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Linux Biometrics Site Opens Doors 117

Posted by Zonk from the scanning dept.
flickerfly writes "A new site to unite the individuals interested in Linux and Biometrics has opened its doors. LinuxBiometrics.com's purpose is to fill the biometrics void in the Open Source community. With the increased adoption of Linux in europe and the recent increase in biometrics interest by the EU, this appears to be a field ready to blossom into heavy adoption and will be in need of OSS support."
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Linux Biometrics Site Opens Doors More

Linux Biometrics Site Opens Doors

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  • Confused (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 10, 2005 @03:31PM (#12195144)
    Linux = good
    biometrics = bad
    Linux + biometrics = ?

    • Re:Confused (Score:1, Funny)

      by Sexy Bern ( 596779 )
      gad.
    • Linux = good
      Compulsory biometric records = bad
      OS biometric software = good

      • Re:Try: (Score:4, Interesting)

        by azmeith ( 705329 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @03:57PM (#12195313)
        How can any form of biometric software (os or otherwise) be 'good'?

        The way I see and understand it, it will never be perfect, not because humans are not smart enough to come up with innovative uses of a techonology but simply because the human body which provides the biometric information in the first place is a living, breathing, evolving, ever-changing entity. Moreover I just happen to believe that we as humans, being so error prone, can never come up with a fool proof system, irrespective of what a whole bunch of govt agencies would like us to believe.

        Given all of that what scares me is not the fact that these technologies will be error-prone forever but that there will be no humans around to arbitrate any conflicts/problems in most situations (as is wont to happen when ppl start to take a system for granted). I really wouldnt want to be in a position becase a machine/system/software suddenly decides I am a terrorist because my thumb prints are obscured, because I play too many games using a fucked up pad, and taking 'pre-emptive' action.

        Just because the system will be FOSS and a few million eyes will be watching the arch/code does not mean it will be perfect. And at what point of time do we say - 'Oh crap! this is not going to work.'; when a person dies, two ppl die, two thousand non-first-world ppl die?? And assuming ppl do get tech savvy, and put up monitors (the human kind) we come back to the same old question of who monitors the monitors??

        A simple illustration of the problem is the use of ppl (too many, some would claim) in airports in Israel, India, Malaysia and a bunch of other countries which have problems with violent extremism (I hate the word terrorist - but thats a whole another story) and cant spend 10 mill USD per machine for 10 machines per airport. Their record regarding security breaches is a whole lot better then some of the most advanced western airports with some of the most advanced gizmos. It works simply because of redundancy, training, experience and human judgement, three of which a machine can probably never replicate fully.

        Give me ppl any damn time.
        --
        I'm not dumb. I just have a command of thoroughly useless information. -Bill Watterson

        • Re:Try: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Proud like a god ( 656928 )
          Ok, OS biometric software = better than closed source, with reasons being obvious to your possibly paranoid self.

          "humans, being so error prone, can never come up with a fool proof system"
          Well there are these things called proofs, and they're used to prove things, such as how possible it is to break an encryption algorithm, or bypass some logical sequence of security.

          Why are people going to suddenly start dying or automated systems start taking "'pre-emptive' action" because there's the choice of OSS for
        • Why is it 'bad'? It's just another authentication technique, another tool to improve security. I just don't understand why in every post about biometrics everyone starts bitching about how it's not perfect. Of course it isn't perfect!! there is NO perfect security system, and there'll never be.

          Biometrics is NOT about 'perfect' security, it's just a new tool which *can* tighten security where applied properly, and which makes authentication easier in many cases. That's all.

          I do work for a company that deve

    • Re:Confused (Score:2, Insightful)

      by 0x461FAB0BD7D2 ( 812236 )
      Linux + biometrics = optional

    • Re:Confused (Score:5, Interesting)

      by mboverload ( 657893 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @04:20PM (#12195439) Journal
      Once you lose your fingerprint to theives you are screwed for the rest of your live.

      You can't change your fingerprint or your biometrics, which is why they are a stupid idea. Once they come up with a way to even imitate retnas the whole security system that was based around biometrics will be SCREWED.

