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Google’s clever little Face Unlock security feature, which lets you use your phone’s camera to pull your Android mobile out of standby mode by having it recognise its master, has been updated, with the Jelly Bean version of the tool allowing users to blink at it to prove they’re not a photograph.
This is designed to stop the sort of internet outrage pieces we saw surrounding the launch of Google’s Android 4.0 software alongside the Galaxy Nexus last year, when it was discovered that Android’s new Face Unlock could be tricked by using a photo of the registered owner, so was about as secure as writing your secrets on a pub toilet wall in marker pen.
So in Android 4.1 it ought to be a little tougher to fool thanks to the optional blink detection setting, unless you print out a life-sized photo of the owner, cut out holes for the eyes and blink through the holes. Which is probably a bit too much fuss for the chance to read someone else’s mundane SMS messages.[XDA via TechCrunch]
Image credit: Android Central
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I suppose it depends just how badly you want to read those messages!
I had the problem at one point whereby my cousin decided it would be fun to replace my face in the database with that of her doll….
haha what a brilliant troll your cousin is
I really don’t see the fuzz about unlocking with picture, the only people that will have your picture at hand are people you know, and we all know that pattern unlock and 4 digit pins are much easier to replicate. Unless you are hiding some serious stuff from your close ones (or the police) there is no need to worry.
That being said, I think that this feature is really cool and probably makes face unlock safer than the other common methods.
Fuss
It made a good headline for the blogs, so it got a lot of coverage. The original version was a nice idea and a fun thing to have on the phone, but was never really intended to be a security solution. The Jelybean version is improved and maybe in 2 or 3 versions time it will be reliable and secure enough to be a frontline lock method.
My friend friend managed to hack into my phone after a night eating Pizza as my greasy fingers betrayed the security of pattern based locks. Was kinda funny at the time, but worrying all the same!
Ha, I discovered the exact same thing recently. A nice little pattern of smeariness betraying my unlock sequence! I’ve since taken to cleaning my screen more regularly.
See how long before some bright spark uses an animated gif to open it up
I can’t see that working, when you point a camera at a screen you never get a perfect image so i really doubt this will work, but i’d love for someone to prove me wrong
Or a smartphone app that uses basic facial recognition algorithms to detect the eyes, and then simulate blinking.
Someone has to do this. for science.
As long as nobody invents some kind of moving picture, I can’t see how this could possible go wrong.