Turning a Smartphone Display Into a Biometric Scanner 16
New submitter jan_jes writes: Recent mobile phones integrate fingerprint scanners to authenticate users biometrically and replace passwords, making authentication more convenient. Researchers at Yahoo Labs have created a new technology called "Bodyprint," which turns your smartphone's touchscreen display into a biometric scanner. It allows the touch sensor to scan users' body parts (PDF) such as ears, fingers, fists, and palms by pressing them against the display. Bodyprint implements the four-eye principle for locking sensitive documents — accessing the document can require the presence of two or more people involved with the project. Another application is authenticating a user to answer a call by scanning their ear pressed against the phone.
ewwww.... (Score:2)
Biometric snake oil (Score:1)
Fingerprint scanners and other biometric authentications are a joke. To reduce false negatives they have to reduce the sensitivity, which makes the false positive rate around 1/200, which is the security of a 2-letter password.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Waiting for the intersection with dating sites (Score:3)
With apologies in advance (Score:2)
fingers, fists, and palms
Does she, indeed?
Precision and recall don't make it secure (Score:1)
They haven't even considered the possibility of hacking it with, say, a 3D-printed ear. Fingerprint scanners are routinely hacked. This seems even easier because all you need is a 3D scan or a few photos of someone's ear.
Re: (Score:2)
Low-hanging fruit... (Score:3)
Shouldn't a four-eye principle require two ordinary people or one person with glasses? (Contact lenses obviously don't count.)
(As a side note, it's hard to believe that was ever really a slur).
Re: (Score:2)
Not to be confused with the Five Eyes principle, which means that the government's just going to read it anyway.
other body parts (Score:2)