Comment by endorphone | Hacker News Reader

Comment by endorphone | Hacker News Reader

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Samsung always seems to me as if they race to match any iPhone feature–but never more than skin-deep

Firstly, any biometric technique can be beaten. Against a known, committed foe, it is almost impossible to defend with surety. And for that matter, who can't obtain the pin code of any other user given a short amount of time and focused attention? The notion that "if someone takes an IR high resolution, close photo of your iris they can defeat your security" is asinine given that the same people could obtain your pin in a million and one ways.

These mechanisms are to induce users to use some security, and the primary defense is against lost or stolen phones, making it convenient enough that it isn't disabled.

Secondly, how did this somehow turn into yet another Royal Apple spiel? Aside from the easy beatability of the Apple fingerprint sensor, why wouldn't you compare the fingerprint sensor on a Samsung?

> ...if someone takes an IR high resolution, close photo of your iris they can defeat your security...

There are commercial security products that regularly perform "IR high resolution" iris scans from several meters away and require no cooperation from the target. Stanley CSS sold one that sat on top of a doorway over five years ago, their product literature says that you need to look at it - but having demoed it myself, I can say that is not true.

Have any real security researchers have tried to analyze and break this one?

Until CCC approves your CSS I will consider it insecure.

You've misunderstood my point, which is that distant iris data collection from non-cooperative subjects is so easy now that vendors are selling solutions pretty cheaply. So using it for security, without additional checks in place, is like walking around with your pin written on your forehead.

Lots are broken

https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2015/03/05/clone...

Samsung always half-asses their new features. They are so desperate to be first to market or to make a splash they rarely take the time to make it work well. It's my biggest frustration with Samsung, they have the resources and market position to take the long view and give their teams more time to polish, but never do.

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