“Thieves have mutilated victims to gain access to phones equipped with a fingerprint reader, an expert has warned,” Katie Hodge reports for The Independent.
On Tuesday, “Apple launched its iPhone 5S, which includes the Touch ID feature, an integrated sensor on the device’s home button that reads your fingerprint in order to unlock your phone,” Hodge reports. “Marc Rogers said the sensors can provide a convenient way to unlock gadgets while also boosting security.”
Hodge reports, “But they have led criminals to commit increasingly brutal robberies and even chop off phone-owners’ fingertips, the chief researcher at mobile security firm Lookout claimed. ‘Thieves in some regions have worked out that you can force a victim to unlock a secured device, and in some extreme cases have also mutilated victims in order to steal their fingerprint.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: FUDtastic!
(We were waiting for this one. We’re surprised the good ol’ amputation threat FUD took this long.)
Related articles:
Apple’s iPhone 5S with biometric identification: Big Brother’s dream? – September 11, 2013
iPhone 5s: Once again Apple leaps ahead with Touch ID fingerprint recognition; a big enterprise win for Apple – September 10, 2013
Apple reveals flagship iPhone 5s with Touch ID, the world’s first and only 64-bit smartphone – September 10, 2013
Chopping my finger off would be a good way to get me to tell you my password now.
This is not news.
A perfect way of summarizing why this article contains the dumbest warning ever….
I heard that you can just decapitate someone and turn the head on a stick so the Bull Shit video on the Samdung devices quit playing too!
So the Terrorists can chop off heads to use Face Recognition?
Its worse than that: the phrasing infers that there’s already been victims from a yet-to-be-released product:
““But they have led criminals to… chop off phone-owners’ fingertips…”
But okay, I’ll play dumb: since the iPhone 5S hasn’t shipped, exactly what cellphones have already been released with fingerprint readers? And where were are these police reports of said alleged crimes filed?
-hh
The criminal (who is in a position to chop off my fingers) can just force me to touch the iPhone button, then turn off the security. Some expert got paid to do this “research”?
It’s old news all right. Giving and taking the fingers is a very old tradition.
An easier way to get past the TouchID would be to wait for the iphone owner to fall asleep or pass-out and then press their finger to the phone..and presto
That’s what great about Apple’s technology… Dead fingers won’t work.
And you think all thieves are smart enough to know this?
After a while…
Yes, let’s play the game where we make basic daily life decisions based on how extreme we can get in underestimating or overestimating the intelligence of the common thief.
Do you think all thieves are smart enough to know you do not have a few million in cash stashed in the trunk of your car? Do you commute on horseback just in case?
It’s the horror subgenre of what Schneier ( a *real* security expert) calls Security Theater.
… if properly warmed and moistened. Of course, even THAT offers a limited life-span for use of the stolen device. Then there’s the question of selling the stolen technology … you going to hand over the increasingly desiccated finger with the “used” iPhone?
Science Fiction had this answer decades ago. 😉
What in the hell could be so important on an iPhone that would necessitate chopping off someone’s finger?
It’s classified. I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.
You’ve said too much!
No, no, no:
The proper statement is:
“It’s classified. I could tell you, but then I’d have to cut off your finger…”
-hh
Sudoku solutions?
Thus proving that when eating chicken with the fingers, the fingers should be eaten separately.
Not before gouging out their eyes after they see the puketastic iOS 7 icons.
BLN … grow up.
Seriously BLN ? Have you actually got ios7 or are just going by screenshots. I was a bit err, umm about the design themes but in the flesh it’s a lot nicer. I was given the last iteration by a friend and after a day or so I was so used to it that iOS6 now looks old.
Normally I look forward to your comments but wait until it ships before condemning it. 9
BTW, as for your other hobyhorse, bigger screens, I suggest looking to the iPhone 6 in the near future ( I’m guessing April )
Grizz, in actuality, a small minority of people prefer the oversized phone to a more convenient form factor.
