My debit card, for example, has "paywave" short range payment support. So anybody who has my card can go around making small purchases, no PIN, no signature needed. I'm fine with this because the convenience far outweighs the security concern.

With the iPhone an attacker who replicates your fingerprint can make purchases to your iTunes account using your phone. They can't purchase to a different account, they can't purchase to a different device. In that sense, requiring a valid fingerprint is more than secure enough — even if faked it's not going to do much damage.

Creating a fake print that can fool the scanner is so much harder than stealing someone's debit/credit card. It's also so much less damaging to the victim (making purchases on their iTunes account vs. making any arbitrary purchase).

I think the balance between security and convenience for this technology is more than reasonable.

No, it's not. Starbug used simple means starting from a photo of a fingerprint. The fact that fingerprints are blasted all over the place makes this very easy. You could probably even build a cheap machine that automates this process.

Creating fake print: Step 1. Either find a perfect print, or a number of imperfect prints. Step 2. photograph. Step 3. enhance. Step 4. print. Step 5. Use print on suitably encoded device (which probably means steeling their phone too).

Edit: Given the front of a phone is glass, there's probably going to be a print on the screen, though I wonder if any prints take from a phone screen would be clean? I don't know.

You're missing the point. Right now lots of people have no password at all. Touch ID is a big improvement over having no password.

Source: http://www.cultofmac.com/246572/iphone-5s-first-impressions-....

[1] From the citation: "Passcodes and passwords aren’t completely eliminated by Touch ID, then, but they almost certainly will be later on."

[2] The glass screen will have your fingerprint on it, somewhere. That can be CSI'd by anyone who finds it. Anyone serious enough to do that (and its not much) can start escalating.

If someone wants what you have bad enough, there really isn't anything you can do to stop them.

TouchID is highly secure if the only way to break into it is to have an ultra high-def image of the exact finger the device is looking for. I guess 50 character-long passcodes aren't secure because you could just tell a thief the code?

We must have wildly different definitions of "highly". I'm pretty confident I could reproduce this result in one afternoon. Compare that to other things we might consider highly secure, like strong encryption or Fort Knox. What word do you use for security measures that take non-trivial resources to circumvent?

How do you approach that part of the problem?

But if I were trying to break into an iPhone, perhaps the finger prints are on the phone. Or some other item I also got as part of the same theft. Or I found the phone in the owner's house when I robbed it and have my pick of surfaces. Or I have the owner's prints in a database because they went were convicted of a crime(I admit I have no idea what resolution those are taken at). I don't think there's a shortage possibilities. You leave prints on almost everything you touch.

To be extra clear, I'm not saying the finger print reader isn't good enough for most iPhone users; I'm not arguing the nth-grandparent's point about that. My point is that it's not highly secure, and Apple shouldn't be marketing it that way. Similarly, the lock on my front door is plenty good for my house, but no one would ever describe my house as highly secure.

You do have a very valid argument.

It needs a 2400 dpi output. This is not hard. 300 ppi source can easily generate a 2400 dpi output. DPI =/= PPI.

From what I've found online, chip-PIN does indeed reduce fraud, but when fraud does happen, it becomes extraordinarily difficult for the cardholder to get a refund from the bank.

I could see fingerprint scanning going the same way -- with vendors saying "what do you mean you aren't the one who made this purchase? The device was unlocked with your unique fingerprint!"

You're baselessly asserting your position, though.

If you write your pin on your ATM card, they will not refund you. That is policy and they ask everytime you lose your card. The bank views this as lack of due care. Likewise, if you leave copies of your fingerprints on your payment device, they could argue that you are likewise acting with un-reasonable care.

Now that this has been (so easily?) spoofed, is it reasonable to believe it is secure? That is a valid concern. Unlike a pin, you cannot reset a fingerprint security mechanism. So when it is compromised, it is over. So, the result is messy in that it puts you in a problem using today's standard practices, but at the same time, the standard practice "defense" is not applicable, and lacks an obvious alternative.

This is not a strawman, its a legitimate edge case.

3. I will hold in strict confidence my personal identification number (PIN). I will take reasonable precautions to keep my PIN separate from my ATM card and to prevent the unauthorized disclosure of my PIN.

So, you sign an affadavit verifying you did not contravence this agreement. They will screen for this as/if you file a claim for fraud.

I live in Europe, and twice in the last two years or so my card details have been compromised, and both times my bank has rang me to notify me of suspicious transactions before I'd even noticed. It depends on the bank (and the country most likely) with regards to getting a refund. I got refunds no problem, but I've heard people having problems in the UK. The fraud happened online (not sure how, I'm reasonably tech savvy and careful with my card details).

I believe that this has now changed (although I've not had a new card recently and I don't remember seeing any new TOS).

Buying apps with your device is not terribly useful unless you have take full posession of the device, in which case the owner can remote lock/wipe it with iCloud and dispute the charges with their CC company.

Having some shiny new method does not mean these people that do not currently use a pin/password will magically start using this.

Now, if Apple started forcing everyone to use one or the other (or both), that's another story.

It actually does mean exactly that in the aggregate. There are huge number of people that don't use pass codes not because they don't care, but because they are inconvenient. This technology is for them, and it will have nothing to do with "magic" when they adopt this fundamental improvement (that happens to be also a heavily marketed main differentiation from the previous model).

As for the people that never used a pass code because they weren't aware/didn't care... probably less adoption, but just because the feature is so heavily marketed, many of them will also use it.

But yeah. Significant numbers of people who didn't secure their devices with pass codes will now do so. No magic required.

1. http://images.apple.com/iphone/business/docs/iOS_6_Security_...

Edit: I realized that the link is for iOS 6 - though I wouldn't expect them to reduce business IT functionality, not sure if these options are still in iOS 7.

As I understand it every now and again Apple will prompt you to enter your passcode/password, such as when you restart your device or if you haven't unlocked it in two days. Hardly a signal that passwords are done.

>You check your iPhone dozens and dozens of times a day, probably more. Entering a passcode each time just slows you down. But you do it because making sure no one else has access to your iPhone is important. With iPhone 5s, getting into your phone is faster, easier, and even a little futuristic. Introducing Touch ID — a new fingerprint identity sensor.

Put your finger on the Home button, and just like that your iPhone unlocks. It’s a convenient and highly secure way to access your phone. Your fingerprint can also approve purchases from iTunes Store, the App Store, and the iBooks Store, so you don’t have to enter your password. And Touch ID is capable of 360-degree readability. Which means no matter what its orientation — portrait, landscape, or anything in between — your iPhone reads your fingerprint and knows who you are. And because Touch ID lets you enroll multiple fingerprints, it knows the people you trust, too.

I believe that's the opinion being referred to.