<div><br></div><blockquote style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;" class="gmail_quote">Malicious people will cut off your finger. Don't laugh, it has happened before. There are proven cases,
<br></blockquote><blockquote style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;" class="gmail_quote">e.g. where a carjacker cut off the finger of his victim in order to be able to steal the car.
<br></blockquote><br>Newer fingerprint reader technologies actually account for this pretty well. A detached finger is seen as a spoof attempt, if it even images properly at all. Your information on these sensors, like most people, is outdated. And I don't think that's really an accident.
<br><br>But, let me humor you for a moment. If I'm willing to cut off your finger to get into your mobile device, why wouldn't I be willing to put a gun to your head and/or torture you until you give me your password?
<br><br><br><br><blockquote style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;" class="gmail_quote">1) full hardware docs (may be under NDA, but allowing GPL software<br> development)
<br>2) small enough for a mobile device<br>3) cheap enough<br>4) not easy to fool<br></blockquote><br>The sensor Mark's talking about definitely fulfills the last three. As for #1, that's where the political work needs to be done. It should be possible to make this happen though. Most, if not all, fingerprint sensor manufacturers are in the business of selling hardware. The software is basically given away, although the algorithms are guarded. They need to control the software because the quality of the sensor depends on the software.
<br><br>I image all that's needed is an easy way for users to tell that a sensor is being used with the company's software or something else. That way, when used with something else, the reputation of the quality of the sensor is not on the line because of bad software. Eventually, the open software may get good enough that the companies would "bless" a certain build.
<br><br><br><br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 2/3/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Ian Stirling</b> <<a href="mailto:openmoko@mauve.plus.com">openmoko@mauve.plus.com</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
There are not-bad options - with something like a 4*256 pixel imager.<br>Cheap, pretty small, docs - as it's just a camera, easy to fool... Well,<br>it's a fingerprint sensor.</blockquote><div><br>If people are being concerned about faking fingerprint sensors, then this simplistic approach is definitely not a good idea as optical imagers are the easiest to fake out.
<br><br><br><br></div><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">There are interesting possibilities to add security to fingerprint sensors.
<br>For example, which finger?<br><br>If three fingers of one hand have to be scanned in a particular order,<br>or it requires a password afterwards.<br><br>Or use it as a little optical mouse backwards, and have a 'signature'.
<br><br>It can even be used as a substitute for a thumbstick in the normal UI.</blockquote><div><br>All the above is currently being used. There are swipe-based fingerprint sensors on some tablet PCs that have navigation capability. They are used as scroll wheels and/or as backup when the stylus is lost or not necessary for a simple task. But, as of yet using them for full navigation is not working so great. The main problem I see with all the ones I've tries is that they actually try to mimic touch pads, instead of touch sticks. So, to move across a screen, you have to keep swiping. That's an easy fix though if the open-source community were able to work on things.
<br><br>In fact, I think most of the standard gripes about fingerprint sensors could be fixed if the community could play with the sensors, instead of relying on the algorithms of the few corporate players in the market.<br>
<br>--Steve<br></div><br>Disclaimer: I USED to work for a fingerprint sensor company.<br></div><br>