The primary market for the bigboy phones is the newly middle aged (that are still in denial about their stage in life and newly acquired ocular disfunction and wearing glasses to correct that) but they don’t make enough of a market slice. So I guess the watchword is if you want to pretend that you aren’t getting older and can still see like you did at 25 buy a ‘roid bigboy phone, because it’s is unlikely apple is going to produce one (so you wait with all the people expecting apple to make a “big box” form factor of the Mac Mini, but it just ‘aint likely to happen)
The android phones are big not because they want to be, but rather because they have to be. Android is not particularly efficient and so needs big batteries to have decent runtime (until they went oversized androids had dismal runtimes and most users would disable 3G, wifi, bluetooth, etc. to attempt to get a average days use out of the phone)
I’ve read some stupid comments from you, but this is the best. I’m not 25 and I have 20/20 vision. Consumers simply want a larger phone dopey. Idiot!
You can’t take the specific (what you want) and extrapolate that to a general case.
The real world data just doesn’t back up your preference (nor BLN’s.) Most (the vast majority) of people choose the compact form factor (like the iPhone) over the oversized screen screen phones. It just isn’t a problem, for most people, to see the screen.
Oh, and you do realize that you 20/20 vision spec has absolutely nothing to do with your close focusing ability didn’t you.
Of course you did…
nope – the eyeball gouging will come in 5 years when AAPL puts in the retina scans as a security feature
but seriously, how did a clown from The Independent beat out The Onion on a scoop like this?
I could not agree more. iOS7 icons suck! Excuse my high school moment … 🙂
My Little Pony meets iOS.
yo left nut – did some one cut off you right nut and therefore make you into a total lame ass – or were you just born a lame ass – ha
by the way everyone – Ballmer’s left nut – is a troll – have at him!
Or one could simply threaten (and subsequently proceed) to chop off a user’s fingers (or arm, toe, foot, etc – pick one) unless he/she reveals his/her password.
The writers’s point being…?
FUD, indeed.
Even so, you can brick the phone with find my iPhone.
Not without fingers, you can’t!!! Hahahahaha!!!!
No finger? Summon Siri with your tongue and let her do it. Ha ha
Did gaggle or samdung pay for this?
Thank god I carry those fake plastic hands with me at all times. Whew!
Thank God it isn’t a penis reader.
(Brought to you by Carl’s Jr.)
The nuts go first.
They would probably mistake it for your pinky.
Brought to you by Imo’s Pizza and world famous Ted Drewe’s frozen custard.
Besides being crass and vulgar. you have completely ignored half of the population. Is there some way to tame your drinking before you post?
“… you have completely ignored half of the population.”
They’d have to make the whole screen a reader if it could be used on a pussy. Have you ever actually seen one; I mean in person?
Grow up and get a life.
Grow up and get a life NOT TELLING POSTERS WHAT TO SAY OR HOW TO BEHAVE! Got it?
313c might be happier reading and posting here:
http://technewskids.com/category/apple_/
You just told a poster what to say and how to behave.
Possible rules are
– NO-ONE should tell others how to behave — which would then apply to your post, so your post is ridiculous.
– EVERYONE can tell others how to behave — in which case your post is ridiculous.
Fantastic reply!
There’s nothing crass or vulgar about the word “penis” or that comment. Maybe it is in the church you obviously frequent too often.
So besides being ignorant and a prude, you can’t take what is obviously a joke !
So, you are at a business meeting and your phone rings . . . Although it might seem funny, it would be crass and vulgar to use the ‘funny’ method of verification previously described.
We can aspire to higher minded humor than second grade school potty ‘jokes’.
OMFG. You’re taking that comment way too seriously.You think he REALLY meant it ? Yeah whipping it out in public would be rude, but FCOL its not he same thing at all as making a joke about a penis reader. Aspire to whatever you want. Humor is subjective but at least try to realize when its a joke and when someone REALLY means it.
I am sorry to have to inform you but your opinion has no importance to me. I may have though that potty humor was funny in third grade but had completely outgrown it by fifth grade.
