A crowdfunding campaign started on Twitter is now offering over $15,000 (and a myriad of other things) to hackers who are able to hack an iPhone 5S’s Touch ID fingerprint scanner and offer proof of the hack. The campaign initiated on Twitter by Nick DePetrillo, a security researcher, started off with a promise of $100 to the successful hacker, but soon that amount was increased due to many more individuals adding to the pool, including IO Capital, a start-up venture fund, which added $10,000.
According to DePetrillo (and the ‘Is Touch ID hacked yet’ website he created to cover this campaign), the hacker/s will need to lift a user’s fingerprint off the screen of the iPhone 5S and use it to unlock the phone in less than five tries. As proof, the hacker will need to create a video depicting the entire process- from the point of lifting the fingerprint, right up to using it to unlock the iPhone 5S. Anyone wanting to contribute to the campaign have been advised to tweet their amounts with the #istouchidhackedyet hash tag, with $50 being the minimum amount. So far, these contributions have ranged from mundane cash amounts to more exotic things like bottles of whiskey and wine, Bitcoins, ‘dirty books’, free patent applications covering the hack and even an iPhone 5C.
The Touch ID fingerprint scanner feature from the iPhone 5S has received a large share of attention on the Internet. While the phone itself stays true to the adage ‘evolutionary not revolutionary’, Internet commentators have been showing a great deal of interest in the fingerprint scanner. Unlike most other fingerprint scanners, the Touch ID does not capture the image of a user’s fingerprint, but instead scans the ridges of the finger’s surface to generate an encrypted code, in a sense, reading the finger’s surface itself rather than just the fingerprint.
All I ask is a video of the process from print, lift, reproduction and successful unlock with reproduced print. I’ll put money on this.
— NickDe (@nickdepetrillo) September 18, 2013
The iPhone 5S was announced last week and will hit stores in select countries today, along with the polycarbonate chassis sporting iPhone 5C. There is no word yet on an India launch date or price for either phone.
Source: Twitter, Is Touch ID hacked yet via ZDNet