Home Secretary Requests Fingerprint-Activated iPods 262
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! (Score:5, Interesting)
This is yet another case of legislation coming up with the wrong solution to the right problem.
Revocation (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Brilliant! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Brilliant! (Score:5, Insightful)
Crime is something you deter, not forbid. Slashdotters get used to security being absolute because we work with computers, where we tend to put all of our data eggs in one password basket. Security of physical objects is much more about making it inconvenient, not impossible, to steal something.
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Hah! A plan to sell more meat cleavers... (Score:3, Insightful)
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so that it authenticates the device?
Mythbusters (Score:2)
Just making it harder is enough (Score:2)
The point is that a hot ipod will only get 10% of the retial value from the fence. How much effort will the criminal go to to get $25?
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Just what we want...new tech to add to the device like an iPod, that drives up the size of the unit, the cost of the unit, whilst adding nothing to the primary function of the unit (audio/video playback).
Hey, if someone steals it...it is replaceable.
Frustrate Criminals with DRM and Rootkits... (Score:2, Funny)
Useless (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Useless (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Useless (Score:5, Insightful)
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Has anybody ever considered WHY so many iPods get stolen?
I think it's because people wear them like big flashy pieces of jewelry. I see lots of people with their iPods strapped to their upper arms, prominently attached to their belts, clipped to backpack straps, etc... and of course they all have the telltale white earphones.
We're t
Re:Useless (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Useless (Score:5, Insightful)
What you have to do is make it more trouble to get around the security than the value of the device. So, if you can pin-reset the device, obviously the security measures aren't worth squat. But let's say you have to open the device, and the case is designed to break when that happens. Sure, as a geek you might no mind walking around with the guts of your gadget hanging out, but it does put a crimp on the resale value.
The real problem is figuring out effective security measures that won't bite legitimate users thousand of times more often than they bite thieves.
Manufacturers barely have the capacity to make usable devices as it is. Adding security that will thwart a thief is sure to earn them legions of incensed users.
In any case Homeland Security doesn't really want really secure devices, because one of the unauthorized parties that might want to look at the contents of your device is
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Crimping resale value (Score:2)
If only Apple provided a way to have something like "grahamsz is da c00lest evar" permanantly engraved on my ipod then nobody would want to be seen dead with it (especially not me)....
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Re:Useless (Score:4, Interesting)
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This isn't Homeland Security (U.S. department). This is the Home Secretary (U.K. minister). Unless you really believe that the U.K. is now part of the U.S. that is.
Product Registration used for theft reporting? (Score:3, Interesting)
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 ask
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But, as has been pointed out, no device is truly secure, especially with a thief who really wants your data.
Fingerprint reader = lame. Thermite = cool. (Score:5, Funny)
Well, maybe not security
I propose that we build a small quantity of plastic explosives or thermite into every new portable device. They will take commands from the GSM cellular network and, upon command from the manufacturer, on receiving word from the original purchaser that the device has been stolen, explode/melt and blow/burn pieces of the device into the criminal's (or person who received said stolen property) face/hands/thighs. It will also have the handy side-effect of securely deleting confidential data. We'll just need some laws to indemnify manufacturers and owners from said criminals' lawsuits, and after that, we'll just let the problems work themselves out.
I foresee this having a slight negative impact on the used-equipment-on-eBay market, but overall I think it'll be a good thing.
What could possibly go wrong?
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The issue here is not technology..it is MARKETING!
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Not necessarily. Encrypt the data using some sort of biometric hash of the fingerprint. Don't store the hash or fingerprint at any time. When you need access to the data, you need your fingerprint.
To get around this, you need to either obtain the fingerprint hash, or compromise the device, return it to its owner, and then obtain it again afterwards.
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http://www.spritesmods.com/?art=biostick/ [spritesmods.com] /.
Cracked almost as fast as the previous one which got posted here on
The target audience are all complete laymen who believe in any notion of "secure" with enough PR and handwaving. The market doesn't have a clue and there's no standard.
