Carjackers swipe biometric Merc, plus owner's finger

Carjackers swipe biometric Merc, plus owner's finger
John Leyden, The Register 2005-04-04

A Malaysian businessman has lost a finger to car thieves impatient to get around his Mercedes' fingerprint security system. Accountant K Kumaran, the BBC reports, had at first been forced to start the S-class Merc, but when the carjackers wanted to start it again without having him along, they chopped off the end of his index finger with a machete.

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Carjackers swipe biometric Merc, plus owner's finger 2005-04-04
Anonymous

Biometrics; PIN Numbers 2005-04-06
Anonymous

There are devices out there that can detect the blood flow in an extremity. Oxygen saturation monitors in hospitals do this. If the fingerprint reader was designed to also watch for blood flow, it would defeat the idea of lopping off someone's finger or making a mold of the fingerprint.

As for PIN numbers, why don't banks issue two PINs? The second PIN number could be easy to remember by only being a single digit off. If the second PIN is used, the transaction will succeed but it will set off a silent alarm with bank security. Security could immediately investigate what happened. If someone is being kidnapped, it would be much faster to respond to an alarm (even if that response is only to send someone to review the tape 30 or 60 minutes later) than to, potentially, have to wait for someone to file a missing person report and have police act on that. The best plan would have police respond immediately, but there would undoubtedly be false alarms. Having security review the tape ASAP might be a good compromise.

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