      • We used to steal fingerprints and download retna scans from computers. Even at times, switching some rich person's fingerprints and retnas with our own on the computer network that stored them.

        It was easy then to walk into a bank, close out an account and withdraw millions from their account after the biometrics of the fingerprint and retna scan showed our team member was that rich person.

        Of course this was the Sci Fi RPG Traveller in about 1985 when we did all that. All it took was a computer skill and a
      • No need. Because your eye changes so much, retinal scan biometrics have to be fault tolerant. I recall someone reviewing retinal scan systems not too long ago and coming up with, get this: 1 in 10 people can fool basically anything on the market today into thinking they are you! And it concluded that that won't change anytime soon since the fault tolerance must be so high. So biometrics is officially SCREWED already.
      • That is if you consider "biometric security" to be fingerprint and retinal, which is hardly comprehensive.

    • Re:Confused (Score:1, Flamebait)

      by Lord Ender ( 156273 )
      biometrics == bad?

      Any technology that can add one more layer to security is a good thing.
    • add smelly stuff to other stuff and it smells :) anyway this just about sums up biometrics for me at this point in time http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4396831.st m of course if he had a gun in is car, or it was armed with flame throwers this would not have happended ;) so maybe linux + weapons + biometrics = good
    • well, it could be worse

      windows + biometrics = !!

  • This site looks like spam.. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by grazzy ( 56382 ) <(ten.ews.ekauq) (ta) (yzzarg)> on Sunday April 10, 2005 @03:34PM (#12195164) Homepage Journal
    .. and besides, doesnt biometrics suck? It's all about onetime identifiers. You cant easily change your eye, breath or thumbprint if they happened to fall into the wrong hands.

    • If your eye or fingers fall into the wrong hands, you've got bigger issues than access controls. Proper security works with something you have, and something you know; biometrics, and a password.
      • This isnt about physical objects, but the information.

        A fingerprint is quickly sampled and a silicone mold will fool every scanner.

        • Something you have, something you know. Biometrics are not a satisfactory security measure by themselves, at least not at this time. (Tomorrow we may find a way to scan for something that cannot be faked.) However, added to an additional factor, they can be a useful addition to your security solution because they significantly raise the bar to defeat.

      • Re:This site looks like spam.. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Bastian ( 66383 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @04:34PM (#12195511)
        You don't need to cut off a person's finger to get their fingerprint, nor do you need to cut out their eyes to have a model for what their retinas look like. In fact, both those plans would be inadvisable since a good biometrics system (which is what you'd be encountering anywhere you're willing to horribly mutilate or kill someone to get into) will involve sensors designed to tell if what's being scanned is alive.

        The technology to mimic body identifiers will come. A cheap technique for mimicing a person's fingerprint well enough to fool a biometric scanner is already well-established, and will fool heat-sensing scanners, too, since all you need to do is coat your fingertip with some gelatin and then etch it.

        And I would suggest that the "something you have, something you know" system is severely compromised if the "something you have" part is something that can't be voided and replaced. It means that you have to either re-do the entire security system from the ground up to use a different "something you have" whenever someone steals an important "something you have", or you are forced to fire the person who owned that "something you have", or you have to accept that for at least that one person, you no longer have a "something you have, something you know" system.

        If you really need it to be attatched to your body, why not put it in the form of some sort of implant, like the ID chips people put in their pets?

        • And I would suggest that the "something you have, something you know" system is severely compromised if the "something you have" part is something that can't be voided and replaced.

          It's "something you have, something you know, something you are."

          All that shit can be faked/stolen. The thing is, a real human is infinitely more capable of recognising someone trying to fake what they are. An eyeball on the tip of a fountain pen would be a... dead giveaway. We don't just analyse the eyeball, we observe the w

        • Heh, you'd think a President-destroying fighter would be protected by more than a "dead is ok" fingerprint detector!

          But 24 aside, "something you have, something you know" isn't likely to be replaced by biometrics.

          And your example seems misguided as well; if you fire someone, surely you can remove their access.

