A fingerprint is a good username and ridiculous as a password. This excellent article captures my thoughts pretty well:<p><a href="http://blog.dustinkirkland.com/2013/10/fingerprints-are-user-names-not.html" rel="nofollow">http://blog.dustinkirkland.com/2013/10/fingerprints-are-user...</a>
When I was working in biometrics 10 years ago, nobody thought fingerprints were a good userid OR a password. It was always presented as a part of multi-factor authentication, to be used in conjunction with passcards and/or passwords.<p>"Something you have, something you know, something you are".
Although I have no doubt it could work, I guess they didn't try the copy? Couldn't find the video of the conference. He probably demo'ed using a copy of his own fingerprint from a photo?<p>It's great work, I hope the fact that you can make a copy from a simple HD photo will bury people's ideas about fingerprints security for good.
That's not the first time they've done this:<p><a href="http://www.wired.com/2008/03/hackers-publish/" rel="nofollow">http://www.wired.com/2008/03/hackers-publish/</a>