Category Archives: Bad Tech

While we are talking about Jacob Zuma and company down here in SA, the Germans are debating the use of biometric data for identification. One of my favourite groups the Chaos Computer Club of Berlin has pretty much proven that using biometric data like fingerprints, retina scans or facial features are not such a good idea by lifting their minister of interior Wolfgang Schäuble’s fingerprints and then showing how easy it is to fool these sytems. The last publication of the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) has published the fingerprint of Wolfgang Schäuble (quoting the oft-heard mantra “if you have nothing to hide you should have nothing to fear”), together with a tongue in cheek “collection album” page where readers can fill in fingerprints of other ministers if they manage to collect them. The Chaos Computer Club also went ahead published a fingerprint faking how-to on their website and you can also see a nice youtube video on the practical implementation of the how-to where they rip of a pay by fingerprint system. (Warning German) Does anyone remember “Demolition Man”? At least the Chaos Computer Club doesn’t remove your body parts to go shopping. Source: comp.risk digest     more....