Re: In a sane world
...In a sane world
...this should be the nail in the coffin of fingerprint authentication, at least of the cheap variety. What is the use if it is tuned to accept anything vaguely resembling the real print?...
A bit of explanation.
1 - Manual fingerprint authentication is done by an expert comparing all aspects of a fingerprint. This is a skilled job which takes a bit of time. Its effectiveness depends on the expert's skill and experience.
Automatic 'biometric' fingerprint recognition is done with a pattern matching algorithm (originally invented in the UK at RSRE for use in radar signal analysis) which identifies a few 'salient' points and matches these. With limited processing power and the need to avoid false negatives these matches may be quite poor and still 'pass'.
2 - There is indeed a question mark hanging over the whole of fingerprint identification. It has simply been asserted to be true that no two fingerprints are the same. But no one knows if this is true, or how good fingerprint experts are at distinguishing similar prints. It is just assumed that they are infallible and fingerprints are all unique, because that supports the justice system...
Biting the hand that feeds IT
