Hacker News Reader

Comment by rothbardrand | Hacker News Reader

Fingerprints are better passwords than no password.

And the hassle of entering even a 4 digit numeric PIN was what Apple was trying to overcome.

Too many people were leaving their phones completely unlocked all the time.

It's irrational, but I'm not going to use a security measure that increases the likelihood a malicious actor removes my finger.

1. Then you have the option not to use it, and always will (biometrics are used to augment passwords, not replace them).

2. Using passwords as a security measure increases the likelihood that a malicious actor will beat them out of you with a five-dollar wrench (and this does not mean that passwords are a bad idea).

The iPhone has a liveness test as part of its biometric.

I wonder if the finger cutter knows that...

Maybe the first one won't, but the next time they most definitely will. Stealing a phone is one thing, cutting someone's finger is another risk-wise. So if you have to dramatically increase the potential penalty for getting caught, you'll make sure it actually works before doing it repeatedly, and this kind of info is shared among thugs

If someone is willing to cut off your finger to access your device, that means they have access to you and the device and the means to convince you to unlock it.

Cutting off someones finger to access their phone is like using high explosives to blow up a door you can easily kick open. Criminals actually don't want to get caught.

Seriously the amount of fingers cutted since the introduction of iPhone 5s amount certainly to zero or we would have heard the information buzzing around on all cheap news networks almost immediately.

So I'm pretty confident now that this argument is moot by now.

Yet we still don't have enough mileage to determine if face peeling will be a more likely issue with iPhoneX. But I could bet that "face offing" relatively is not more likely than finger cutting...

But it certainly was the reason why Mercedes stopped using thumbprints for cars in Asia. The thiefs just cut off the finger.

Sources for that?

If a malicious actor will cut off your finger, he'll also put a gun to your head and demand the password... which you will no doubt give him.

And it's much easier to point a gun and demand the password.

The psychological detachment required to cut off a finger significantly lowers the number of criminals that will unlock your phone against your will.

I have some important stuff on my phone, but not important enough to give up a finger.

When the bolt cutters come out they are in. Sue me.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com