frustbox

joined 1 year ago
[–] frustbox@lemmy.ml 53 points 1 year ago (3 children)

One scar away from losing access to your ability to pay …

Biometrics can not really be changed. Except maybe through time or trauma (i.e. age or injury). They can be used to uniquely(?) identify a person - except maybe twins - at the expense of anonymity, which has it's own set of problems.

But because they can not easily be changed they're a terrible security feature. Once they leak, they're unusable and you're hosed. You can't issue a new palm print for your bank account like you could a new chip card and password.

Also, just because you waved your hand over a scanner does not mean that you approve and consent of the transaction. With tap to pay there were ideas of mobile point of sales devices just tapping on peoples backpacks in a crowded area. You don't even keep your biometrics markers in your pocket, they're just out in the open for anyone with a camera. This may be bordering on paranoia, but a few years back (2014) German hackers from Chaos Computer Club took iris scans from Angela Merkel (then Chancellor of Germany) and finger prints of Ursula von der Leyen (then Minister of defense) using nothing but press fotos. Cameras have only gotten better.

TL;DR: Biometrics can be used for identification but should never be used for authorisation.

[–] frustbox@lemmy.ml 11 points 1 year ago

Why you should care?

Because the debate is not about whether or not you have something to hide.

It's about your right to consent. You should have the right to say no. And you should have the right to change your mind for any reason. You should have the right to regain control of who can store, access or process your data.

Depending on where you live you may have such rights, or you may not. And the political debate is about granting, strengthening, weakening or revoking these rights. And you should care about having these rights, whether you use them or not.

[–] frustbox@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

You should absolutely have web environment integrity. Your browser should not allow the website to do things that you don't approve of, so the integrity of your computer can be ensured.

Wait, that's not what they mean, is it? Oh no … 🙄

Yea, I feel like Google has this a bit backwards. As always, I like to turn the metaphor on it's head. You're not visiting a website, you're inviting a website. You're allowing the website to use your system resources, bandwidth, CPU cycles, etc. And what you do with your own system is none of the websites business. They can protect their business model on the server side, if they need to. But maybe they just need better business models.