
OPM now says more than five million fingerprints compromised in breaches - e15ctr0n
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/09/23/opm-now-says-more-than-five-million-fingerprints-compromised-in-breaches/
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cstross
Oh boy, this is going to kneecap CIA HUMINT ops overseas for many years to
come.

Consider: you can't repudiate your fingerprints. So all the Chinese or Russian
authorities need to do is to look for these fingerprints on folks entering the
country and they can identify anyone with a US security clearance -- and in
particular look for the other characteristics indicative of a CIA or other
human intelligence operative. Such as, oh, a set of prints matching someone
with a US security clearance attached to an authentic but definitely-not-in-
the-same-name passport.

Spies are going to be _so_ much a thing of the past ...

~~~
EthanHeilman
This is bad but not so bad for CIA HUMINT. Most* human source handlers, at
least from what I've read, work under Official Cover. That is, they work at
the embassy under their real name. This way if they get caught they have
diplomatic immunity and can't be charged as spies.

Foreign governments know that people that work at the embassy are often spies
and generally the know which ones are spies (used to be the case that the
passport officer was almost always a spy).

Not that this won't hurt, but it won't be a death blow. The real danger comes
from the fact that handlers, and more importantly their superiors, are
vulnerable to blackmail because OPM stored VERY personal information (affairs,
drug addictions, etc...).

* CIA does have Non-Official Cover personel (NOC), this will hurt them more. Then again fingerprint readers are not impossible to fool and even before the OPM hack NOCs were facing increasing exposure risk due to biometrics.

~~~
peteretep

        > Foreign governments know that people that work at the
        > embassy are often spies
    

That's not true. Perhaps you meant: "there are often people working at the
embassy who are spies".

~~~
mattlutze
OPs usage is conversationally common and understandable. No need to break out
the ruler, professor.

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beloch
If you're going to use something that is permanent and unchangeable for
authentication (which is itself dumb), wouldn't it make sense to store one way
hashes rather than the fingerprints themselves? There are multiple layers of
idiocy at work here.

~~~
eli
Does that really help? Unless the hashing algorithm is also a secret, an
attacker with the full database of fingerprint hashes would still be able to
take a random fingerprint, hash it, and then see if they have any OPM records
-- isn't that the main threat scenario here?

I guess it would make it harder for an attacker to manufacture and plant false
fingerprints?

~~~
viraptor
That's where salt idea comes in. Even if you know the hashing algorithm and
the key, you still need to rehash it for every single entry in your database
to check if you have a match.

That assumes you can get a consistent description of a fingerprint though, or
have some scheme for fuzzy match with hashing. Now I want to find a paper on
this...

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imglorp
So, does FIPS-201 now need to ban fingerprints for government facilities?

[http://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/FIPS/NIST.FIPS.201-2.pdf](http://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/FIPS/NIST.FIPS.201-2.pdf)

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brlewis
Somewhat related: I've heard that devices with fingerprint access control are
designed such that software can't get the fingerprints out; the fingerprint
reader is a self-contained black box. If I wanted to verify this, how would I?

~~~
VLM
You don't.

I worked at a place with biometric hand geometry scanners, same deal pretty
much. Technically it was two black boxes, the dumb reader couldn't open doors
directly and supposedly stored no data locally in case someone smashed and
stole it, or smashed and shorted the control wires (I believe it was RS-485
line level protocol WRT wiring) and a black box inside the secured area that
contained our biometric hash data, logs, and a normally closed relay that
could toggle and unlock the door when it felt like it.

Anyway if the protocol and connection between the two black boxes could be
monitored without breaking the DMCA, then you could verify the box outside
does hashing and only 24 bits of data or whatever transport to the other black
box that unlocks, rather than entire hand pix. Assuming there's no ATM-skimmer
grade camera taped on the scanner recording the geometry of every hand for
later abuse.

The nature of security theater or snake oil is apparently unfixable failure
modes don't indicate lack of effort or knowledge, they indicate the product
sucks.

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mtgx
In related news, the FBI has just merged the civil and criminal fingerprint
databases, just so they can have a "one-stop shop" to search for everyone's
fingerprints - just like the hackers will when they will inevitably steal this
one as well. Aren't fingerprint databases great?!

[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/09/little-fanfare-fbi-
ram...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/09/little-fanfare-fbi-ramps-
biometrics-programs-yet-again-part-1)

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thomasrossi
I think a clever observation of the article is the timing of the news: "it's
like a PR problem not a real security threat and it doesn't deserve front
page, it can go after Pope visiting Washington"

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ihsw
The US Government's backwards policy of emphasizing offensive capability over
defensive strikes again -- the NSA may have a treasure trove of
vulnerabilities and the capacity to extend its reach into the nether regions
of other nation-state's networks, but it leaves its belly wide open for
other's to feast on.

~~~
jdavis703
Is this such a backward policy? It's how nuclear strategy worked, have an
offense so scary you don't need a defense.

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visarga
Yeah, we should totally make our fingerprints our password, because it is so
safe and we don't leave our prints on anything we touch.

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mrbig4545
I leave my fingerprints everywhere I go, so it's one of the least worrying
things to have stolen.

~~~
sasvari
as cstross already pointed out [0]: the reverse lookup can be a mighty tool.

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=10267079](https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=10267079)

~~~
mrbig4545
hmm, that's a very good point. but my point is still valid, since i'm not a
spy... or am i? ;)

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aburan28
Question, why would identity theft protection be issued to the victims of this
colossal hack if it was indeed conducted by the Chinese?

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DannoHung
Eh, they just need to invent that fingerprint refresher from Men in Black.

