Hacker Clones a Politician’s Fingerprint Using Normal, Long-Distance Public Photos

Something of this magnitude can’t expected to have happened in past couple of years but now, according to a member of the Chaos Computer Club, which is a European hacker association (on the similar lines of Cult of the Dead Cow in the united states of America) it is possible.

They have successfully shown that it is quite possible to clone or reproduce anyone’s fingerprints. This clone can be used to break into anyone’s system, which is protected by the biometric fingerprint scanners. They just need the photo of someone’s fingers. According to the club, they do not need any close up photos; any photos with the celebrity waving the hands even from a far distance will do the trick.

Considering this case, the CCC was able to get their hands on the fingerprint of Germany’s defense minister Ursula von der Leyen through a photo, which was taken during a press conference. This could easily be considered as a security breach if the German government uses biometric access control systems.

The findings: 

The findings were presented by Jan “Starbug” Krissler, the hacker at the Chaos communication congress. He was able to recreate the thumbprint of the minister by using a photo of the minister, which was taken at the press conference, and some other photos, which have take the picture of her thumb from multiple angles. He used one of the commercially available software called Verifinger Software.

Jan created a real world dummy by using this thumbprint. He started by printing it on a mask and then exposing the same to create a negative print on a substrate. Then he filled the negative with wood clue and created a new positive fingerprint. In case of testing, this technique can pose serious threat to Apple’s TouchID sensor and just in case the minister has Apple iphone then the company can seriously get her into trouble. By this, the company is hoping that the German government is not relying on fingerprints to control their military systems.

What is the drawback? 

With the digital fingerprint readers becoming very common now and it is being on laptops to high-end expensive smartphones. The biggest problem with fingerprints is that they can give false positive, negative and even multiple readings of the same print and give out different results. Even though fingerprints are the best means of identification, still security and forensic communities are looking forwards towards more techniques that are reliable.

DNA sequencing is being considered a one of the best means of forensic identification, and vein matching and gait analysis are best options for control access. This technique is called living biometrics and as the name suggest it is only valid until the person is alive. This technique is already in use in Poland and Japan at some of their ATM’s.

If you are among the people who are using fingerprints for access control, it might be a good time to switch over to something more reliable.



 

Apple Japan announces annual 'Lucky Bag' promotion for Jan. 2

All of us are aware about Apple and its humungous popularity. The craze Apple generates does not match up to the mania for any other electronic product. This brand has managed to revolutionise the way people thought about electronic goods. With the extreme user-friendliness to the high quality parts used to build the devices, Apple is a class apart. The Apple users are tremendously satisfied with the utility they have got from the Apple products. It is worth every penny you spend on it.

Apple believes in maintaining a cordial and a constant relationship with its customer. It is not only a good business practice but also wins the loyalty of the customers. The customer service is excellent and in case of any defect found in the product, it is fully replaced without the customer having to face any unnecessary hassle.

It is a rarity when a defect is found in Apple products because they are made with extreme care and caution. Be it iPads, iPhones, iPods or Mac books, Apple has managed to take technology to a new level. Each and every product is so user-friendly that as a customer you would never have to struggle to grasp the otherwise extremely advanced technology used in it.

"Lucky Bags" for Japan

Apple maintains a yearly custom of selling Lucky Bags every New Year. The good news for all Apple lovers is that, Apple has announced the promotion of "Lucky Bags" for Japan. This announcement had been made on Friday. The terms and conditions associated with the Lucky Nags Promotion this year were posted to the retail website of Apple Japan.

The festivities of revealing Apple's Lucky Bags will begin from January2, 2015. The Lucky Bags will be available to only those who visit the brick-and-mortar shops of Apple. This is not available to the online buyers of Apple products. Thus the ones who visit the stores can make huge profits. To manage the huge crowd that gather at stores when Apple products are released, many Apple stores in Japan will open 2 hours before the scheduled time. This change was observed by Kodawarisan, a Japanese blog.

More on "Lucky Bags"

"Lucky Bags", when roughly translated to Japanese becomes Fukubukuro. This custom takes place yearly and various leading retailers as well as departmental stores make great sales of these bags which comprise of popular Apple products and some of them are filled with the really expensive ones.

Buying these bags involve a certain amount of risk, as the customers are unaware of the contents of the bag, but it has been seen that generally, the price of the contents of the bag is almost equal to the price paid to buy the Lucky Bag. The pricing for the lucky Bags this year is yet to be announced.

Last year, the bags were sold at 36,000 yen each. Some bags had special gifts like iPad Air, iPad mini (first generation) or the 11-inch MacBook Air.
Since this offer is valid only in the brick-and-mortar stores, the stock is limited. Hence, every customer is allowed to purchase only one bag per day. The items in the bag are provisioned to be returned only if it found defective. Wait for January 2, 2015, 8 a.m. to get hold of your Lucky Bag!

Two Bionic Arms Controlled By Double Amputee

The researcher from Johns Hopkins have been able to successfully fit Colorado resident Les Baugh with two cutting edge bionic limbs, which are directly under the control of his brains. This addition makes Les Baugh as the latest face of bionic technology. This is being considered as an extreme evolution of modern prosthetics, apart from becoming a technology, which has captured the imaginations of millions by being cool and being equivalent mix of biology and technology. The images released by John Hopkins clearly depict a man fitted with Modular Prosthetic Limbs and overall concept of bionics, which has the ability to challenge the very concept of humanity.

How it was conceptualized? 

Irrespective of whether a person wants to move his arm made out of carbon fiber, or stem cells, everything starts at the same initial point. The first stage is force of the neural activity linked with a particular action, and once this pattern of action is recognized by a tiered network of either electrodes or neurons and sent out to the desired destination. In most of the cases of amputee, electrodes are required, but in the case of Lee, he still had some of the living tissues near and over his shoulders.

