Gadgetory

what's up guys Lew here and today we'll be taking a detailed look at the fingerprint scanner or sensor from the brand new unreleased iPhone 5s we've been lucky enough to get our hands on the component pre-launch so in this video we'll be taking a closer look comparing it to the old home button from the iPhone 5 and talking about these security concerns and privacy concerns when it comes to fingerprint scanning in general the new home button looks remarkably similar to that of the iPhone 5 for in previous generations but under the hood are the necessary components and the necessary technology to take a high-resolution scan of your fingerprint Apple is using hardware to create these scans the technological method employed is referred to as capacitance this method varies greatly from traditional electro-optical scanners which simply capture a black and white image of your finger and as such have been beatable using in some cases a photocopy of a person's print that helps to fool the scanner and then grant access to the person you don't want to grant access to you may have seen these old electro-optical scanners on laptops and even some devices in the past like the Atrix the new iPhone 5s uses the more sensitive capacitance method instead of bouncing light off the print to generate a binary representation this method relies on an array of miniscule capacitive cells each less than a finger Ridge wide these cells consist of two conductor plates separated by an insulating layer without getting super technical this method also creates a representative image except this time with a much higher degree of fidelity this presumably makes the new 5s sensor tougher to crack speaking of cracking fingerprint sensors traditionally fingerprint locks have actually proven fairly secure if the technology behind Apple's new scanner delivers on its promise it should prove to be even more secure than previous generations the problem with fingerprints though is that unlike a password or pattern on lock if they're ever compromised I'll be difficult to become compromised they can't be changed you're stuck with them for life unless you plan on becoming a cyborg or swapping out your hand for a better robotic version somewhere in the future let's pray for that future this has some would-be 5s users concerned what is the consequence of storing all of this fingerprint data from a huge chunk of society is it safe can this stuff be used against us before we delve too deeply into that discussion I would like to point out that Apple claims to store the fingerprint data locally rather than in the cloud or on a server somewhere they've obviously designed the system in this manner to ease potential privacy concerns from skeptical citizens especially in light of the recent NSA leaks etc your fingerprint data is said to live in a secure portion of the a7 chip inside your iPhone and only your iPhone that being said I want to get back to the original question is this a safe way to store fingerprint data should your fingerprint data be stored on your phone and can it eventually be used against you according to marcia hoffman of Wired magazine the answer is yes while there's a great deal of discussion around the pros and cons of fingerprint authentication from the hack ability of the technique to the reliability of readers no one's focusing on the legal effects of moving from pins to fingerprints because the constitutional protection of the Fifth Amendment which guarantees that no person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself may not apply when it comes to biometric based fingerprints things that reflect who we are as opposed to memory based passwords and pins things we need to know and we need to remember simply put your fingerprint is a physical token rather than something you remember that lives in your mind like a passcode the Fifth Amendment gives citizens the privilege against self-incrimination this is why the government in and civil cases attempts to compel a person to make a testimonial but the ball remains in the court of the accused when a person has a valid privilege against self-incrimination nobody not even a judge can force the witness to give that information to the government this privilege only exists for the contents of one's mind other evidence not so much including what lives on your phone and the fingerprint used to access it in simple terms if your device has a pass lock on it you know a passcode or a pattern unlock and there's incriminating evidence on that device you are not required to provide the passcode information to the authorities so that they can look into it the Fifth Amendment protects you from that so you can keep that information in your mind if it is self incriminating if that same device requires a physical token instead of data that exists in your mind the authorities could presumably force you to unlock the device therefore as of this moment it appears that using a fingerprint lock on your device relinquishes your ability to invoke the Fifth Amendment if there happens to be incriminating data on that device locked by that finger this might not seem like a huge deal to you especially if you're a person who likes to follow the rules or somebody who's not planning to buy the new iPhone 5s but you need to pay attention and you need to care because of the fact that whenever Apple adopts a standard whether that be a new or old standard it tends to accelerate the adoption from everybody else and by everybody else I'm not just talking about end users I'm talking about hardware companies and other software companies that want to employ the new technology for the sake of convenience or otherwise so we might very well see fingerprint sensors or scanners in a lot of things that currently require PIN codes so now my question for you the audience does this information concern you will it stop you from purchasing a 5s or are you gonna buy one and use it right away for the sake of convenience leave a comment down below because I'm interested to know where all of you stand on it anyway guys that wraps up this video thanks as always for watching if you enjoyed this content please remember to leave a thumbs up down below and also remember to subscribe for more similar content and actually some tests coming up when the 5s does actually launch of this actual fingerprint sensor all right guys thanks again and I'll catch you on the next video later