Did you wait twenty hours in the cold, wind and rain for a shot at that brand new iPhone X? If so, have you already dropped and shattered the thing like a glass table? If not, fret not - there are other ways to ruin your iPhone! In fact, hackers have cracked the face scanning technology wide open. It was to be expected - the iPhone X isn't a fortress or anything. If people can jailbreak these things, they can confuse the facial censor, which is in its infancy of production for sure.
When you try to strip down and make design sleeker, often, the unexpected happens. These convenient new modules become totally exploitable! With new
technology, it's easier than ever to pry a curious finger into the gaps and peel the whole thing wide open.
Basically, for a mere 150 bucks, a cyber security company called Bkav has printed out a 3-D mask that can trick the iPhone X like it's a common fool.
However, Bkav noted that common people are far less likely to be targeted by this kind of fraud than, say, serious world leaders and billionaires:
"Potential targets shall not be regular users, but billionaires, leaders of major corporations, nation leaders and agents like FBI need to understand the Face ID’s issue. Security units’ competitors, commercial rivals of corporations, and even nations might benefit from our PoC."
Basically, to unlock Trump's hypothetical iPhone X, all you have to do is print out a mask, paste printed photos of Trump's eyes into the eye holes, and use silicon to make the face realistic. You just need a 3-D printer and a craftsman who knows what they're doing. Of course, there's the chance that Bkav has uncovered a minor exploit that will be fixed soon, or altered Face ID somehow. But it seems plausible that with printed eyes, you can trick it into thinking a mask is actually you.
Of course, the face-scanning has always been a point of controversy. Taking out the Home button is a big move, and if people can unlock their phones with just their faces, what else can be read in their faces? Technology is getting closer and closer to knowing extreme details about us just from a simple face scan. It can already determine your
politics with high accuracy just from facial structure. Do you really think Apple isn't collecting ANY biometric or facial data on its users? Just for marketing purposes, of course they would. There's no proof of it, but after the NSA revelations, I don't trust corporations to protect my privacy. If you do, you may not like the outcome. Allowing a corporation to download a map of your face is, uh...just a little
dystopian?
In the end, it remains to be seen just how pregnable the fortress of Apple's iPhone security really is. Will it be paper-thin, and not private, or well-protected, and still probably not nearly as private as we hope? Either way, enjoy that 1,000 dollar iPhone! Precious few years remain until the next one...