          Someone stealing something, that's a different issue, but if it's a decent system it can ask relevant questions like, "what projects were you working on last week? (give any four)" or something

        • why not put it in the form of some sort of implant, like the ID chips people put in their pets?
          The implants you speak of are RFID tags and judging by your relatively low Slashdot UID (66383) you should have a pretty good idea to what degree most people around here thinkg of RFID tags.

    • Re:This site looks like spam.. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by damiangerous ( 218679 ) <1ndt7174ekq80001@sneakemail.com> on Sunday April 10, 2005 @04:05PM (#12195360)
      No, biometrics doesn't "suck". But it's also not the security panacea it's usually made out to be. Biometrics can be a valuable part of the security "arsenal". One good use for it is a verification where the main breach won't come from malicious access but rather laziness.

      For example, a friend of mine is a pharmacist. The pharmacy technicians do most of the putting of pills in bottles, but everything has to be reviewed and signed off on by a pharmacist before it's released. The pharmacist verifies the finished prescription, uses his thumbprint to indicate he approves it, and a label is printed. With a password system it's far too easy for anyone to print out the approval label, and that's what would happen. Not out of maliciousness, but simply out of convenience.

      • So, if my biometric credentials was compromised, I couldn't become a pharmacist? My security would be much lower than other people.

        Sure as you say, it can be a part of a bigger whole, but still - is it any good? It's safe now much like firefox is resonable safe now, becuase only a small portion of people are using it. That will change.
        • Your biometric credentials couldn't be "compromised" for this purpose, that's the whole point as to why it's useful. It's a limited access, limited purpose system. It's only accessed from two physical terminals located in the pharmacy only during staffed hours and only does one thing, prints prescription approval labels. It exists to ensure that a given pharmacist actually does approve a given prescription rather than a tech who shoulder surfed a password or a lazy/too busy pharmacist who just gave the t
      • So if your place of work utilized a butt-print scanner, and it got broken into, you could say they stole your data "arse 'n all"?

      • Re:This site looks like spam.. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by JimBobJoe ( 2758 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @04:40PM (#12195546)
        The pharmacist verifies the finished prescription, uses his thumbprint to indicate he approves it, and a label is printed. With a password system it's far too easy for anyone to print out the approval label, and that's what would happen.

        Essentially...biometrics is useful when security isn't important. (I think that will be the biggest uses of biometrics for years to come...non-security applications...like at my local grocery store where employees use their thumbrpint to sign into a time-clock. It is only loosely a security application, it's more of an application of convenience.)

        In the end, there is no security and privacy tradeoff, the main tradeoff is between privacy and convenience, and security and convenience. Biometrics is very convenient, but it's not very private and it's arguably not secure.

      • The pharmacist verifies the finished prescription, uses his thumbprint to indicate he approves it, and a label is printed. With a password system it's far too easy for anyone to print out the approval label, and that's what would happen. Not out of maliciousness, but simply out of convenience.

        If the pharmacist is lazy enough to let his technician know and use his password, he's lazy enough to put his thumb on the reader without actually checking the content.
        • But then there's accountability. With a password only system there can always be the issue of a stolen password. With the thumbprint and the circumstances it's used in it's basically impossible it's going to be forged.
          • Really what this system is, is a whole lot of ass-covering on behalf of the pharmacy's owners. With a biometric system, in the case of a misprinted label, the pharmacy can place the blame squarely at the pharmacist that day, since they can "prove" who it was that ordered the approval label printed. It severely weakens the pharmacists' defense that "hey, it wasn't me, somebody must have used my code."

            I've seen similar systems used in healthcare on narcotics lockers and in other controlled areas. The system

      • No, biometrics doesn't "suck". (...) Not out of maliciousness, but simply out of convenience.

        That is the scary part. In a few decades I will have to open my car with my retina just because 90% of the people is too lazy to put their keys on a nail near the door...

        I'd prefer to have my keys stolen and my eyes comfortably in their sockets, thank you.

      • The pharmacist verifies the finished prescription, uses his thumbprint to indicate he approves it, and a label is printed.

        Isn't that authentication, and not security? They aren't the same thing.

