Using a belt sander to foil biometric fingerprints

http://jacquesmattheij.com/The+belt+sander+and+the+battle+for+privacy+a+body+hack

by Luc • 15 years ago

111 67 15 years ago

Luc3• 15 years ago

It's a really funny, whimsical thing to do, but how will this help you to increase your privacy? Next time you enter the US your finger prints won't match the data on your passport, right?

sudont• 15 years ago

Some of us haven't gotten passports, or been fingerprinted yet. This may be analogous Schmidt's child/adult quip.

DanI-S4• 15 years ago

They'll also be a perfect match to the last nutjob who filed off his own fingerprints before mailing letterbombs to the IRS.

It probably only increases your chance of being detained, probed and investigated. Unless you file off your face, they can still tell who you are.

Rather than adapting your body to quietly live within the 'instruments of control', why not actively campaign against them?

adrianN3• 15 years ago

Why not do both?

Luc3• 15 years ago

Doh, I just realize Jacques won't be replying, since he retired from HN last week...

famousactress• 15 years ago

It is estimated that 1 in 50 people do not have prints or prints clear enough to be registered by the fingerprint readers currently in use.

Really!?

te_platt2• 15 years ago

I don't know just how accurate the 1 in 50 number is but it is pretty close to my observations. I worked on a fingerprint recognition system several years ago and collected many thousands of live fingerprints and processed hundreds of thousands of other records (scans of inked prints for example). Recognizing a good quality print is almost trivially easy. Most of the work is pulling good information out of low quality images.

Fingerprints are a reliable source of information in most cases for most people but are a far cry perfect form of identification most people think.

bhousel3• 15 years ago

So tell us.. Wouldn't being "that guy with no fingerprints" be a more clear identifier, and draw more attention to yourself, than just having the same boring blurry imperfect fingerprints that the rest of us have?

If the goal is to increase your privacy, walking around with sanded off fingerprints sounds about as contrary to that goal as walking around with one of those fake eyeglass-nose-mustache disguises.

cstross2• 15 years ago

I used to have severe atopic eczema on my hands and fingers (it cleared up about a decade ago, before the fingerprint nonsense came in). Typically between 2 and 6 of my fingers at any time would be so swollen or inflamed that the fingerprint was distorted or entirely absent. This varied over time.

Eczema isn't that uncommon (although mine was pretty severe) and frequently affects the fingers and hands (as well as elbows and backs of knees). If the biometric-with-fingerprint passports had been standard back then I'd have been in a world of hurt, with fingerprints morphing over a period of multiple months.

JonnieCache3• 15 years ago

If you're feeling brave, microwave your passport for good measure.

imajes• 15 years ago

According to most official documents, any passport which has a faulty rfid will be assumed tampered with, and will become invalid. So unless you want to be refused entry and forced to replace your passport, this is unadvisable.

seven3• 15 years ago

This is not true for Germany. (Which makes this even more a security theater..)

danudey2• 15 years ago

You could cause even more of a hassle then by building an RFID zapper (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RFID_Zapper). A powerful one that fits inside a suitcase could be set off in an airport concourse, frying a large number of people's chips without them ever knowing (or any damage to the passport itself occurring).

Do it on a busy travel day and suddenly the authorities have to deal with a ton of broken passports. Either they arrest everyone, or they let everyone through.

Of course, you probably couldn't get a suitcase-sized RFID zapper through security, but you could show up, set it off a few times, and then leave without arousing TOO much suspicion.

WildUtah2• 15 years ago

I've had border guards order me to replace a passport that I carried with me in a rainstorm. It was perfectly readable, but they didn't like the way it had visible damage. Maybe the "security" features were less checkable.

That was in the days before RFID. My passport has a bar-code and every entrance station already has a reader, so RFID is redundant anyway.

seven3• 15 years ago

Or build a RIFD_Zapper:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RFID_Zapper

nerme• 15 years ago

I really like the RFID entrance I get when traveling back to New Zealand... especially after a 13 hour plane ride!

The tourists and kiwis with old passports all line up in a giant queue, while myself and a few others walk up to some machines, scan our passports, have a quick photo taken, and then just stroll on in!

I've flown to NZ with just carry-on luggage and caught a cab within 10 minutes of the plane doors being opened.

StavrosK• 15 years ago

It's certainly convenient, but then the authorities can track where you were/where you're going. I don't know if they do the same when manually checking the passport, but I'll assume they don't?

brokentone• 15 years ago

I feel like this is a little mis-titled. I expected a method to do something to a biometric scanner, or to temporarily alter your fingerprints, not to remove them entirely! Interesting read I suppose, if you're into that sort of thing.

regularfry• 15 years ago

This is a temporary alteration. Fingerprints grow back.

jbri• 15 years ago

A method to do something to a biometric scanner, using a belt sander?

Somehow I don't think that would really be relevant for the "they're checking my fingerprints at the passport office" situation.

teilo• 15 years ago

A belt sander is a bit harsh. The micro-fine sandpapers used by plastic model hobbyists work much better, and are much less likely to harm your fingers.

I remember reading this trick in the old spy novels, and being a model hobbyist at the time, I had to try it (on one finger, anyway). It worked -- so far as eliminating fingerprints. Of course, back then biometrics was a rather exotic technology, low res, and not in common use.

wiredfool• 15 years ago

My experience making balsa wood aircraft indicates that the combination of gluing your fingers to a wing with CA, prying them off, then sanding the glue off was a pretty effective way of getting rid of the fingerprints, on one hand at least.