Won’t be an issue as I’m going to chop off my fingers first as a means of preventing such brutality and detriment to iPhone theft and gaining access to my all important address book contacts, etc.
Yet another way in which Apple is doomed. How happy must the lesser gods be—you know, the ones who contemptuously shape public opinion through the adroit manipulation of misinformation. May they rot in Hell.
this has happened before in Malaysia when thieves are trying to steal a Mercedes.
Been to L.A. ?
Thieves could use your kitchen-knife to rob you too.
If they cut off your fingers then theft is not their biggest mistake and crime!!
Someone’s been watching too many movies.
Wow, good thing Apple didn’t go with the retina scanner! I only have two of those…
Simple, just avoid “some regions”.
What a load of crap.
Does this guy realtor how hard it is to actually chop a finger off??
You can’t do it with a knife you have to use a butchers blade to do it.
I know this as I have a friend who runs a butchers shop.
How far did he get before he realized a knife wasn’t going to work?
Which congressional delegation will be sponsoring the ban on all knives?
Did someone actually offer a job to this idiot?
That’s it… I’ve seen enough stupid comments (mostly at the source of these articles) to know there is a market out there for a key shaped like a finger that you can use instead of your own finger. It’ll come with shark-proof gloves that can help stave off the finger cutters long enough for your SIRI activated announcement that actual fingers were not used to secure your iPhone… Say $99.00. Act now and get another one FREE!
Lets hope they get the right finger!
Terrific point! That’s an incentive to use an obscure finger. Or better yes, use a TOE! Imagine that at Starbucks.
I know this sounds far fetched. But I live in the Chicago area. During a recent convention in town, gangs of teenagers sought people carrying iPhones and iPads, and in broad daylight in the most populated areas, best thrm and stole their devices. In a city with almost daily murders, this awful scenario is going to happen.
Oh puh-lease, you simply hold the phone to their finger and presto you’re in.
Or, if they have an older iPhone (or god forbid a ‘roid copy of an iPhone (because they were too cheep or too stupid to get the real thing)) just go Tonya Harding on their ass and 99.9% of (sane) people would cough up their password in a nanosecond.
I finally found Marc Rodgers blog.
https://blog.lookout.com/blog/2013/09/11/lookouts-take-on-fingerprint-passcodes/
I left this comment:
“While we can expect the fingerprint scanner in Apple’s latest device to use the most advanced defenses to protect against these types of attack…”
I think you can do more than expect it. If you read the Authentec patents (now Apple’s patents since they bought Authentec a year ago) and listen to what Apple says, they certainly are using the most advanced defenses. The sensor detects subtle changes in conductivity in the ridges and valleys beneath the outer layer of skin, so lifting a print and making a photocopy just won’t work. Also, making a mold of a finger with biological gel, one would still have to engineer a way to alter the conductivity of the gel to correspond to the ridges and valleys. That would be one tough nut to crack.
“Now the company will face a second challenge: ensuring that user data is adequately protected on the device itself so that it is secure in the event a device gets stolen.”
Again, if you listen to point blank statements from Apple, the data is in no way accessible to anyone. Key characteristics of the recorded fingerprint is first encrypted then stored in a region of nonvolatile memory internal to the A7 processor chip. (The fingerprint image is never recorded anywhere.) There is no “read” capability for this region. Once there, all that can be done with it is to submit another fingerprint to the A7 and it’s internal processing will return a match or no-match result. The software for this function is not in RAM or flash, it’s internal to the A7, so the verification code just isn’t available for hacking.
Now, I read somewhere that quoted you as saying that criminals have already cut off someone’s finger when they stole a phone, to use on its fingerprint reader. Would you mind revealing the source of this info?
—–
Betting he doesn’t respond.
I remember hearing about a lady they anestitized brought here in a dressing room and cut here finger off to get her ring. Why can’t people track there phones I can track all my phones that have been traded back to the 4