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It's somewhat like having a lock on your house. Is that going to keep the determined robber out? Of course not; anybody in their right mind would just jump through the window rather than try to crack the lock.
My first floor windows are glass block. Still your point is made.
I fail to see how these would be bad.
Life is a lot harder after some mugger cut off your thumb to use while disabling the security on your iPod. This has already happened with the case of cars with thumb locks. Do you really want to motivate criminals to cut body parts off of you?
No the real danger here is that it will encourage the use of biometrics as a primary security mechanism, an already prevalent trend. Biometrics have "whiz-bang" factor going for them and are all fu
In resoponse to the added security... (Score:5, Insightful)
...thieves have not only been stealing the iPods, but cutting off their victim's fingers as well. Given this new threat, the Home Secretary is calling for iPods controlled by brain waves.
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And as citizens of the USA... (Score:2)
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Off with their heads!
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--
CashCrate [cashcrate.com]: Earn money for filling out surveys/forms, real info not required
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I done what you told me to Morris, but now that 'is 'ead is lopped off, the bloomin' iPod don' work...
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I might have missed something.... (Score:2)
Hey, disarming your citizens is working... (Score:3, Funny)
And the solution is to force vendors to give the government more tools to monitor you!
Oh, wait, you aren't citizens, but subjects. Your rights are privileges granted by the monarch, and so can be revoked at the pleasure of the government.
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Nice try [wikipedia.org]
Maybe all that crime is in Scotland and N. Ireland (Score:2)
... because it doesn't seem to be in England and Wales.
You wrote: "Doesn't change the fact that, by trampling on individual rights to self defense, Blair et al have increased, rather than decreased, crime." But the crime rate seems to have been headed downward since the mid-1990s, with a slight uptick in 2006.
Crime Statistics for England and Wales [crimestatistics.org.uk]
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As opposed to the US, where your rights are granted by the Constitution, yet can be ignored at the pleasure of the President? Not a very convincing way to win an argument, my friend. :-)
Home run (Score:2)
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More to the point, it seems like John Reid has been getting a lot of attention lately stateside. Every few days there's some terrorist development that's just important enough to get the media's attention over
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http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/about-us/organisatio
Sounds like something similar to the Dept of Homeland Security.
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After the election on Thursday we will hear no more about this.
Re:Home secretary (Score:2)
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Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'm guessing that the ipods are being used as portable storage. I think the bigger problem is allowing government employees being able to copy over sensitive material on an mp3 player in the first place.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Interesting)
Remember, the Total Information Awareness project [wikipedia.org] is alive and thumpin' !
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And it's a very wide range of methods they're using to force this issue. See for example http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/04/30/younger_id _card_voting/ [theregister.co.uk] suggesting that ID cards should be a requirement for voting...
For a slightly more scary example, see http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/08/29/school_fin gerprints_students/ [theregister.co.uk] where children are being taught to "get used to" having their fingerprints taken
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This will not even slow down the thieves. What will slow them down is to sell all ipods with C4 packed in them and a keyfob that allows the owner to detonate it.
thief steals ipod, owner presses button, KA-BOOM! no more ipod and thief is dead or at least missing an arm. now you can go over and either kick the corpse or the bleeding thief.
That would significantly reduce ipod th
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Heh heh heh. I like how you think! The only problem is what to use as a detonator... imagine leaving the thing in your car on a hot sunny day...BOOM! goes the car. Not good.
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The cost will increase by one finger.
Alternatively (Score:3, Insightful)
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No iPod for you!
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cellphones, espically the expensive and popular ones already have hacks for the black hats to change the esn and get them de-blacklisted to be resold.
What a fantastic idea (Score:3, Insightful)
You don't have enough fingers to generate unique passwords for everything!
*Yes, I am aware they could be stored as a hash. Some electronics companies will probably do so - but all of them? And how many will use a good hash that has decent properties for the application? I'm guessing at one, and that will only be due to an accident.
