Watch out, Ringo! Making the peace sign might help crooks steal your money | Technology | The Guardian
Name: The peace sign.
Appearance: Fist clenched, index and middle fingers outstretched skywards.
Security strength: Very poor.
Security? Come on, man. This is the peace sign – it’s all about freedom! Freedom to give all your personal data to anyone who wants it?
Yeah, dude. Share and share alike, right? No, I mean it. If someone takes a photo of you doing the peace sign, they can quite easily steal all your money.
That sounds unlikely. Oh, really? Japan’s National Institute of Technology claims that smartphone cameras are now advanced enough to allow biometric theft.
How? Say you do a peace sign in a well-lit photo taken from 3ft away. Crooks can take that photo, zoom in on your fingertips, create an exact fingerprint copy in latex, unlock your phone, log in to your internet banking and swipe all your cash.
But … but … it’s the peace sign. Well, not really. It is often said to have origins in the second world war, when the Belgians – and later Winston Churchill – used the sign to denote military victory. Richard Nixon even used it during Vietnam. The whole thing is tied up in destruction and violence. It’s only called “the peace sign” because hippies tried to claim it back from Nixon.
I’ve been destroyed by my own liberal beliefs. I have never felt so vulnerable. Well, quite. Now that more and more phones allow you to authorise payments with your fingerprint, giving the peace sign on camera is a little like tattooing your pin number right across your face.
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