Topic: The government wants your fingerprint to unlock your phone. Should it be allowed - page 2. (Read 1030 times)

https://www.rt.com/uk/342199-gchq-change-password-often/

Don't change your passwords too often, UK intelligence says

A dead finger won't work with Apple ID.

maybe that will make your phone more secure, but it's risky. if someone saves very important data on his phone, maybe country's data, there will be robbers who want to steal that data. so the robbers may cut the owner's finger to get his fingerprint, just like in the movies 

Was looking a bit more into it. In most cases people are protected in the us too as you say. But not always: https://www.eff.org/issues/know-your-rights#39

"You do not have to hand over your encryption keys or passwords to law enforcement.

The Fifth Amendment protects you from being forced to give the government self-incriminating testimony. Courts have generally accepted that telling the government a password or encryption key is “testimony.” A police officer cannot force or threaten you into giving up your password or unlocking your electronic devices. However, a judge or a grand jury may be able to force you to decrypt your devices in some circumstances. Because this is a legally complicated issue, if you find yourself in a situation where the police, a judge or grand jury are demanding you turn over encryption keys or passwords, you should let EFF know right away and seek legal help."


And http://www.cnet.com/news/man-charged-for-refusing-to-give-up-phone-passcode-to-canadian-border-agents/

"The EFF's senior staff attorney Hanni Fakhoury pointed me to the fact that at the US borders "the standards for search and seizure are relaxed." Agents need neither a warrant nor individualized suspicion to search your devices. He did say, however, that the Ninth Court of Appeals had held that border agents must have a "reasonable suspicion" in order to insist on a "forensic examination." Fakhoury told me: "It's unclear what 'forensic examination' means."

Wonder how relaxed reasonable suspicion standards are too.

Yep, I remember that UK is a land of contradictions... These guys are preaching a lot about freedom, while their own state is run by a totalitarian regime under the guise of faked parliamentarism, without any kind of legal protection of privacy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

In fact, any civilized country has very similar legal framework, which protects its citizen from any attempts of forced self-incrimination. Fortunately, I'm not the UK citizen, here in Russia nobody is obliged to testify against himself, the same is correct for the US as well.

Are you sure about that? Not exactly the same but for example in the uk you have to give passwords and encryption keys if they ask. For anything they think is encrypted even if it is not. Or face years in jail. Not sure the us has something like that if they claim national security or something. But there are some situations police or judges can force you to. In many other countries it is the same.

Generally, verification of either fingerprint or iris is nothing but additional method of authentication. Samsung Galaxy, for example, doesn't allow you to log in through fingerprint verification in case if you have mistaken few times, or if you haven't used it for longer than 24 hours. Password will be requested in these situations.

So, access to copies of the biometric data is not enough, you also need either password or an exclusive access to internal details about hardware. Which is unavailable for US branches of Samsung, HTC, ... themselves, since they have no idea how these chips are working. Unfortunately for clowns in the government, these chips weren't made in the USA.

Personally, i will never use this feature as are to many cracks in the system. It needs to by something you don't have control of, Like an atom which can't be duplicated.

That can be a problem due to lack of public access to hardware specifications. But I won't be surprised to see such functionality in the custom firmware for android devices. I wouldn't expect that for samsung devices due to their copyright policy, but it's possible for less restrictive phones such as HTC production.

https://plus.google.com/+ParanoidAndroidCorner/posts

No one is obliged to testify against himself. You are not obliged to disclose any details about your hardware and software, it is their work to find out such functionality before going to try anything. They're paid from your taxes to do so. So, you haven't destroyed anything, it was all their fault. It's funny but you can issue a lawsuit against them, in order to compensate your moral and financial damage.

You need to share with us that neat trick and on what OS this would work. Also if they know you've destroyed evidence that would be a criminal act in America, not sure about Russia.

It won't go too far since these fools can be tricked to destroy the data, because they don't know which finger exactly you are using to unlock your phone. For example, middle finger can be used for real unlocking while thumb will only simulate successful unlocking through revealing some false data set and destroying all the real data without giving any messages.

[...]
The Glendale case and others like it are forcing courts to address a basic question: How far can the government go to obtain biometric markers such as fingerprints and hair?

The U.S. Supreme Court has held that police can search phones with a valid warrant and compel a person in custody to provide physical evidence such as fingerprints without a judge's permission.

But some legal experts say there should be a higher bar for biometric data because providing a fingerprint to open a digital device gives the state access to a vast trove of personal information and could be a form of self-incrimination.

"It isn't about fingerprints and the biometric readers," said Susan Brenner, a law professor at the University of Dayton who studies the nexus of digital technology and criminal law, but rather, "the contents of that phone, much of which will be about her, and a lot of that could be incriminating."


http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-iphones-fingerprints-20160430-story.html