Re:What a fantastic idea (Score:4, Informative)
More than that, didn't anybody see MythBusters [wikipedia.org]? Fingerprint readers are nearly worthless as a security mechanism. They are notoriously easy to fool.
of course, an iPod suppository (Score:5, Funny)
So why mess about with half measures like fingerprint activation? After all, if you stick it someplace where the sun don't shine, ain't nobody gonna know you're iPodding. Ignoring the obvious question of who the hell would try to steal an anally inserted iPod, who would purchase an (obviously) stolen / used anally insertable iPod?
Why the market for stolen iPods would close up tight.
Grabbing at liquid (Score:3, Insightful)
This reminds me a bit of the statistic I heard where more and more people are, in the face of those microchip car keys, just breaking into homes and stealing the keys rather than breaking into the car. If they need me to activate my device before they can take it, they're just going to pull a gun or knife on me.
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Trying to get a handle on this kind of theft is like trying to get your hands around some liquid. There's just no way to contain the stuff, it's going to come leaking out between your fingers somehow.
This reminds me a bit of the statistic I heard where more and more people are, in the face of those microchip car keys, just breaking into homes and stealing the keys rather than breaking into the car. If they need me to activate my device before they can take it, they're just going to pull a gun or knife on me.
- Yeah. Trying to stop crime is hard. Let's not try. I don't know whether the statistic about chipped car keys is true, but if it is then the obvious next step would be to increase home security - something which is a hell of a lot easier to do than increasing car security. Suddenly it really is a lot harder to steal a car.
Requiring it to be activated might mean that it becomes more likely they'll pull a weapon. On the plus side that means a mugger now has to be willing to up the stakes on their crime from
Simple Solution... (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
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Something about this.... (Score:4, Funny)
Revokation of Biometrics (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the biggest problems with biometric authentication is the lack of ability to revoke a compromised biometric key. Sure you can revoke rights based on a fingerprint, but then you've no way to use it again. Lifting fingerprints with gelatin isn't really that hard. See http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0205.html#5 [schneier.com] for more information on the gummy-bear fingerprint reader bypass technique.
Personally, I think biometrics are great as a username equivalent, but should not be relied on for authentication. There is sound reason to have (1) something you have with (2) something you know in a good authentication system. The ability to revoke and re-generate either component is needed.
-Michael
Uhmmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
But surely... (Score:2)
Anothering Useless feature that will drive up $$$$ (Score:2)
So, a faulty and easy to defeat mechanism will be added to an already paying-for-premium device to raise the cost even further without providing true benefit to the consumer. Lovely. Just lovely.
The question becomes... will this information(the fingerprint information) be sent back to Apple via an update? Will this be tied into law enforcement systems so that non-criminals are indexed along with criminals? Will this be used to produce defacto arrest warrants for people, based on their music consumption?
But
Education system (Score:2)
What Mr. Reid proposes is that I should take measures that cost me money to reduce the value of my possessions to criminals. It would make it also harder for me to sell my iPod on eBay if I want to replace it with a better model. It would be much better to give kids a decent education so they can find decent jobs instead of becoming criminals, and/or to make the risk of detection and the
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--jeffk++
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Well yeah. You're the guy who produces, and they (muggers etc) are parasites -- so the burden's always going to be on you, whether it's the burden of paying more for your iPod or the burden of paying tax for a proper legal and penal system, or (if you roll that way) the burden of throwing more money at an education system which focuses entirely on league-tables and 'building self esteem'.
The UK's like the USA -- it educates *some* of its own people but generally it relies on attracting people who were educ
Technological solution to social problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Like the endless parade of anti-IP-infringement measures, like the endless surveillance and mail-sifting programs, this is yet another result of a bunch of people facing (or creating) a social problem, and then trying to convince themselves that a nifty gadget will fix it.
And it's the latest in a long parade.
What they've got is a culture that favors the instigator, rather than the victim, in robbery, street violence, and general antisocial behavior. Here are their solutions so far:
--Cameras
--Electronic tags
--New Databases (rather like many large companies, the UK government loves greating A New Database to solve any kind of problem)
--Magic dream iPods that can't be stolen or some such rubbish
It's a simple choice -- you can either address a problem, or you can talk about how cool it would be if a gadget would make it go away.
