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Cellphones Biotech Privacy Security Hardware Technology

Phones Can Now Tell Who Is Carrying Them From Their Users' Gaits (economist.com) 94

Posted by BeauHD from the more-and-more-intrusive dept.
PolygamousRanchKid shares an excerpt from a report via The Economist: Most online fraud involves identity theft, which is why businesses that operate on the web have a keen interest in distinguishing impersonators from genuine customers. Passwords help. But many can be guessed or are jotted down imprudently. Newer phones, tablets, and laptop and desktop computers often have beefed-up security with fingerprint and facial recognition. But these can be spoofed. To overcome these shortcomings the next level of security is likely to identify people using things which are harder to copy, such as the way they walk. Many online security services already use a system called device fingerprinting. This employs software to note things like the model type of a gadget employed by a particular user; its hardware configuration; its operating system; the apps which have been downloaded onto it; and other features, including sometimes the Wi-Fi networks it regularly connects through and devices like headsets it plugs into.

LexisNexis Risk Solutions, an American analytics firm, has catalogued more than 4 billion phones, tablets and other computers in this way for banks and other clients. Roughly 7% of them have been used for shenanigans of some sort. But device fingerprinting is becoming less useful. Apple, Google and other makers of equipment and operating systems have been steadily restricting the range of attributes that can be observed remotely. That is why a new approach, behavioral biometrics, is gaining ground. It relies on the wealth of measurements made by today's devices. These include data from accelerometers and gyroscopic sensors, that reveal how people hold their phones when using them, how they carry them and even the way they walk. Touchscreens, keyboards and mice can be monitored to show the distinctive ways in which someone's fingers and hands move. Sensors can detect whether a phone has been set down on a hard surface such as a table or dropped lightly on a soft one such as a bed. If the hour is appropriate, this action could be used to assume when a user has retired for the night. These traits can then be used to determine whether someone attempting to make a transaction is likely to be the device's habitual user. If used wisely, the report says behavioral biometrics could be used to authenticate account-holders without badgering them for additional passwords or security questions; it could even be used for unlocking the doors of a vehicle once the gait of the driver, as measured by his phone, is recognized, for example.

"Used unwisely, however, the system could become yet another electronic spy, permitting complete strangers to monitor your actions, from the moment you reach for your phone in the morning, to when you fling it on the floor at night," the report adds.
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Phones Can Now Tell Who Is Carrying Them From Their Users' Gaits More

Phones Can Now Tell Who Is Carrying Them From Their Users' Gaits

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  • Cue Monty Python (Score:5, Funny)

    by aevan ( 903814 ) on Wednesday May 22, 2019 @07:35PM (#58639124)
    Ministry of Silly Walks and Cybersecurity

    • So when I'm hammered I can't pay the bar or the Taxi?

  • What if I get injured and my gait changes, or I get a new job and my sleep schedule changes? It just seems so easy to incorrectly reject a legitimate user. And that's not inherently bad, but it's a great way to ensure that fewer people use your system.

    • Re:Easy to fool? (Score:5, Funny)

      by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Wednesday May 22, 2019 @08:16PM (#58639294)

      What if I get injured and my gait changes

      You may lose access to your cellphone, but at least the random changes to your gait will protect you from the sand worms.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Wolfrider ( 856 )

      So much THIS. Just had surgery on my foot and I've been limping for a week and a half. This kind of stuff is garbage "technology" that NO ONE ASKED FOR. Companies need to start doing stuff that we really need -- like a filthy-bathroom cleaning bot that sells for under $200 and doesn't sell the GPS layout of your house.

      • The only thing gait detection is used for on your phone is to keep it unlocked. If it doesn't detect your gait, you will simply have to unlock with your face, or your thumbprint, or your PIN.

  • Everyone, stop being stupid. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Wednesday May 22, 2019 @08:03PM (#58639254)

    It's somehow an unpopular opinion but i think that if you don't want to be tracked then the best way to do that is to not carry around the most advanced surveillance device known to mankind. If you can't manage that basic task then at the very least you should insist on having the full source code for both OS and applications. If you can't even manage that well... at least now you know what makes it the most advanced surveillance device known to mankind: it's made you psychologically incapable of not having it with you.

    • privacy laws and penalties seem better solution, many of us are required to have the smart phone

      • many of us are required to have the smart phone

        What the hell kind of job needs you to have a smartphone?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by PPH ( 736903 )

          Uber

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by tepples ( 727027 )

            And not just for the driver. Last I checked, someone who rides Lyft or Uber to and from work also needed an iPhone or Android phone to run the app. It's cheaper than buying a car.