    • It gets worse too ... (Score:2, Informative)

      by darrylo ( 97569 )
      ... and low-tech thieves can just take the easy way out: chop off the finger [bbc.co.uk].
    • .. and besides, doesnt biometrics suck? It's all about onetime identifiers. You cant easily change your eye, breath or thumbprint if they happened to fall into the wrong hands.

      I'm not sure how your breath can fall into the wrong hands. I have trouble smelling my own breath by cupping my hands over my face. As to your eyes and thumbs, are you one of those people who has detachable parts? Like, when your S.O.(yes, some Slashdot readers have actual real life involvements with women) says "get your butt out
      • It's not about amputated body parts. Fingerprint scanners can be fooled by gummy bears [pcworld.com]. Once someone has a copy of your fingerprint you can't revoke that password and give yourself a new fingerprint. Biometrics are only good in a limited sphere where other measures are in place.
        • Biometrics are only good in a limited sphere where other measures are in place.

          Essentially, biometrics should only be used in face-to-face situations, i.e. there's someone verifying that the biometric scan is done properly.

          The biometric passport is one such case: there will always be a customs official around when your picture is taken or fingerprint scanned for verification with the reference data stored on the passport chip.

  • It's a matter of trust and privacy (Score:5, Interesting)

    by kebes ( 861706 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @03:34PM (#12195169) Journal
    Open source biometrics shouldn't just be for those wacky Europeans who like OSS. Important security issues like biometrics should be engineered in an transparent fashion. This is necessary so that the citizens can be assured that their privacy is not being infringed, and that their security is being maintained.

    Closed formats and security through obscurity have well documented shortcomings. For important government and security applications (voting machines, encryption, etc.) it seems like an open standard and open software is a much better way to ensure reliability, stability, fairness, and so forth. After all, security is pointless without trust... and I would argue that trust in a system is enhanced by it being open.
    • While I mostly agree with you, couldn't it be argued that, when a system is open source, doesn't that mean that IF there is something to be exploited, someone will find it by reading the source code?
      Sure, it works both ways; someone with 'good' intentions can notify the devs if they found a possible exploit, but someone with 'bad' intentions could exploit it for his own use. When the source isn't freely available, people will only be able to guess how to crack it.
      I believe this was a mayor reason why half-l
      • The security of an open source system depends principally upon the simple fact that there are more good people out there than there are bad people. (This is basically an assumed premise in most FOSS discussions.) If this is true, then the more open you make your source code, then the more secure it will become. Some people will find exploits and use them for their own advantage, certainly, but when the exploit is discovered it will be much more rapidly fixed than it would have been otherwise.

        For evidence

  • Be careful with biometrics! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tquinlan ( 868483 ) <tom@thomasquinla[ ]om ['n.c' in gap]> on Sunday April 10, 2005 @03:34PM (#12195171) Homepage
    All Linux biometrics should look for HEAT in addition to regular biometrics (ie, fingerprint), so that something like this doesn't happen:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/43 96 831.stm

    A cold finger shouldn't be usable, and that will keep them all attached!

    • That article [bbc.co.uk] is a little unclear about whether the removed finger was used successfully, or whether they disabled the immobiliser first before stripping and maiming the guy.
    • A cold finger shouldn't be usable, and that will keep them all attached!
      So the bad guys will keep it in a thermos full of hot water until it needs to be used. Problem solved.

      Seriously, though, the point that most people seem to be missing here is that your biometric identification information (fingerprint, retinal scan, iris scan, etc.) has to be stored somewhere. If it's stored somewhere, it can conceivably be accessed and altered illicitly, allowing acces to unauthorized parties. I believe most atta
      • Well, not necessarily true. A good system would store the result of a one-way hash function run on some quantifiable aspect (the distances and azimuths between places where lines converge, etc.) of the fingerprint, that way the original biometric data couldn't be reconstructed if the database were compromised. The actual "fingerprint" would only go between the scanner and the microcontroller performing the hash function.

        I'm not saying that your fingerprint couldn't be stolen, just that there are systems y

      • So the bad guys will keep it in a thermos full of hot water until it needs to be used. Problem solved.
        `Dammit, his finger's gone all pruny in the thermos! Guess we'll have to go get another one.'