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We do the same in the USA, it's just that the gadget is a gun. Thus all the states in where the NRA is strong have zero crime, and mass shootings never happen in their HQ state.
I think making iPods work more like modern car stereos (which aren't theft-immune, but stealing them is much less profitable nowadays) would be a great idea, remove the incentive of the crime rather than posture and pu
Home Secretary Requests Fingerprint-Activated iPod (Score:2)
I'm ambidexterous, you know.
Bluetooth (Score:2)
The MythBusters where able to beat Fingerprint ... (Score:2)
the ones likely to be in ipods are likely to be a lot less costly and are like a lot easer to beat.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythBusters_(season_4 )#Episode_59_.E2.80.94_.22Crimes_and_Myth-Demeanor s_2.22 [wikipedia.org]
Frustrate criminals, or legit users? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's such an old story in the tech industry, and probably spans back throughout most of mankind's recent history now that I think about it. Just that little bit of extra hassle to do what you're trying to do, that actually won't do much of anything against your average "criminal". For a quick example, note the fact that effectively all computer games since the late 90s require that you keep the game CD-ROM in the CD drive while you play the game.
It's not a huge deal, per se, but it's yet another one of those things that we put up with in order to "stop the criminals", or whatever (even though the so-called criminals laugh at the pathetic "security" as they remove it with a couple clicks).
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Normalisation (Score:4, Insightful)
John Reid is really, really keen on keeping Biometric information for all UK citizens as part of a national ID project. Naturally enough, a large proportion of the UK population is uncomfortable with the idea. I suspect that this new idea is an attempt to encourage people into thinking that biometric identification is a part of everyday life.
As other poster's have pointed out there are other methods of protecting these sorts of devices (think of your car stereo for example) so it's reasonably clear to me at least that Reid has an ulterior motive.
Better yet, identify for retinal scan (Score:3, Funny)
Kirk: Genesis? Which one, Peter Gabriel or Phil Collins?
Khan: Don't insult my intelligence, Kirk!
Lets not fix the real problem (Score:2)
We could not tackle or fix the real problem, no way. The fact we are creating a society where there is NO RIGHT OR WRONG... the only questions one should ask before doing something is "will it benefit me" and "can I get away with it". (the government and big business teach us this lesson every day)
Lets tackle our problems with lack of morality with technological means. Ya right, that
You missed some! (Score:2)
Thank goodness. (Score:2, Insightful)
Reid is an idiot (Score:3, Informative)
In the end, iPods and similar items are not sufficently valuable to bother with extensive access controls. It's doubtful that the UK police could even be bothered to investigate the theft of an iPod.
As for the content, well, that's what backups are for :-)
How about the Fuzz? (Score:3, Insightful)
Even if this fingerprinting scheme were adopted, all it'd do is give fences a reason to give the crim buttons for ipod. It wouldn't stop a thing. It might make the muggers more vicious as they'll have to be more prolific to cover their crack tab for the night and really don't want to spend their time asking nicely.
Oooh I wanna see this discussion (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
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Nobody went on a rampage in England...killing 33 college students and wounding even more.
Ever heard of Thomas Hamilton? Yeah he only killed 16 elementary school students.
Kind of hard to do that with a knife, or a bow and arrow.
True, but it is a lot easier to do with an illegally owned gun when you know no one will be shooting back. Its also pretty easy with some homemade bombs as I'm sure the IRA has aptly demonstrated by now. It's also pretty easy using some sort of a poison.
Laws that make it illegal to own guns don't stop murder. They don't stop mass murder. Strangely people willing to break the law and commit murder for some reason also don'
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So we give everyone a gun, and then the bad guys will think twice? What? That's insanity man...check out Iraq...an armed and polite society!
People still murder even though they know there is the possiblity of the death penalty. Your idea requires that the perp be in a rational state of mind before embarking....I propose that this is NOT the case. Witness how many of these mass murderers suicided at the end...do you think that they were worried about dying?! Do you