Can the iPhone Popularize Fingerprint Readers?

[wraggster]

Apple's iPhone 5S features a fingerprint scanner embedded in the home button. Of course, fingerprint-scanning technology isn't new: Bloomberg Terminals feature a built-in fingerprint reader to authenticate users, for example, and various manufacturers have experimented with laptops and smartphones that require a thumb to login. But the technology has thus far failed to become ubiquitous in the consumer realm, and it remains to be seen whether the new iPhone — which is all but guaranteed to sell millions of units — can popularize something that consumers don't seem to want (http://slashdot.org/topic/cloud/apples-iphone-5s-risks-fingerprintgate/). Security experts seem to be adopting a wait-and-see attitude with regard to Apple's newest trick. 'I'd caution right away, let's see how it tests and what people come up with to break it (http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/09/10/apples-new-iphones-touch-id-makes-fingerprint-scans-easy-but-dont-ditch-your-passcode-yet/),' Brent Kennedy, an analyst with the U.S. Computer Emergency and Readiness Team, told Forbes. 'I wouldn't rely on it solely, just as I wouldn't with any new technology right off the bat.' And over at Wired, technologist Bruce Schneier is suggesting that biometric authentication could be hacked like anything else. (http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/09/what-if-apples-new-phone-has-fingerprint-authentication/)'I'm sure that someone with a good enough copy of your fingerprint and some rudimentary materials engineering capability — or maybe just a good enough printer — can authenticate his way into your iPhone,' he wrote. 'But, honestly, if some bad guy has your iPhone and your fingerprint, you've probably got bigger problems to worry about.'

http://apple.slashdot.org/story/13/09/12/1254242/can-the-iphone-popularize-fingerprint-readers