    • A cold finger shouldn't be usable, and that will keep them all attached!

      No it won't. All it would do is make the fingerprint systems a pain in the ass to use in cold weather (and unusable by smokers, the elderly, and all the other people with blood circulation problems). To defeat it, OTOH, you'd just have to warm the chopped off finger (on a warm surface or in your hand or armpit or whatever) before applying it to the scanner...

      A bit icky, yes, but I think we can safely assume that the person who's capab

    • Re:Be careful with biometrics! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by kebes ( 861706 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @03:51PM (#12195283) Journal
      This is one of the problems with biometrics. I would rather someone steal my bank card and demand to know my PIN, rather than having them cut off my hand or cut out my eye.

      For every countermeasure there is a counter-countermeasure. If heat sensors are included, thieves will just use a lighter (or whatever) to warm a finger before using it. I've often thought that retinal scanners should check to see if blood is actually flowing in the veins/arteries in the retina, but this is not (currently) feasible I think. If this countermeasure existed, then no doubt someone would figure out a way to beat it (artificially flowing liquid through a detached eye sounds complicated, but you could probably fool the sensor by casting moving shadows on the back of a detached eye, thereby simulating the proper pulsating effect of veins...). I've also thought that eye-scanners that use the iris pattern instead of retinal pattern could emit a flash of light and monitor the rate at which the pupil contracts. This would be proof that the eye is alive (since it reacts) and could even perhaps guard against people being drugged or stressed. Again, however, I worry that someone would overcome it.

      The exact form of the criminal's counter-countermeasure of course depends on how the device works, but eventually they'll figure out how to beat it. Now, a technological escalation on cracking encryption or snooping network traffic is one thing... but when it comes to biometrics, it puts peoples lives in danger. So perhaps we should rethink this whole biometric thing. Is my car or bank account really worth so much that I'm willing to endanger my hand or eye???
      • Good points. But I'd say that most criminals wouldn't go so far as to chop someone's fingers off or remove their eye -- most don't even go to the trouble of stealing the bank card.

        All they have to do is point a gun at you and say "let's go to the ATM". In fact, I'd say that biometrics makes it likely that the overall fear is reduced to one of "I could lose my finger" vs. "I could lose my life" vs. "I could lose my life, and my corpse would lack a finger". And then there's the fourth option, "I could just g
        • I'd love to see some numbers on that. To me, it just defies logic that a mugger would prefer to act that way.

          Every ATM account jackpotting I know of involves cloning card and catching PIN numbers. Having someone actually take you to the ATM is maximizing the chance that somebody will notice that something is amiss - especially when you're having that person take you to a spot that is frequently visited (like an ATM).

          And asking the person for their PIN is silly - everyone is capable of saying four numbers
          • Actually, they will just wait nearby and mug you when you leave the ATM with cash in hand. Or stand behind you, show a gun or knife, say "withdraw $1000", take it from you and go away. No need to be fancy in playing a kidnapper with a hostage...

        • two strikes.... (Score:1, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward
          ..and you are out. These two and three strikes and you get life laws that a lot of states have now have upped the ultraviolence potential of muggers, house burglars, car jackers, etc. If they know if they get caught for their second or third offense and will receive life, they are now just as apt to conk you on the head after they milked the atm machine dry of your cash. Finger or no finger biometrics, that's the reality on the ground now. Look at how many quick store employees just get shot right off the b
          • ..and you are out. These two and three strikes and you get life laws that a lot of states have now have upped the ultraviolence potential of muggers, house burglars, car jackers, etc. ...

            Of course, there's option #5 a lot of us have now, it's called being armed and trained and ready to use it. Works a charm in a lot of situations.
            Ya know, if the problem is that the three strikes laws have upped the violence of the perpetrators, wouldn't it make more sense to repeal the three strikes laws, rather than tur
      • I've often thought that retinal scanners should check to see if blood is actually flowing in the veins/arteries in the retina, but this is not (currently) feasible I think.

        They didn't have it in Minority Report, so I doubt they'd have it now.

      • I've often thought that retinal scanners should check to see if blood is actually flowing in the veins/arteries in the retina, but this is not (currently) feasible I think.

