Fingerprint Payment System Gets Financing

prostoalex writes to tell us Yahoo! News is reporting that Pay By Touch, an electronic payments startup that connects your fingerprint to your wallet, has received an additional $130 million in financing to move forward with their biometric payment system.

Which Finger?

[NtroP]

I have a chronic problem with the skin of my thumbs and occasionally my index finger. Do I get to choose and alternate finger? Multiple fingers?

Wait a while

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Don't sign up for this right away. Wait a while for the bugs to get worked out, and for the early adopters to get robbed blind. Only when the bugs worked out should anyone who is technically literate sign up for this.

Re:Oh, great.

[turg]

Now, thieves will cut the fingers off people they mug.

Oh, yeah. The thief will just take the severed finger into the grocery store and use it right in front of the clerk. That'll work real well.

Seriously, though, there are biometric devices that confirm whether the finger is the correct temperature.

Thanks for the fingerprint!

[game kid]

Thanks for giving me your fingerprint.

Well, you had to, to give us your 2 cents...

I'd be OK with the whole idea if it would never be made mandatory for payments...

Re:Unreliable

[utnow]

I can think of at least one thing that would make the system a bit more secure.

When you sign up to use the system, they scan all 10 of your fingers. You assign one (one per hand?) of them as the proper finger(s), and the remaining fingers serve as ALERT fingers. So assuming (like in your scenario) someone is standing over you with a gun you can proceed with the payment (or whatever) as usual (aka, you don't get shot), and the athorities can be alerted that you're in a 'situation'. Just use the wrong finger. Since you set your own 'correct' finger, the guy/gal won't know you've done anything, and will at least think twice before putting a gun to your head and telling you to do it. They can't just cut them all off and try them all since the chance of scanning the wrong ones is too high (8 or 9 out of 10) unless they watch you do it before approaching you. I'm rambling... you get the picture. 3