iPhone 5s Users: Your Thumbs Are Safe, NSA Is Locked Out. Probably. - PC Magazine

Amid the usual excitement that comes when Apple announces new products, news that the iPhone 5s would come with an integrated fingerprint reader seemed to make some people very nervous. There are two popular jokes flying around Twitter regarding Touch ID; the first is that the NSA will now be able to harvest your fingerprints and the second is that thieves will start cutting off people's thumbs in order to access stolen phones.  Justified Fears The mutilation worry is more than a bit far-fetched, but has a horrifying basis in reality. No, not Loki's eye extractor from The Avengers. Instead, there's this BBC article from 2005 where a Malaysian man's finger was chopped off in order to get around the security system on his $75,000 car. So, yes, people are willing to cut off fingers to get around security systems, but let's look at this from a cost-benefit perspective. An iPhone, unlocked, it worth around $650, which is far less than a luxury car. That's little incentive for a thief to go so far as to mutilate a victim. That's not to say it won't happen (it probably will, at least once), but I seriously doubt that the iPhone 5S is going to kick-off a rash of thumb thefts. Besides, Apple also introduced the iPhone 5c which is brightly colored (read: easy to recognize) and requires no fingerprints to unlock.  Slightly Less Justified Fears Concern that the NSA is going to break into your phone to steal your fingerprint information is a little more complicated. The lengths to which the intelligence agency goes to obtain information are great, even to the point of stealing cryptographic keys. That said, most of the information we've seen about the NSA has to do with a more modern-day take on wire tapping—the organization is all about signals intelligence, after all. Breaking into a device to snoop on personal information seems more like an FBI or CIA operation. In fact, law enforcement has long had access to devices designed specifically to suck data out of smartphones. Changes in iOS 7 will hopefully mean that these devices won't be effective anymore. Plus, Apple swears up and down that Touch ID information won't be available to anything except the fingerprint reader. Also, a recent report from Spiegel Online indicates that the NSA has intruded into iPhones before. That said, it appears to mostly be done by using a computer attached to the iPhone as a means of attack. Also, Spiegel believes that these direct attacks are not being done on a mass scale, while NSA wire taps appear to be quite massive indeed. More importantly, the Touch ID information might be of little use to the NSA. Currently, the iPhone 5s only uses Touch ID to unlock the phone and authorize purchases—neither of which the NSA is likely interested in. What the NSA wants to know is what's being sent from your phone and to whom it's being sent. Fingerprint information from an iPhone 5s might be of use if the NSA was trying to crack encryption on a message that used fingerprints as part of the authentication process. However, the agency has already invested a lot of money into breaking crypto, so why bother with trying to steal a fingerprint? The Bottom Line The unfortunate truth is that the only way to be really, truly secure is to limit the information you expose to devices, companies, and the Internet. If you enter any kind of login information into a device, fingerprints or otherwise, it can potentially be compromised. With a fancy new fingerprint reader, the iPhone 5s is going to come under close scrutiny from hackers and security watch dogs alike. Once they get a look at how it works, we'll have a much better picture of its vulnerabilities. For now, it's a faster and safer way to provide base-line protection for your iPhone. As for thumb harvesting, I'm sure we'll hear about it once it happens. Image via Flickr user Chris Isherwood via Technology - Google News http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNE4_QNhopISVlovrsCT-G3MWLilUA&url=http://securitywatch.pcmag.com/mobile-security/315839-iphone-5s-users-your-thumbs-are-safe-nsa-is-locked-out-probably

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