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Digital fingerprint door lock defeated by photocopied 'print
There's an old adage in the security community that any lock can be picked. Well in this modern age of digital doorlocks with fingerprint scanners, you can't exactly pick them with a bump key, nail file or other such assorted tools, now can you? Luckliy for budding criminals, the smart cats on "Mythbusters" discovered that one of these "never been broken" digital fingerprint scanner locks (they didn't cite the manufacturer) -- which also comes with thermal sensors (to detect if there's a real human behind that print) -- can in fact be quite easily duped. So how'd they do it? By copying the master fingerprint onto a piece of latex and attaching it to his thumb, Adam Savage was able to open the lock without a problem. Savage and his team then duplicated the feat by making another copy with ballistics gel. And to top it all off, they did it a third time (check the video link below) with a just a photocopy of the master fingerprint and a little saliva. Perhaps our own Marc Weber Tobias should have a word with the makers of these schlocky locks.
Cyrus Farivar09.22.2006