Fingerprints can be recreated from the sounds made when you swipe a screen

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ndss-symposium.org&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2024-618-paper.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ndss-symposium.org&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2024-618-p...</a>

Reading the paper, it looks like they just demonstrate classification by left loop&#x2F;right loop&#x2F;whorl. That&#x27;s a long way from recreating a full fingerprint.

This reminded me of power line frequency[1] being used to identify when and where recordings were taken. Governments keep historical records of subtle changes in power frequency and can extract the background hum to identify location and time.<p>1: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Electrical_network_frequency_analysis" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Electrical_network_frequency_a...</a>

Firstly, wow, that is absolutely insane.<p>I&#x27;m wondering about this part though:<p>&gt; The source of the finger-swiping sounds can be popular apps like Discord, Skype, WeChat, FaceTime, etc. Any chatty app where users carelessly perform swiping actions on the screen while the device mic is live.<p>Is there really enough information left for this method after the sound has been lossily compressed by any of those apps?

Why bother when you can pick them up from any doorhandle, coffee cup, pen, table surface, or just a photograph at super high-res.<p>Biometrics are form of (dubious) in-person identification, and their use for access control belongs in the all-time stupidest ideas in computing list.

This would be amazing if true, but after being burned on a bunch of &quot;too crazy to be true&quot; tech stories recently (toothbrush bot armies anyone?) I&#x27;m very skeptical. The idea that there is enough resolution in the sound of a finger swipe to determine the fingerprint ridges on that finger is really suspect to me.

Should be easy to obfuscate if true - use gloves, use dirt&#x2F;grit on the screen, use oily fingers.<p>Edit:why disagree? I bet you could even create textured screen protectors with randomized patterns to obfuscate they swipe.

I suppose I have to start shouting every time I swipe my screen now.

If this is true does this mean we don&#x27;t need fingerprint scanning hardware any more, but we can just use a microphone and software to unlock a device when the user runs their finger over any convenient surface?

&gt; “up to 27.9% of partial fingerprints and 9.3% of complete fingerprints within five attempts at the highest security FAR [False Acceptance Rate] setting of 0.01%.”<p>I wonder how &quot;partial&quot; is defined.<p>But anyway, the fact that you can even hear any sounds of swiping feels odd to me. Is this just something Apple could filter out of the audio data it provides to applications? I know nothing about audio processing.

Pretty soon the sound of a heart beating when a person enters a room will allow you to easily identify them.

Reminds me of a sidechannel attack I demo&#x27;d in college:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;medium.com&#x2F;@tomasreimers&#x2F;axolotl-a-keylogger-for-iphone-and-android-a8b7b62cdab4" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;medium.com&#x2F;@tomasreimers&#x2F;axolotl-a-keylogger-for-iph...</a>

Fingerprints aren&#x27;t secure. You literally leave them on anything you touch.

This sounds completely impossible. First off, swiping a finger on a greasy glass screen doesn&#x27;t make any sound, at least nothing that a phone microphone could pick up. Secondly, how on earth could you possibly reconstruct a fingerprint from a sound of it moving on a surface?!

&gt;&gt; Following tests, the researchers assert that they can successfully attack “up to 27.9% of partial fingerprints and 9.3% of complete fingerprints within five attempts at the highest security FAR [False Acceptance Rate] setting of 0.01%.”<p>I wonder if I&#x27;m in the lucky majority, and my fingerprints sound secure

This reads like a thrilling bond film. Scary!