Gummi bears defeat fingerprint sensors

["Brian Kreuzinger" <kreuz@xxxxxxxxxx>]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/25300.html

Gummi bears defeat fingerprint sensors
By John Leyden
Posted: 16/05/2002 at 12:29 GMT


A Japanese cryptographer has demonstrated how fingerprint recognition
devices can be fooled using a combination of low cunning, cheap kitchen
supplies and a digital camera.

First Tsutomu Matsumoto used gelatine (as found in Gummi Bears and other
sweets) and a plastic mould to create a fake finger, which he found fooled
fingerprint detectors four times out of five.

Flushed with his success, he took latent fingerprints from a glass, which he
enhanced with a cyanoacrylate adhesive (super-glue fumes) and photographed
with a digital camera. Using PhotoShop, he improved the contrast of the
image and printed the fingerprint onto a transparency sheet.

Here comes the clever bit.

Matsumoto took a photo-sensitive printed-circuit board (which can be found
in many electronic hobby shops) and used the fingerprint transparency to
etch the fingerprint into the copper.