death of passwords?

[fhunter]

I wonder, how does one change passwords in case of a fingerprint reader? With sandpaper?

PS. I found somewhere a suggestion for a patch for iOS, in case of using penis to unlock iPhone... either the owners one unlocks or a bigger one . I wonder, if this would be difficult to implement?

[Riverwind (imported)]

As I remember on the lap top there was a bios setting then several tries to get it off the laptop and a sign on it to never ever try that again.

River

[curious_guy (imported)]

One of my laptops has a fingerprint scanner. I could never get it to work. That might be because patients with my illness can partially or completely lose their fingerprints.

[Dave (imported)]

I had a job that demanded a change of passwords every six months and remember several back passwords. I didn't try to subvert it. I just changed my password to something new and spent a day typing it over and over.

as for fingerprints - Bah humbug. Don't waste my time with such junk.

[Elizabeth (imported)]

Within hours of it's release the new fingerprint unlock feature was unlocked by a person with rubber gloves and a fingerprint taken from a glass. More importantly, do you really trust Apple with your fingerprint? How do they store it? On the phone, or on Apple's servers, or both? I don't trust anyone with my fingerprint. It's a stupid technology that has been proven time and time again, that it's easy to defeat. Ones fingerprints are left everywhere, it's a stupid idea for security.

Elizabeth

[Riverwind (imported)]

I had a job that demanded a change of passwords every six months and remember several back passwords. I didn't try to subvert it. I just changed my password to something new and spent a day typing it over and over.

as for fingerprints - Bah humbug. Don't waste my time with such junk.

I worked for a company that changed the passwords every week, yes they sent them to you in a sealed envelope it was 15 positions starting with an Alpha but had numbers and special characters throughout.

Harrah's, Reno.

I am with all of you, as for fingerprints, how stupid can you be?

Wait, its Apple.

River

[C&TL2745 (imported)]

Within hours of it's release the new fingerprint unlock feature was unlocked by a person with rubber gloves and a fingerprint taken from a glass.

If a useable fingerprint can be lifted from a glass, it seems as though a thief should be able get a useable fingerprint a lot easier than tricking you into using his glass. Isn't there a nice fingerprint waiting for him to lift on the device's fingerprint scanner?

Sandi

[A-1 (imported)]

O.K.

The "Indian Nipple-less 500" was a Baaaad pun. Have we forgotten the tradition of Andrew so soon?

...and Paolo, did you lighten up the avatar and then darken it again, or do we have somebody else to thank for that one?

You all didn't ignore me when we had the Political boards... just sayin'...

[Riverwind (imported)]

Yes we were ignoring your bad pun, in respect to Andrew.

River

[C&TL2745 (imported)]

For those interested in details of how the fingerprint system works, I found the following article useful:

http://www.tuaw.com/2013/09/22/iphone-5 ... nderstood/

For one thing, its purpose is not so much added security as saving time over entering a pass code of eight or so random characters on a tiny keyboard to unlock the phone, and for another, its use is optional. If you don't want to use it, you can always use the pass code as on the iPhone 5 and other smart phones. If you're concerned about losing a finger, you can always enter the pass code with whatever body parts you have left or you can enable all your fingers and toes to unlock it.

It's main contribution to increasing security is that many people never bother to set up a pass code at all due to the inconvenience of typing in the code twenty times a day when they want to use their phones. With the fingerprint reader, they don't have that excuse for leaving the phone wide open.

After reading the details of how it works, my main concern would be that someone would find your fingerprint on the smooth glass face of the phone itself and duplicate it, but that's probably beyond the technology of the average thief.

Sandi