Nexus 6 would have had a fingerprint reader, but Apple RUINED IT ALL

Re: I wonder

1. It requires a warrant. 2. If you don't unlock the iPhone for a while, the fingerprint alone won't unlock it anymore. The passcode is needed as well. So if you think the cops are getting a warrant for your iPhone, don't unlock it.

Re: Microsoft, Google and Apple - all guilty megaopolies

"The phenomenal sums of money available to both of these companies has reached scary levels of everything."

Both?

Global Hyper Mega Corps are nothing new and there are a lot more than those three. In fact 2 of the 3 companies you list are not even in the global top 20

http://www.forbes.com/global2000/list/

>So what we need, is more specific patent than the one Apple uses?

My initial assumption was that this was about patents, too, but on this occasion, it's not.

I had a Lenovo laptop 10 years ago with a fingerprint reader (which was pretty functional, actually), so the tech must be reasonably mature.

Re: I am not a fan of APPLE or their products with their curated garden...

Ya get acquired (Motorola mobility) and your management loses it focus (often as they look for new jobs) you lose you mean.

Re: Court ruling

Don't be so sure. They can already force you to provide bodily fluids (blood, etc) and or DNA via a court order so this may well stand.

Re: Court ruling

>I find to hard to believe they could say that police can't force you to provide a password to unlock your phone but can force you to provide a finger.

It is a moot point, since it is only an engineering process to unlock an iPhone once you have a photograph of a fingerprint, and if you are arrested the police already take good images of your fingerprints:

Once he has the digital image, Krissler can use the same method he previously described for unlocking Touch ID with physically obtained fingerprints: he inverts the colors of the obtained print, so the ridges of the fingerprint are rendered in white and the grooves in black, then prints the image in black ink. The black ink on the paper provides just enough texture to recreate a fingerprint's three-dimensional shape, but inverted.

Krissler then pours glue or plaster over the print of the fingerprint. The ink print serves as a stamp, imprinting the fingerprint's whorls and ridges into the glue and creating a mold that can successfully unlock a Touch ID-locked iPhone 6.

- http://www.tomsguide.com/us/iphone-touch-id-hack,news-20066.html

Your fingerprints are found upon your person, just like a piece of paper with username and password details could be.

Re: Court ruling

My guess is they'll say your finger print is public since you leave it around all over the place so you have no expectations of keeping it private.

Re: If they felt AuthenTec was clearly superior

Why shouldn't the technology available via licence? This, after all, is the founding principle of the patent system. Bullies that buy companies to shut down their licensing are stifling innovation.

Re: What's the big deal?

"Nobody can break into my brain for a password."

You've nailed it.

I think Apple have done Motorola a favour here, fingerprints are no more secure than "loose" passwords, and like you said, instead of being secure in your head, you leave your fingerprint security key on almost everything you touch over your entire life. Worse still, as you said, once your ever so important fingerprint has been once compromised (and easily at that), you can't change it. Ever.

Changing fingers doesn't count, you only get 10 chances verses millions on a big-boy password. Or, like another poster suggetsed, use the middle finger instead. It means more.

Facial recognition? Don't make me laugh, you may as well save everyone the time and just hand over your device to the crooks right now.

Re: What's the big deal?

Oh my gosh. Press a finger and open up the device, that's appearance and not function?

The point is balancing convenience with security. The most secure things are terribly inconvenient. The most convenient things are terribly insecure.

That said, every time I restart from a power down, I have to enter my passcode on my iPad. TouchID does not open the device in that situation.

So where are we then? Well, I'm sitting here thinking that while my iPad is not the most secure device known to personhood, it is easier to get going than with my pre-TouchID iPhone. And you're sitting there thinking that your brain could not be broken into, and I presume that includes the hypothetical well placed hammer blows to fingers, toes, and knee-caps. Let me hasten to add that I hope you never have to be part of a test of those hypotheses.

But, for the sake of argument, let's assume that someone cares about what's on my iPad, has gone to the trouble of stealing the device, done what they need to do to simulate the correct finger in the correct position or insist, at peril to my kneecaps, that I open up the phone. After I get my phone back, as you say, I cannot change my fingerprint. Oh dear. What do I do?

Oh yeah. Make it password only. which was always an option. Also, hope that the security dictum "Kneecap access, game over." does not occur again.

Re: Nobody can break into my brain for a password.

Challenge Accepted.

Re: What's the big deal?

"They *can* swipe my finger or push my face into a scanner."

"Fingerprints" or "faces" as authentication are as broken as using a birth certificate as identification (I bring this up because birth certs AREN'T identity documents, but are frequently used as such)

A fingerprint scanner needs a pulse behind it. Ideally you should be using an infrared image of the veins inside the fingers to ensure that you're looking at an actual living item (these are more unique than fingerprints. Even identical twins have differing vein patterns)