Items tagged with biometrics
What is the lowest amount you would sell your personal palm print for to a third-party? Amazon is offering $10 in promotional credit to anyone who scans their palm at a checkout-free store and links it to their Amazon account. In late 2020, the company introduced “Amazon One” as a “free, contactless service that lets you use your palm to pay, enter, or identify yourself.” This works because palm prints are like fingerprints in that everyone’s print is unique. As such, the palm prints can be scanned using Amazon’s “proprietary imaging and computer vision algorithms” to capture an image that is then tied to a user’s Amazon account. While...
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Over the past few years, biometric security solutions have been on the rise, replacing the use of traditional passwords on both mobile devices and the PC. Windows Hello is one such implementation. It allows users to near-instantaneously log onto their machines with their face or fingerprint (or a PIN), and is in wide use today. It's also apparently vulnerable to an exploit that could allow an attacker to bypass facial recognition on a Windows PC. Any vulnerability is concerning because of Windows Hello's massive footprint—Microsoft's telemetry suggests the vast majority of Windows 10 users (85 percent) use Windows Hello. Because it is so widely used, security researchers at CyberArk Labs...
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Amazon is currently training a bunch of psychics, who will then license their talents to businesses across the US to read people's palms to determine their future, specifically to see if they pose a security threat. Just kidding! There will be no psychic readings, but the retail giant is rolling out Amazon One, which is basically a palm reader. Palm as in your hand, and not the defunct PDA maker, by the way. In case you are wondering, no, Amazon's palm reader will not tell you if you are going to be lucky in love and fortune, or anything of the sort. Rather, Amazon One is a biometric security solution, enabling a "fast, convenient, contactless way for people to use their palm to make everyday...
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Scientists from the University of California San Diego have created the ultimate contact lens. The new contacts seem like something straight out of science fiction, as they are able to zoom in on your surrounding with the blink of an eye. Perhaps we should say more accurately; with a double-blink of the eye. The soft contact lenses are capable of measuring what's called the electrooculographic signal of each eye, and can in turn use those signals to manipulate the contact lens. According to Shengqiang Cai, who serves as the lead researcher on the project, electric signals are generated from specific eye movements (such as looking up/down or left/right). In this instance, the researchers are using...
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Apple is trying out a new way to login to your iCloud account using either Face ID or Touch ID. Both will be welcome login options for users of iCloud, and to use either of the new login methods user devices must be running the iOS 13, iPadOS 13, or MacOS Catalina beta offerings. For users with devices on one of those beta operating systems, they can head to beta.icloud.com to sign into iCloud using one of the two popular biometric options. When the web address mentioned above is visited on devices running the beta operating systems, a pop-up will be delivered that asks if users would like to sign-in to their Apple ID using biometrics. For iPhones with Face ID, that is the method that will be...
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Biometric security measures are improving all the time, though they are not infallible. This is demonstrated on the recently launched OnePlus 7 Pro. It has a fingerprint sensor that is embedded in the full-front display, and with a little bit of glue and a few minutes of time, it can be easily thwarted. Well, sort of. The process itself is rather simple. It basically entails creating a rudimentary mold of a fingerprint using aluminum foil, a dab of hot glue, and a little bit of Elmer's glue. It's a cheap hack, in other words, albeit an effective one on the OnePlus 7 Pro. Incidentally, the same method was proven to work on the previous generation OnePlus 6T. YouTube channel Max Tech demonstrated...
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There were many people in the U.S. crying foul when it was revealed that law enforcement had a man unlock his iPhone using Face ID, since the man couldn't be compelled to unlock a device secured with a passcode. Constitutionally guaranteed protections that are given to a person to prevent them from self-incrimination weren't extended to biometric devices like facial recognition and fingerprint scanners. A federal judge has now stepped up and issued a ruling that greatly changes the landscape for law enforcement and those accused of a crime. The U.S. federal judge has ruled that the police can't force a person to unlock their iPhone or Android device that is secured with Face ID, Touch ID, or...
