Subverting Fingerprint Scanners

So you probably heard about this already as it has been mentioned on BBC News, Slashdot and one of my favorite new sources, HiTB.

From BBC News:

"Lin Rong, 27, had previously been deported from Japan for overstaying her visa. She was only discovered when she was arrested on separate charges.

Tokyo police said she had paid $15,000 (£9,000) to have the surgery in China.

It is Japan's first case of alleged biometric fraud, but police believe the practice may be widespread.

Japanese police suspect Chinese brokers of taking huge sums to modify fingerprints surgically.

Local media reports said Ms Lin had undergone surgery to swap the fingerprints from her right and left hands.

Japanese newspapers said police had noticed that Ms Lin's fingers had unnatural scars when she was arrested last month for allegedly faking a marriage to a Japanese man."

From about 3 years ago, Japan has required all foreigners to have their fingerprints scanned and picture taken at customs when entering the country. This has cost an ENORMOUS amount of money to deploy and has been seen as a complete waste and useless at best by most security experts here. The system was installed in the name of "preventing terrorism" (the popular excuse for anything these days) but many think it is just an excuse to be able to crack down even more on illegal foreigners, despite the already hard time it is to get into (and be able to stay legally in) this country. The system was based off the the U.S. list of known terrorists which is known to be highly inaccurate. Just ask Bruce Schneier.

Actually, this is not really new news at all as I heard about this on NHK (I believe) several months (maybe year?) back. They were reporting on not Chinese, but how in South Korea there is a big semi-underground market to supply people with a clear plastic film to put over your fingers that will fool the fingerprint scanner. This has been going on since shortly have the installment of the system apparently. The thing that I thought was most interesting about this was that they said either the cost of the fake plastic fingerprint or the cost that people were paying for them was less than a dollar. One would naturally think it is the manufacturing cost of the actual plastic that is less than a dollar but I am pretty sure I remember they said that people were buying these things for that price! (Although I wouldn't take my word for it as my memory isn't so great in my old age..) But if my memory serves me correct, it means that this Chinese woman isn't a very a wise spender as she could have easily saved money buying a plane ticket to South Korea ($300?), picked up some of those plastic fake fingerprints for a couple bucks and saved $14,700 along with permanent scars. ^^v