The researchers used a technique called the targeted reinnervation, in which they let the brain of Lee to perform the recognition and propagation of signal by itself, then gathering the muscle orders in the shoulder. Here the researchers have transmitted the nerves onto an unused remainder of arm muscle. The main difference between this process and use of cranial electrodes is that Lee’s digital hop is only shoulder-to-arm, but in other cases, it is brain-to-arm. In his case, it is easy to read the motor signals once they have left his brain. Irrespective of whether the motor signals have been received in digital or chemical form, the purpose motivates either motor proteins in muscles or electric motors in bionic limbs, and therefore movement is accomplished.

If the real arm of a person is numbed out, it is very difficult to differentiate between biological and bionic movements. The John Hopkins team has successfully illustrated that their MPLs are highly advanced apart from allowing the users to control both the arms and that too at the same time. Although the researcher always knew that this technology can be duplicated, but they were not sure if people would be able to accept the changes quickly.

At present, Lee still has to select each specific joint that he wants to use, one by one. If he wants to grab any object, he first needs to move his shoulder towards that direction, then move his elbow, then wrist and last the fingers. For a person to be able to have a fully functional limb, they will first have to control many muscles at the same time and that too independently. The researchers have stated that they still have lot of work to do to further improve the MPL.

AAA, Bud Light Offer Last Resort Tow To Go During Holidays

Tow to Go is an innovative and extremely beneficial service that has been initiated to provide safe ride to the drunken individuals in this holiday season. Any individual who will drink too much this holiday could avail this service free of charge to get himself as well as his vehicle safely to home. During the holiday seasons such as the biggest festive night of the year i.e. New Year Eve, police has reported to arrest the most of drunk driven cases. Sometimes drunk driving even leads to crashes which sours the spirit of the New Year.

A Better Initiative at Opportune Time

Tow to Go service had been started by the AAA-the Auto Club Group and Bud Light to get the drivers and their home safely. The AAA spokesman Don Lindsey has stated that this year from December 24 this amazing service has started and it will run through 6 a.m. on New Year’s Day. Mr. Lindsey has stressed that its organization is more eager to provide right driving solutions to those people who plan to drink while celebrating the holiday eves and have no designated home going plan like calling a taxi or using a designated driver.

He further explains if some is going to keep a designated driver then make sure that person have a great time but gets nothing to drink. Now if none of your plan works then the Tow to Go service is there to help you out regardless of the matter whether you are a AAA member or not. This service would be completely free of charge and certainly that person would be taken to home not to ‘another party destination’.

History of Tow to Go Service

Tow to Go Service isn’t a relatively new concept service or program. Rather it has been in service since 1998 and its President and Owner John Saputo maintain that they have successfully taken more than 25,000 intoxicated home in all those years. He had invented this beneficial a long time back with his staff and now this program had been taken on national level. He believes that drunk driving is 100% preventable if people who wish to engage in drinking activities have a suitable plan for reaching home without causing any damage to their vehicle, self or other.

How to Get Tow to Get Services

Anyone who need a ride a home after indulging in drinking sessions could call AAA at 855-286-9246. He would be simply required to say that he has happened to drink a lot and wishes to get picked up and delivered to home. A Tow To Go would then arrive at the place, pick and drop him safely to his home along with his vehicle.

From wherever the pickup is it, users could go 10 miles for free and at most two people would be given free rides in Tow trucks. Tow to Go service doesn’t offer pre-appointment. It is basically ‘call as needed’ program.

Online Privacy A Tricky Issue

According to the survey results released by the Pew Research center and Elon University's Imagining the Internet Center on Thursday, the future of privacy appears to be totally muddy. The survey reflected that nearly 2500 internet analysts and internet experts have been completely divided on the issue of future of privacy. They have divided opinion on whether the policy makers and technology innovators would be able to create secure, trusted, and popularly accepted privacy-rights infrastructure by year 2025. 45% of the people in the survey believed that there will a structure created based on the privacy rights but the remaining 55% were having completely different opinion as did not believe that there could be any infrastructure. According to Lee Rainie, Pew's Director of Internet, Science, and Technology Research, there is lot of disagreement about what the future holds for privacy.

Survey: 

The Pew-Eton researchers didn’t opt for the traditional means of conducting the survey but they carried out the survey among the hand-picked respondents and requested them to elaborate their views on their yes or no answers. The responses include a very dominant theme pertaining to the likelihood of a strong privacy infrastructure that can be established in the next 10 years. Rainie stated that now people have got open and spending most of the time in the public eye hence the question of privacy gets restricted to special circumstances only. Postindustrial era has made every person life completely public.

Accepting the trend: 

In the coming years, people will start continuing the trend of living a very public eye. People have started exchanging person information to availing services now. People have started using their personal information in the form of currency. According to Hal Varian, Google's chief economist, today’s disagreement of privacy will confuse the denizens of 2025. Privacy will be deemed old fashioned in the next 10 years. Putting restrictions of service will be overshadowed by increasing benefits of personal, digital assistants and cloud computing. Every will feel secure due to the advancement in the technology in terms of monitoring and tracking.

2025 will be a year, which will consider people ordinary if they don’t have any photos online. People who will not share their personal information will be not credible and trusted less. People will find them inhuman, as they won’t be able to see their discretions. People will start demanding encryption ability; they would like more transparency in the private sector and with the governments. The mere idea of framework for privacy is a fantasy. Equipments will allow the users to relay their information. The current levels of surveillance will become very pale and people will communicate only through net.

Companies have to become more careful in terms of data collection and sharing to ensure privacy factor for the customers. Experts say that if the privacy keeps on being eroded, the class issue might start again. Therefore, whatever may be the state of privacy in 2025, but for sure it will not be the same as today.