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When it comes to 3D facial recognition technology, Apple beat Samsung to the punch with the iPhone X and its Face ID feature. However, there has been chatter that Samsung will implement a similar feature into its next generation Galaxy handset, presumably the Galaxy S10 and/or the Galaxy S10+. Lending some credibility to the rumors is the discovery of a patent application that covers the necessary technology for this type of biometric security. The patent application was approved by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) late in the second quarter of 2018, according to Patently Apple. It lays out the details for a biometric camera that can be integrated into a mobile device and...
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Law enforcement officials found a way to unlock a murder victim's Samsung Galaxy S6 by using specially printed copies of fingerprints on file from a previous conviction. It wasn't easy thwarting Samsung's biometric security, but with the help of Anil Jain, a professor of computer science and engineering at Michigan State University, the detectives assigned to the case were ultimately successful in tricking the phone's fingerprint recognition.It took several tries and pricey equipment for this to work. The detectives brought the phone and a copy of the victim's fingerprints to Jain with the hope that by unlocking the handset, they'd discover clues about who killed him. Jain, along with doctoral...
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Microsoft had plenty to say about Windows 10 during its Build Conference on Wednesday. One of them is that its latest OS is now installed on more than 270 million active devices, an adoption rate that outpaces Windows 7 in the same time frame by 145 percent. That's impressive, but 270 million installs is far from the end game—Microsoft is eyeing 1 billion installs within the next few years. The Redmond outfit will need to continually improve Windows 10 in order to get there, and come this summer, the Windows 10 Anniversary Update will introduce several nifty features to keep those upgrades from tapering off. Part of the focus with the Windows 10 Anniversary Update is on biometric security. According...
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Fingerprint scanning is quickly becoming a standard security feature on high-end smartphones. The perceived notion is that this type of biometric safeguard provides a superior means of security due to the unique patterns of everyone's fingers, but a new study and experiment conducted by researchers at Michigan State University shows that fingerprint scanning can be thwarted with a simple inkjet printer. Say what now? As rudimentary as that sounds, the researchers demonstrated in a video posted to YouTube exactly how this works. They used a color inkjet Brother MFC-J5910DW printer outfitted with three silver conductive ink cartridges and one normal black cartridge to print out fingerprints that...
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Samsung has been using fingerprint scanning as a security measure on several of its devices already, including its Galaxy S5 Mini, Galaxy Alpha, Galaxy Tab S, Galaxy Note 4, and Galaxy Note Edge. However, the implementation on all of those devices is one of a swipe-based sensor. With the release of its next flagship phone, the Galaxy S6, Samsung will reportedly transition to a touch-based fingerprint sensor. The name of the game here is better biometrics. As currently implemented, there just isn't enough surface area on the Home button, which oftentimes can lead to read errors. Registering a finger from multiple angles can help a great deal, though Samsung is finished...
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An association of hackers known as Chaos Computer Club has found a way to reproduce fingerprints by using just a couple of photos of someone's fingers. The group explained its method at the 31st annual Chaos Computer Club convention in Hamburg, Germany, using the thumbprint of German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen as an example. This is an interesting development, as lifting fingerprints no longer requires that a person touch a physical object. Instead, hackers who use this technology can virtually swipe someone's fingerprints at public gatherings just by using a standard photo camera. Image Source: Flickr (Chris Isherwood) "In the past years, it was successfully demonstrated a number...
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You're a unique individual. Not just in the way you look, dress, and act, but also in the way you smell. Don't be offended, we're not saying you smell bad, we're just having a little talk about science. If you didn't have a unique scent, it would be difficult for dogs to track you using their noses, but part of the reason they can do that without getting confused is because of your unique scent. This has prompted researchers at the Polytechnic University of Madrid to focus their attention on a biometric authentication system that can analyze your "personal odor." According to the researchers, there are recognizable patterns to body odor. As part of their study, they found that they could accurately...
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Sony Corporation today announced the development of a finger vein authentication technology called "mofiria." The user-friendly technology offers quick response and high accuracy and comes in a compact size for mounting on mobile devices such as a personal computer or mobile phone.With the increase of networked products and services, a user-friendly interface for personal authentication and higher security of personal information is in great demand.Compared to the other biometric authentication techniques, vein authentication technology achieves higher accuracy on personal identification and forgery resistance because it uses the veins inside the human body. Finger vein patterns differ from person...
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