The iPhone5S launch features a new fingerprint sensor built into the home button to lock
and unlock your phone.
nine million have already been shipped in just a week and Americans are reportedly set
up their phone to be unlocked using their tongues, cat's paws and in some cases their
nipples which doesn't sound very practical.
But you would think using your fingerprint to secure your phone which would be a really
smart solution.
However within a day of the product launching an organisation in Germany called the Chaos
Computer Club claimed that they hacked Apple's touch ID system.
So how did they go about doing this?
Is it a hard thing to do?
Well fingerprinting itself or Dactyloscopy which is not easy to say and is worth 25 points
in scrabble is actually a really good way of identifying people,
it's better even than DNA which is shared of course by identical twins.
There have been no two people found with an identical fingerprint.
And the statistics suggest that there is a 1 in 64 billion chance of having the same
fingerprint as somebody else.
Now most of our body is covered in smooth skin, but it's just our hands and our feet
that have ridges over the entire surface and that's thought to be to help the sense of
touch, the feel of friction, but also to help us
grip things.
And these ridges actually form in the womb, so up until about 20 weeks, as we grow fingers
and nails the skin is forming these ridges, and at 20 weeks it's fixed and those patters
stay with us for the rest of our lives.
So if you were to look at your fingertips, your finger print, you would likely see one
of three patterns.
Firstly you might see an arch which is an undulation in the ridges, secondly you might
see a loop and the loop might veer off towards your thumb or slightly of towards your little
finger.
And the third feature to look for is a spiral or a whorl, it's spelt WHORL.
So if it's so hard to map and to see your finger is so complicated, how did these guys
in Germany manage to hack the system?
Well they didn't chop anybody's finger off and Apple are being very very careful to make
sure the technology wouldn't work if you tried that.
What they did do was manage to get hold of an image of somebody's fingerprint.
Now what they say, their method, their claim is as follows.
If you get hold of an image you need to scan it or take an image at a very high resolution
at 2400dpi, you then take the image and pass it through something like photoshop, clean
it up, and invert the image, and then you need to print it at 1200dpi on a lazier printer
with a very high toner thickness.
If you print that on an acetate or something with a shiny finish, you then as a final step
paint that with a latex or a PVA glue or something that will set rubbery, leave it to dry, leave
it to set and then peel it off and you'll have the undulations, the curve of the original
print, if you place it on your finger you can then
place it on the phone, and you will unlock the fingerprint sensor.
And this has been shown on a number of videos posted on YouTube by this organisation.
Apple of course are fighting to keep up, I'm sure they will come up with a solution to
that and we will keep our finger on the pulse to make sure we're aware of any development
and we'll bring them to you and we will clean our fingerprints off anything we've touched
in the meantime.
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