MythBusters Fingerprints Busted
Why Information Security Stack Exchange recommends it
Security Stack Exchange users link it as a quick, concrete example that fingerprint scanners can be fooled with a copied print, usually when arguing that biometrics should not be the only authentication factor.
Recommended by 0 people across 0 different months, 2011 to 2023.
What it is
A short clip from the Discovery Channel show MythBusters in which the hosts try to defeat a commercial fingerprint scanner. They lift a latent print and turn it into a fake gel fingerprint that the reader accepts. The upload is a 2008 re-post of the TV segment.
What people said
Cites rook · 2011-08 · Information Security Stack Exchange · on “Why do we even use passwords / passphrases next to biometrics?”
Systems can fail , so you need a defense in depth approach. Bio-metric security systems rely upon fuzzing matching [LINK] . They can suffer from whats called a type-II error [LINK] , which means an attacker is successfully authenticated. Also Mythbusters has hacked it [this video] . (and they aren't the only ones.)
Cites blunders · 2012-02 · Information Security Stack Exchange · on “Are fingerprint scanners easy to bypass?”
Thinking about adding a fingerprint based authentication layer, but then I recalled the MythBusters beat fingerprint security system episode [this video] -- is this a common issue, and if not, how do you tell if a fingerprint authentication system is easy or hard to bypass?
Cites mikeazo · 2012-02 · Information Security Stack Exchange · on “Are fingerprint scanners easy to bypass?”
Fingerprints can be viewed as a fuzzy source of data. Given the same finger, a reader might never read exactly the same print. That is why most readers require the user to scan a finger multiple times during the registration phase. During the authentication phase, the system tries to determine if the scan it just acquired is "close enough" to the trained data to allow access. This leads to two problems. Remote authentication Keeping biometric private Remote Authentication Assume I keep my biometric private (we'll deal with that problem later). Can I give another party enough information to correctly authenticate me without requiring them to store enough information to impersonate me (i.e., i
Cites Jarrod Sears · 2023-10 · Information Security Stack Exchange · on “Can fingerprint readers be trusted?”
I'd hope fingerprint scanners are better than they used to be. Mythbusters was able to beat a computer finger print scanner just starting with a latent and making a gel fingerprint. [this video]