Some U.K. bank users ready to embrace biometrics

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Go put on your tinfoil hat, MikeZD - please get a clue

To protect you from the government mind control rays that you are also, no doubt, worried about... Oh, and maybe don't do online banking in Malasia with your fingerprint, because theives there are hard core, whether they could successfully use your finger or not!

So many people cannot manage their username and password burden, they already use the same username and password for all their accounts. If you do otherwise, you are praiseworthy,but probably not doing much online. Biometrics is so much more convenient, secure, and non-sharable, it represents a huge improvement over the sieve that is usernames and passwords. Ask yourself which is more likely to happen - you are phished for your password, or you encounter the bad-ass of bad-ass Malasian gang who wants your account?

All these fear mongers who oppose fingerprint authentication have no clue how these systems work - PLEASE leave the technical "how safe and secure" questions to people who at least have in-depth knowledge of how these systems work, where data is encrypted, and what can and cannot be done with fingerprint images.

Contrary to your assertion, your fingerprint is unique to you, and you only, so there's no such thing as "compromising" your fingerprint (barring the finger theft scenario, because then, noone can use it...) In fact, most fingerprint authentication systems treat the fingerprint image itself as public information, and as a result, make it impossible to introduce a fingerprint image into the process flow without a real finger providing it. Having a picture of your fingerprint does not compromise access.

Quality systems do not use the fingerprint image as the authentication - they use the finger. A live finger, in fact, can be detected and verified by the latest technologies (the gummi trick is old news, and is not successful against the newest sensors)

Again, please have a clue before you start to FUD a technology...

Posted by: SecurityThroughObscurity   Posted on: 05/07/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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