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Hacker Club Publishes German Official's Fingerprint

Posted by kdawson on Saturday March 29, @03:50PM
from the sauce-for-the-goose dept.
Hardware Hacking Privacy
A number of readers let us know about the Chaos Computer Club's latest caper: they published the fingerprint of German Secretary of the Interior Wolfgang Schäuble (link is to a Google translation of the German original). The club has been active in opposition to Germany's increasing push to use biometrics in, for example, e-passports. Someone friendly to the club's aims captured Schäuble's fingerprint from a glass he drank from at a panel discussion. The club published 4,000 copies of their magazine Die Datenschleuder including a plastic foil reproducing the minister's fingerprint — ready to glue to someone else's finger to provide a false biometric reading. The CCC has a page on their site detailing how to make such a fake fingerprint. The article says a ministry spokesman alluded to possible legal action against the club.
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  • In future news... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Spartan Niner (1264332) on Saturday March 29, @03:58PM (#22906638)
    We hear that Wolfgang Schäuble is convicted of committing 17 crimes. Simultaneously

  • Good for them (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Scareduck (177470) on Saturday March 29, @04:00PM (#22906648) Homepage Journal
    High officials often seem to think the consequences of privacy-invading legislation will only occur to other (read: little) people. It's good to remind people in those positions that they do not have absolute power, and that they need to think about second order consequences.
  • At least until extreme body modification is commonplace, biometrics suck for identification. It's the only modern "security" mechanism that lacks revocation. Without revocation, a security model is eternally broken as soon as one chink is found.

    A person only has 20 digits, 2 palms, 2 soles, 2 retinas, and one genome. All of the biometric properties of those can easily be duplicated with noninvasive methods (simply enrolling in a biometric system requires the same access as duplication would). When one of those 27 properties is compromised, how do you revoke its use? I guess start with the fingers and palms and as people get older they have to start using their feet for identification, and at the very last make them get pricked for each identification. When all the biometric identifiers are used up, the now useless (at least in a Secure(TM) society) people can be recycled in the soylent green program or something.

  • No better thant he status quo? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by EaglemanBSA (950534) on Saturday March 29, @04:10PM (#22906714)
    This seems a bit over the top if you ask me, but hopefully it will expose biometrics for what it is: an unchangeable, and in many cases public, password. It's not very easy to hide your fingerprints (or even your DNA, for that matter) from people who really want to find them, and to rely on them for definite identification has the same problems as a social security number. Plus, anyone with a police record would be somewhat compromised from the get go here in the U.S.

    I'd hate to see people get proficient at faking fingerprints, because that leads to all sorts of interesting results in the realm of law. If fingerprint fraud becomes widespread, for example, will fingerprints at a crime scene still be valid evidence in court?

  • Major flaw of biometrics (Score:5, Insightful)

    by this great guy (922511) on Saturday March 29, @04:10PM (#22906716)

    This event highlights one of the major flaw of biometrics. This official had his fingerprint copied. There is nothing he can do. He can't change it. He can't prevent people from using it. No fingerprint reader will ever be able to determine with 100% certainty whether a particular fingerprint is real or fake. Bottom line: when one of your biometric traits gets stolen, you get screwed. For life.

    I hope this convinces governments that using biometrics for anything is a bad idea (other than perhaps criminal investigations, although what if this german official's fingerprint was found on a murder scene ?).

      • Re:Major flaw of biometrics (Score:5, Insightful)

        by BlackCreek (1004083) on Saturday March 29, @05:56PM (#22907442)
        The whole point of the parent poster is apparently lost to you.

        The point being that my biometric data is mine. It is private. It is not the government's business to have my blood samples, or DNA, or finger print. I am not a criminal, and therefore I expect to be entitled to some privacy from the BigBrother.

        Once some retarded government bureaucrat decides to leave a laptop inside a taxi or something, my private data is lost, and I can never get a new fingerprint, or iris scan. I can get a new social security number, I can get a new passport, a new bank account number, but I **cannot** get a new DNA.

  • Legal action? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by HalAtWork (926717) on Saturday March 29, @04:12PM (#22906730)
    The article says a ministry spokesman alluded to possible legal action against the club.
     
    To what ends? You can't deter it as it's already happened, and you can't suppress it, as even the method for tricking the security system is widely known. If the security system is broken, you can't legalize it into working again. The security system was built in order to keep things safe, and now we have to keep other things safe from the security system itself.

  • Perfect alibi (Score:5, Interesting)

    by oever (233119) on Saturday March 29, @05:09PM (#22907078) Homepage
    Mister Schauble can enjoy an easy career as burglar when he's out of office. With 4000 copies of your fingerprint circulating, it cannot be used as evidence any more.

    The only thing dumb thing he could get caught with is when he leaves wheelchair tracks [wordpress.com] at the scene of the crime.

    • Re:Brave defenders of freedom (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 29, @04:18PM (#22906758)
      At least they get off their asses unlike American's who cry about the Constitution but do fuck all about it.

      Bush was right, it is JUST a piece of PAPER. Why? Because American's do NOTHING about it and do not believe in it.

      This is plain to see by their inactions.
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