John Andersen wrote: > On Sunday 25 March 2007, David Brodbeck wrote: > >> You can dismiss it if you want, but it's been demonstrated using fairly >> crude materials and methods. For example: >> http://www.dansdata.com/uareu.htm >> > > I will in fact dismiss it. > > Until my lap top goes missing. > > At which time I will immediately provide the police with a list of ALL the > people who I allowed to take a putty mold of my fingers. >
What you're missing is that the same technique has been successfully done using only a latent print lifted from an object. So you don't need to let someone take a putty mold of your finger -- they can lift your prints off any object you've handled. This does not take NSA-level skills or materials. The method is detailed in some of the articles linked from that page. Now, it's quite likely that this level of security is plenty high enough to protect data on your laptop, but I submit it's a bad idea to use something like this instead of a PIN to authenticate banking transactions, as was suggested earlier in the thread. And yet, I know of at least one check cashing service that's using the same thumbprint reader mentioned in the article as proof of ID. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
