Home Secretary Requests Fingerprint-Activated iPods

John Reid, Home Secretary, has called upon tech manufacturers to improve the security on their gadgets to help with his recent push to frustrate criminals. Inviting Apple, Sony, and several others to his crime fighting summit Reid hopes to attack the rising robbery numbers in the most recent Home Office figures.

Brilliant!

[grape jelly]

...because nobody would ever find the owner's fingerprint in their home!

This is yet another case of legislation coming up with the wrong solution to the right problem.

Simple Solution...

[nick_davison]

A user activatable but then non-reversible lock that requires your iPod to check in with Apple every time it syncs to ensure its serial number isn't on a list of stolen ones. Then provide a means to access any/all serial numbers you have registered to you and lock them down.

If you don't want your iPod tied to to needing a net connection to sync, don't enable the feature. If you want to know that anyone who mugs you for it gets a worthless lump of metal and plastic - and you're fine with the trade off - turn it on.

It doesn't even need to be that universally used to take a bite out of crime. If people quickly learn the $50 iPods guys in the pub offer them (which, let's face it, they know are stolen but think they're getting a great deal and so don't care) may well not work, they're not going to hand over the $50. You don't have to disable every last stolen one to make buying a stolen one enough of a gamble that people stop doing it and thus they stop being desirable to steal.

Yes, it would become a potential pain for retailers who accept returns but a simple app could let retailers check the iPod hadn't been locked down before accepting returns. Given Apple "authorizes" retailers, this would give them a finite list of people to distribute it to and increase the value of being an authorized retailer.

Re:Why?

[lawpoop]

Basically it's to gear up the public to be accepting to fingerprint scanning as part of everyday life. You don't need a fingerprint scanner on an iPod. Same reason they're putting RFID chips in credit cards and passports -- to get people so used to them, there will be no problem when they want to implant them in our hand.

Remember, the Total Information Awareness project [wikipedia.org] is alive and thumpin' !

Re:Useless

[Marillion]

The iPod video has a security feature. You can set a PIN code on it to lock it. Re-enter the PIN to unlock. If for some reason you "forget" the pin code, docking the iPod to its "Home" computer will unlock it the iPod.

Re:Revokation of Biometrics

[dragonsomnolent]

As an interesting note, some of these fingerprint scanners aren't all that accurate. My boss used a fingerprint scanner in one of my co-worker's laptop, and it logged my boss in as my co-worker.

Oooh I wanna see this discussion

[mikerich]

Steve Jobs - easily the most stubborn man in high tech meets our alcoholic, belligerent, bullying Minister of the Interior.

At last, Dr. (economics (Marxist ones at that)) John Reid will come up against someone every bit as awkward as him - although unlike Reid, Steve Jobs sounds like he knows what he's talking about.

Apple and Sony will tell Dr. Demento that they don't make their products in the UK, nor do they design their products in the UK and that the UK only represents a tiny part of their market so they see no need to burden themselves with additional costs just so that John Reid can bolster his chances of leading a clapped out Labour Party by looking tough on crime.

I just hope Steve Jobs is a little more blunt about it and shows Reid just where he can stick a music player in order to deter thieves.

Product Registration used for theft reporting?

[Se7enLC]

How about we use that serial number for some good?

Each iPod makes a connection to the computer and iTunes. Why not have it report its serial number? If your iPod is stolen, you can just report it as stolen and it should render it useless. Would not be very hard for apple to at least institute a list of stolen iPod serial numbers? As it stands, they do nothing about it. I bet that if I stole somebodys iPod I could then go to apple support, register it, and send it back to apple for repairs, no questions asked.