        • Many. In fact these days companies use apps for everything from internal communication, to time keeping, to custom apps. I'm familiar with exactly one operation that involves mechanics, and that one operation requires them for all these reasons. I doubt I hit the motherload and found the only such company. Don't tell anyone but it is 2019 not 2009.

        • Re:Everyone, stop being stupid. (Score:4, Informative)

          by Potor ( 658520 ) <farker1@gmai l . com> on Thursday May 23, 2019 @01:30AM (#58640128) Journal

          Not sure if serious.

          One answer: anyone who delivers the food that you're too lazy to cook or pick up yourself. There are many, many more.

          But white collar slaves have been issued phones for decades.

        • Every job that requires you to run certain apps ...

          You had a point if you said: requires you a "not so smart" or "more smart" phone without GPS or other geo tracking options, aka without GMS/G3/G4/G5/ WiFi ... unfortunately everything that connects to a phone tower can be tracked, either with apps inside the phone or via the network operators.

          So?

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by louzer ( 1006689 )
        Laws do not work like this: https://i.imgur.com/xc3Sfpi.jp... [imgur.com]
      • How are you going to enforce it? People were so focused on hating VW for the diesel emissions scandal that they mostly missed what the problem was at an abstract level: If your test is measured by automated equipment, then people can custom-tailor a software program to match your test and evade whatever your test is trying to detect. Because people are eminently flexible, and automated equipment is not. Similar to how malware authors are making it harder for anti-virus companies to analyze the malware,

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      You can carry it around or not depending on whether the advantages of being tracked outweigh the disadvantages. That's probably going to take a while to sort out, and there are a lot of situations where carrying the device makes everything a whole lot easier. The source code question is an interesting one: if you have it, how sure are you that someone didn't bury something interesting inside it? We know that people who want information and control are hiring programmers to help them get and maintain it. Som

    • How much would the full source code help the average person, or you in particular?

      • It wouldn't help most people but it would make it possible for /some/ people to actually look to see if they are stealing information. That gets reported and soon someone forks it with just the info stealing removed. See also: LineageOS.

  • Nothing wrong with "badgering" (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    "Badgering" customers for a password? What a ridiculous and lowly reason for inventing a new fancy and inaccurate way of identifying somebody. The amount of time used to "badger" a customer for some id will be more than exceeded by annoying customers pissed off that they have not been properly identified. If you want proof that most of the world has totally lost the plot then this is a fine example.

  • - Break your ankle in a car crash.
    - Limp to the curb.
    - Phone perma-locks.

    At least the emergency call feature doesn't need unlocking.

  • Please walk a mile to authenticate.

  • Next you will have to do a silly dance to (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    unlock your phone...

  • While I do some modest reading while walking from car to work, the vast majority of the time, I'm sitting/stationary when I use my phone. Any authentication challenge that requires me to get up and walk around is not something I'd be a fan of :).

  • I don't believe you, and I say you're full of shit.

    WTF is going on with /.?

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  • Used as intended, however, the system will become yet another electronic spy, permitting complete strangers to monitor your actions, from the moment you reach for your phone in the morning, to when you fling it on the floor at night

    There...

  • https://it.slashdot.org/story/... [slashdot.org]

    "Our approach works by carefully analysing the data from sensors which are accessible without any special permissions to both websites and apps," the research team said in a research paper published yesterday. "Our analysis infers the per-device factory calibration data which manufacturers embed into the firmware of the smartphone to compensate for systematic manufacturing errors [in their devices' sensors]," researchers said. This calibration data can then be used as a fing

  • I guess I'm the only one that is surprised that this stuff is available without permission. I mean, what could possibly go wrong when your phone is also running code checked in 3 minutes ago and hot deployed by some script kiddie.

  • Because everyone walks the same way all the time.

  • ...I couldn't call you back because I sprained my ankle and can't use my phone.

  • Great now I have to buy a gimbal just to hide from google.

  • This makes me want to stroll down the street carrying a can of paint, wearing flare pants, listening to a Bee Gees song.
  • I was involved in a serious car wreck a few years ago and managed to break both legs and both feet. It was 6 months before I was even allowed to attempt to stand up and another 3 months after that before I was walking without assistance. I am certain that my gait changed significantly as a result. I am also certain that my gait is still changing. As I continue to recover from the atrophy and regain my balance, my gait continues to evolve. Due to all the hardware, it will likely not go back to being "th

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