Ask Not What Your Country Can Do for You: Apple's Touch ID Fingerprint Recognition System

Awww, c'mon you guys, it's Apple! They're on our side. What could go wrong?

Apple has announced a new fingerprint recognition system. This will allegedly enhance security and prevent theft. It is, as the following description explains, a temporary development in the evolutionary process, as more powerful embedded identification sensors are created.

The issue, of course, is what happens after theft of your phone is hardly the most urgent priority for most people. This continues to the recent tradition of giving something valuable and personal to a commercial enterprise in return for something of reasonable - though hardly comparable - value.

The question is why anyone believes that giving up their fingerprints in return for...a promise is going to work out any better than its predecessors. Your fingerprints, one of the only truly unique identification features you own, is then transferred, in Apple's mellifluous phrase, to a 'secure cache, located near the RAM.'

Well, that should make us all feel better. A secure cache sounds like some hidden cave known only to a select few, like those in Treasure of the Sierra Madre or Treasure Island. But didnt the good guys end up getting kinda screwed in those movies? Oh, never mind, this is is 2014, we're all too sophisticated to be gulled. Again. Aren't we? JL

Bruce Schneier reports in his blog :

The purchase of authentec has given Apple a huge future advantage and touch ID is most likely a temporary place holder of a future display with an embedded fingerprint sensor

Touch ID takes a 88x88 500ppi scan of your finger and temporarily sends that data to a secure cache located near the RAM, after the data is vectorized and forwarded to the secure enclave located on the top left of the A7 near the M7 processor it is immediately discarded after processing. The fingerprint scanner uses subdermal ridge flows (inner layer of skin) to prevent loss of accuracy if you were to have micro cuts or debris on your finger.
With iOS 7.1.1 Apple now takes multiple scans of each position you place finger at setup instead of a single one and uses algorithms to predict potential errors that could arise in the future. Touch ID was supposed to gradually improve accuracy with every scan but the problem was if you didn't scan well on setup it would ruin your experience until you re-setup your finger. iOS 7.1.1 not only removes that problem and increases accuracy but also greatly reduces the calculations your iPhone 5S had to make while unlocking the device which means you should get a much faster unlock time.