        Actually, if there's no blood to inflate the vessels in the retina, the scanner will not be able to see them. In addition, the shape of the eye changes when removed from the head. Retinal scans of dead eyes simple do not work. Iris scans are a little "better" in this respect, but I've read that the eye changes enough that scanning a

      • Actually, stealing an eye is a stupid idea if all you need is the image. A good hi-res picture behind some lenses that imitate the eye, and you're done.
        Stealing fingerprints is even easier. You won't even need the victim to look into the camera, just pick them from whatever...
    • Alright, but what about when my evil twin brother tries to rob me blind?
      • Contrary to myth (i.e.: television shows), twins do not have identical fingerprints (or retinal patterns, etc.). They have identical DNA, but the patterns on your fingers are developmental. Twins have very similar fingerprints, but the exact curves depend on exactly how a person matured in the womb, and are thus distinct and distinguishable even for twins. Identical twins will have different birth marks and so forth.

        So in reality, if a biometric scan is supposed to prevent the 6 billion other people on ear
    • One hot water bath later, and whoops, the finger is warm again.

    • Re:Be careful with biometrics! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by HermanAB ( 661181 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @05:04PM (#12195684)
      So, what about cold countries. I once walked into the bank and could not sign my name - my hands were too cold. So, they just laughed and carried on without a signature.
    • So, in the future fingerprint scanners will check for heat, pulse, whatever. You know that, i know that. The robber who just cut off your finger will learn it soon, but your finger is still cut off.
    • So microwave ovens is something that happened to someone else...?

      Quarter of a finger... I reckon about 15 seconds, with about 10 for the meat to rest. Not something Jamie Oliver will ever teach you, but it might be a recipir for bypassing a few tests.

      You need to check for Pulse, temperature, pressure varience, revoaction (yes you need to know if someone has called the police to say they lost their finger, or eye),and also moisture i.e conductive charateristics, secondary factor controls such as a pin numb
    • > All Linux biometrics should look for HEAT in
      > addition to regular biometrics (ie, fingerprint),
      > so that something like this doesn't happen

      That will only make sure that detatched fingers will be kept warm, or be heated before use. The street method would be to either use the finger right after detatching it, or to stick it into the mouth a few minutes before using it. I know this sounds akward, but its low-tech (no tools required) and will work.

  • I think ever since seeing the classic sci-fi series http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/classic/blakes7/ [bbc.co.uk]Blake's 7 as a kid the idea of biometric locks has filled me with dread.

    There is a scene where the protagonists try to persuade the guard they have over powered to put his hand on the sensor to open the door so they can progress their escape. Naturally he is not helping.

    Then Gan says to him: Look, we only need the hand. If you want to stay attached to it, do as you're told.

    Strangely enough, instant compliance

  • Exploring linux/biometrics in 2000... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 10, 2005 @03:50PM (#12195273)
    ... and trying to locate a PAM implementation was ridiculous. The vendors had locked into MS, and completely ignored the huge Solaris/Unix situation; government for example. When visiting with the Biometrics people in several research institutions, they gave me a dumb look when I asked about open source of a PAM, and it was all about Windows. Duh. Sun was extremely tight-lipped as they apparently were keeping that market as an opportunity for themselves.

    I did find some odd threads of software activity, such as Univ. of Michigan, but that all seemed to go nowhere or die out; maybe they were all sucked up by the NSA? or the Banking industry?

    I'm sure this site will draw more open interest.
  • ....biometrics were supposed to keep doors CLOSED? :)

  • Biometric is kinda fine (Score:3, Interesting)

    by vadim_t ( 324782 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @03:53PM (#12195292) Homepage
    But only when not used for anything important.

    For example, at a small company they're installing a biometric thingy to keep track of when people enter and exit. It looks like the biometric sensor will be used as a replacement of the username, and still require a password.

    Now, using it for something seriously important, such as ATMs is definitely a very bad idea.

  • Open's doors? (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Did those doors have biometric security systems?

  • Give time for a really good endemic/pandemic of a really nasty, contact-dependant communicable bug, and hand-based biometrics are going to look like a bad idea real quickly.

