Hacker News Reader

Comment by wedn3sday | Hacker News Reader

As someone that does a lot of rock climbing, no finger print readers work for me. I lose skin off my hands on a daily basis, I know not all products are made for all people but if my (extremely security conscious) employer ever implements something like this Im screwed.

View on HN

You get flappers on your first pads or what? I'm also a climber and impressed with how consistently fingerprint login works on my phone no matter how much I climb.

I don't climb rocks and my finger is recognized maybe 50% to 75% from my phone and only under good circumstances. If they are wet or dirty forget it.

There are probably just different recognition technologies around and my phone probably uses a very cheap one.

Personally I don't really care about biometric protections, because they can very often with more or less effort be copied and faked and once they are leaked, you cannot change them easily yourself.

You’d be screwed because your employer would fire you because their fingerprint reader-based security does not work for you?

That's what nfc cards are for

You can pass the NFC card, which is different from biometric. Unless you mean implants?

Someone needs to commercialize unique artificial fingertips. Use them to register with your Yubikey or phone :)

My experience is that using Argan oil right after climbing solves this for the next day. The combination of a nights rest and Argan oil almost always does the trick. The times it did not work was when I had a more serious skin injury.

Have you tried using your thumbprints? For me, they never fail to unlock my phone when the other fingers do. OTHO, I only climb plastic so YMMV.

I'm rock climbing as well and I devleoped a similar biometric token for my company, my experience is that the thumb works best, as you usually don't use your thumb a lot for rock climbing compared to the other 4 fingertips

How does your employer handle people with no hands?

In the US, by abiding by federal law which mandates reasonable accommodation; able rock climbers categorically need not apply.

You'll have company-provided proof that the lack of fingerprints can be overcome with reasonable accommodation. Feels like that should be grounds to mount a (moral, at least) defense, but I'm no lawyer.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com