a live finger; not one that’s been severed from your body.
— http://www.citeworld.com/security/22399/iphone-fingerprint-sca…
Yeah so… Apple has addressed this; they say this is not an optical scanner, does not rely on the top skin layer but rather conductivity of subdermal layers. In other words, they claim that the known vulnerabilities of past fingerprint systems do not apply.
Attack Apple’s claims, argue that they can’t be true, explain how this could be fooled by x or y technique, even just speculate about the as-yet-not-publicly-testable tech that Apple is touting: this could be interesting or useful.
Spread f…
Yes, but this is Cory we’re talking about. Any chance to slag Apple, even with poorly-researched and incomplete data, and he’s all over it.
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