    Think SARS panic plus these stupid hand/fingerprint scanners.

    At the University of Georgia, they already have such systems set up for access into the dining halls, dorms, and the rec facility. Thank God on the other side of those hand scanners there's usually a hand-sanitizer dispenser. If it weren't for that, I can only imagine how muc

    • Give time for a really good endemic/pandemic of a really nasty, contact-dependant communicable bug, and hand-based door handles, sink taps and money are going to look like bad ideas real quickly.

      Some experiments have found that public toilet wash basins are often full of more germs than the actual crapper.

    • Re:Hand-based biometrics and public health (Score:4, Insightful)

      by kebes ( 861706 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @05:21PM (#12195767) Journal
      Unless you avoid ever touching a doorknob or hand-rail, I don't see what difference this makes. Common surfaces are everywhere. We all touch them all the time. Sometimes we catch something from a common surface. Adding a palm scanner to the mix doesn't increase the risk of transmission.

      • Unless you avoid ever touching a doorknob or hand-rail, I don't see what difference this makes. Common surfaces are everywhere. We all touch them all the time. Sometimes we catch something from a common surface. Adding a palm scanner to the mix doesn't increase the risk of transmission.

        ???

        Adding a single surface every person must touch daily, without gloves does not increase the risk of transmitting an illness? You are making the logical fallacy of relational equivalence. e.g. "I had sex without a condo

  • Biometrics are more trouble than they're worth. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by LokieLizzy ( 858962 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @04:09PM (#12195384)
    The risk of losing an eye or a limb to a hardened criminal determined to access my personal information far outweighs whatever security such a system might offer. If such a person attacked you in the middle of the night, which would you rather do? Give them your PIN and wallet full of cash and credit cards, or try to find a way out of the situation when they realize that the only way they're going to get your company secrets/bank account is if they lop off your index finger or scoop out your eye with a knife?

    If you'd choose door number two, then you're a far stranger man than I'll ever be.

    If you're working in a business where you absolutely need the best security for whatever you're doing, then you'd better be prepared to pay top-dollar for loyal bodyguards willing to use lethal force to keep you alive.

  • I for one welcome our new Wesley-Snipes-with-my-eyeball-on-a-fork overlords!

  • Use of biometrics (Score:3, Interesting)

    by the grace of R'hllor ( 530051 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @04:48PM (#12195597)
    Biometrics as a security measure has its drawbacks, mainly because some people will not worry too much over cutting off a victim's finger. But there are other areas where biometric identification can apply.

    I could imagine getting pain or sleeping medication in a secure container that checked your fingerprint, and distributed the appropriate dosage only to the correct individual, for example. This would prevent someone swallowing the all the pills in the bottle (ie., attempted suicide), or giving medication to someone who shouldn't have it (painkillers and sleeping pills can become addictive, and some people ask 'friends' for them). Return the container to get your new dose.

    To get really fancy, install a screamer circuit that alerts the local pharmacist or housedoctor when the container is breached; this would require a widely and cheaply available wireless network, though.

    While this may technically be 'security', it's unlikely people will cut off fingers to get through it.
  • I've been looking for a year now, nothing free that will compile on a modern system, and I'm too much of an ijit to write anything like that...
  • Linux Biometrics Site Opens Doors

    So, flickerfly [mailto]/ Zonk [slashdot.org], pun intended, right? :-)
    +1 funny.

  • Ok, so that site uses a password?!
  • I'm liking the idea of having to use my fingerprint to use my Fedora Toaster 0.37 Maybe also include this for MMORPG login screens - "Place thumb on login pad. Authorizing... Welcome, be0wulf13!"

  • Microsoft Finger Print Reader - Working (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I would love to get my Microsoft Finger Print scanner working. There are the mice and keyboard combo. I have the standalone unit. It would be nice to have it working under linux. Setup GDM, KDM to use this device for sign in on a linux box.
  • Biometrics are good at identification (= capability of differentiating between a set of individuals) but weak at authentification (= capability of certifying that an individual really is who he pretends to be). They are a good ide wherever you would use a "login". They are a bad idea wherever you would use a "password".

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