Do it with two hands and it got very hard to pry the first hand off.

bambax• 15 years ago

How long does it last? I assume the prints "grow back", but what time does it take?

sambeau• 15 years ago

You can do the same with standard address labels as anyone who has sent out a large mail-merge will know.

bhousel3• 15 years ago

I've heard of people doing this before, removing their fingerprints with a sander..

But I believe the fingerprints will grow back after a while. Couldn't you get into more trouble if they grow back and you are carrying around a passport with no fingerprints in it? Or do you plan to keep sanding them off for the rest of your life? (or the life of the passport)

marquis• 15 years ago

As the author claimed there are many reasons you may not have had fingerprints. Personally, I would try the tried and trusted 'shrug, I have no idea' method.

seven3• 15 years ago

They do grow back. Just destroy the chip, then there is no way to read them out again.

bhousel3• 15 years ago

Now you have two problems..

tofumatt• 15 years ago

Fingerprints will grow back unless you get down to dermal layers of skin and that will hurt quite a bit. Permanently removing your prints is a more involved process than this, but it's certainly a cute idea.

_b8r03• 15 years ago

The title really should read, "Using a belt sander to ensure your biometric prints never match your actual prints".

Jacques is in for a world of hurt when he next travels abroad.

mahmud• 15 years ago

Jacques is in for a world of hurt when he next travels abroad.

To my knowledge, it's ONLY the U.S. that finger-prints foreigners. Jacques is Dutch, and all he has to do to avoid "a world of hurt" is to not come to the U.S.

WildUtah2• 15 years ago

To my knowledge, it's ONLY the U.S. that finger-prints foreigners

Japan and the USA, I'm pretty sure.

And this system would only catch nationals of the country in question being fingerprinted upon re-entering that country.

_b8r03• 15 years ago

Not true, there are plenty of countries that you get fingerprinted in. I get printed when I go to Saudi Arabia, for example.

yeahsure• 15 years ago

I used to work for immigration (IT dept) in my country - in South America.

There where always plans to start finger-printing foreigners, though nothing has been done to this day.

As far as I know, there's not a single country in South America that finger-prints tourists. I believe Brazil does finger print US citizens though, but that was only after the US started finger printing them.

jacques_chester• 15 years ago

> Jacques is in for a world of hurt when he next travels abroad.

Probably because I'm 6'3 and don't fit well into economy class sea-

oh, the other Jacques.

DanI-S4• 15 years ago

People would be better of putting their bountiful tin-foil-hat energies to use campaigning against the governments that introduce these laws. Writing a letter to your MP is far more meaningful than grinding off the ends of your fingers.

scotch_drinker• 15 years ago

It's all dependent on your definition of meaningful. If you want to be an activist, writing a letter is an excellent way to go about it. If you want a passport to travel sometime during your lifetime but would prefer to not have to worry too much about privacy concerns, writing a letter isn't going to help you much.

I hardly think it's tin-foil hat territory to look at the state of most Western governments and deduce that they are becoming more fascist and less democratic all the time, completely in the name of preventing terrorism. Sanding your fingertips off and writing a letter to your MP serve two distinctly different prongs of a fight against that fascism.

DanI-S4• 15 years ago

The 'tin foil hat' madness isn't really in suspecting that there are people out there trying to control your mind. It's in believing that wearing a tin foil hat is going to stop them.

cappaert• 15 years ago

"It is estimated that 1 in 50 people do not have prints or prints clear enough to be registered by the fingerprint readers currently in use."

Can you provide a source? I'd be interested in seeing data to back this up.

wazoox• 15 years ago

Dig a 1m deep, 5m long trench in your garden with pickaxe and spade. I guarantee you that you won't have the slightest trace of a fingerprint on both hands for quite a while.

Given the number of people working regularly with such tools, that's quite a sizeable number of smooth hands :)

impeachgod• 15 years ago

What would be more interesting, would be if he found a way to grow different fingerprints.

Raphael• 15 years ago

Perhaps laser engraving.

adrianN3• 15 years ago

Gummy Bears: http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0205.html#5

ahrens• 15 years ago

The interesting thing is that fingers with the prints removed actually always do have damages that make them unique. In fact, it is usually easier to identify a print from your fingers now, than before. So good luck with that.

m0nastic• 15 years ago

I had a cousin who worked construction (and consequently didn't really have fingerprints).

He also got arrested a lot (like most of my family) and they took to taking palm prints when they booked him.

They would grow back if he went awhile without doing work though; it was definitely a temporary solution.

Luyt2• 15 years ago

"they took to taking palm prints"

Well, you could sand those off, too. And while you're at it: sand your toes. And your heels.

Now what would you do when iris scans become a commonplace biometric? Sand off the back of your eyeballs? ;-)

adrianN3• 15 years ago

Your iris doesn't leave prints on your gun.

softbuilder• 15 years ago

I had the opportunity to learn a little bit about fingerprints during a programming gig. The part he's missing here is that what he thinks is a smudge can sometimes still be used as part of a print. Partials aren't just from TV dramas, they get used all of the time in real cases. Also one thing most people don't know about is that prints can be "massaged" by law enforcement in what is essentially a photoshop-like process, so if a human technician can make a fairly good guess about what the print should look like, they still might be able to find a match.

Tichy• 15 years ago

Isn't that a very temporary solution. How long until everything is based on genes, face recognition and so on? For all I know those governments taking my fingerprints might use them to extract my DNA, too.

Using a belt sander to foil biometric fingerprints

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