Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
If your 5s gets stolen, thieves don't even have to deal with Touch ID to unlock it?
- Thread starter user-name-here
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I still don't understand though: Why wouldn't Apple give us the ability to ONLY unlock via fingerprint if that's what we want? Seems like a super simple thing to include in iOS settings and would help give users who want it additional security
It'd likely create more problems than it'd solve. There are plenty of scenarios where having ONLY TouchID would create a problem. Say you register two or three fingers from one hand and injure that hand, now what? Or you leave your phone at home when you go to work but need someone at home to look up a contact or appointment for you? (though icloud.com could perhaps handle that)
Way I see it, TouchID isn't about making the device itself more secure. Instead it's about enhancing overall security across the population by adding a layer of convenience such that many who otherwise never used PIN or password lock would now enable that feature.
The sensor will only detect live skin. Some people have been watching too many movies.
No, not movies. Just having owned and/or tinkered with a lot of those readers.
Also, short of doing a biopsy and a biological analysis of the specimen you can't detect "live skin".
Well, I guess we'll soon find out how easy it is to fool that reader. It probably isn't quite as trivial as the first ones where all you needed was a crude printout of the fingerprint on regular office paper, but I wouldn't think that it is all that hard to fool.
Thank you
Sounds promising. I'm sure we will have our fair share of I can't activate my iPhone after I bought it off eBay, help! Threads appearing soon :/
Anthony
No but it could detect warmth and static.
We need someone who works in a cadaver lab, mortuary or funeral home to test this!
I still don't understand though: Why wouldn't Apple give us the ability to ONLY unlock via fingerprint if that's what we want? Seems like a super simple thing to include in iOS settings and would help give users who want it additional security
It's still a capacitive reader so gloves or wet fingers would prevent you unlocking your phone.
It looks beneath the outer layer of skin, a capability Apple says means it wont work with dead tissue, such as a severed finger or a plastic fingerprint imprint favorite security workarounds seen in the movies.
Im sure it's not full proof, and I have no doubt we'll see lots of alarming reports over the next week of it either not working, or being accessible by "everyone in the office" but all this nonsense about fingers being cut off has to stop. If someone was threatening to cut your fingers off, Im sure you would give them access to your phone without hesitation.
i hope the jailbreak scene can bypass this and only ask for the fingerprint and throw away the passcode alltogether.
And what will you do if the sensor breaks and you're locked out? There will probably be a tweak for that too, but what of non-jailbreakers? That's why it's there, as a fall back.
get in with openssh and remove the tweak or whatever. they'l find a way.
i like it more secured having only touch ID for unlocking.
You only need the passcode when you start the phone - seems like a problem that doesn't need solving to me.
There are numerous reasons why this wouldn't be the best of ideas. The most obvious one that I can think of is suffering a potential injury. No, this doesn't happen to most people, but it is inevitable that someone suffers an injury to the finger (yes I know you can teach the phone multiple fingers) that they use to unlock the phone. If my only option is a finger unlock, in this case, I am locked out of my phone, potentially for life.
I don't view this as an option for "lazy" people. Rather, it makes unlocking faster for everyone. There are those who need to keep a passcode on their phones for work, and are on their phones all day. How fun is it to type an unlock code dozens of times a day just to get to your content? I am sure this feature will get people who currently have no passcode set to set one up since it is far more convenient. But this is a quality of life upgrade, the way I see it.
iOS7 has also finally made it so that phones cannot be restore when locked. This means that the would be thief can literally do nothing with the phone. That is a feature I had been waiting for for AGES.
Who wants to let me chop their finger off so we can test if it works?
And then, we can do another test to see if I cut another of your fingers off and press it on the FP Scanner in under 10 seconds after removing the finger from your hand, and see if it works then.
SOMEONE has to take one for the team
And then, we can do another test to see if I cut another of your fingers off and press it on the FP Scanner in under 10 seconds after removing the finger from your hand, and see if it works then.
SOMEONE has to take one for the team
Activation Lock is nothing to do with passcodes or Touch ID. You don't even need a passcode to use it.
It simply means that if you want to (re-)activate that device, you'll need the iCloud login details that were used to activate the Find My iPhone feature.
I don't think Apple's real outlook on Touch ID is that it makes the phone more secure(from thieves, if your friends know your passcode than it combats that), but rather it makes it easier to get into the phone for the user.
The chance a thief has to guess your passcode right is slim none.
The chance a thief has to guess your passcode right is slim none.
I know fingers work and I heard someone verified that toes will work just the same. Are there any other body parts that will work just as well?
Ehh yeah so if your going to a developing country, leave the iphone at home..No Seriously
This is a common misconception. But the passcode is not only used to unlock the phone, but also to derive the key that is used to encrypt protected data on your phone (in the keychain), such as saved passwords etc.. Using readily available forensic software tools (that use OS exploits similar to jailbreaking), a thief can break into your device via the USB port and extract the data from your phone. If you are only using a 4-digit passcode, it can be broken by brute force in a matter of minutes.
The main advantage of the fingerprint sensor is that it makes it practical to use a longer, more secure passcode, since you rarely have to type it.