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posted by on Monday March 27 2017, @08:29PM   Printer-friendly
from the they-only-need-one-finger dept.

These two stories show how tech savvy even very young kids can be. Gaining access to a phone is easy if you have the owner's hand nearby.

Six year old kid circumvents iPhone biometrics to order USD250 of Pokemon toys

"After Ashlynd's parents received 13 order confirmations for Pokemon items, they initially thought they'd been hacked," the Wall Street Journal reports. They even considered that Ashlynd had purchased the items by mistake, but they later realized it was no accident.

"No, Mommy, I was shopping," Ashlynd told her mom. "But don't worry—everything that I ordered is coming straight to the house."

4 YO Boy Saves His Mom's Life By Unlocking Her iPhone

Quick thinking in the face of emergency isn't something you expect 4-year-olds to have but Roman's story is different because what he did to save is mother's life is incredible. On March 7, Roman was at home with his twin brother and younger brother when their mom collapsed. When she didn't revive, Roman used her thumb's fingerprint to unlock her iPhone and used the 'Siri' app to dial the UK's emergency number 999.

After connecting with the emergency dispatcher, Roman told her that his mom was 'dead'. When the dispatcher asked him what that meant, Roman replied, "It means she's closing her eyes and she's not breathing."


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  • (Score: 2) by RedBear on Tuesday March 28 2017, @12:08PM (2 children)

    by RedBear (1734) on Tuesday March 28 2017, @12:08PM (#485092)

    Absolutely correct. Any cell phone should show some kind of "Emergency Call" button even when in a locked state. In fact I believe you can use even a pre-activated phone to place an emergency call, as long as it has a SIM in it. Right out of the box.

    One of the first links that comes up when googling this is from the turn of the millennium. So it would seem this has been true long before the existence of Android and iPhones. Seems like this should be something children should be taught starting in preschool or day care. It's a bit scary to think that kid might have had no clue how to call 999/911 if he failed to unlock the phone. TouchID on our iPhones fails whenever there's the slightest amount of moisture on our hands, and after 5 attempts that's it.

    Imagine, instead of being some international child hero, spending the rest of your life as the kid who was too stupid to know a locked cell phone can still make an emergency call. It's actually sad and disappointing that the story is how kids are smart enough to figure out how to use someone's finger to bypass a fingerprint reader, and not about how kids need to be more aware that a locked phone can make an emergency call.

    One final point is that this is a good argument for how all bio-based security systems still need to be paired with some kind of knowledge-based security like a simple pin number so that children and cops can't so easily bypass the "security" by just knocking you out and placing your finger on the reader. With a 5-try limit even a 2-digit pin makes it virtually impossible to get past the fingerprint reader without the user's help, but it's still super quick and easy for the user to unlock the device.

    --
    ¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
    ... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
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  • (Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Tuesday March 28 2017, @04:40PM (1 child)

    by Scruffy Beard 2 (6030) on Tuesday March 28 2017, @04:40PM (#485287)

    I have used my phone to make an emergency call sans SIM card. Not sure if the local phone companies' firmware helped make that work.

    • (Score: 1) by DmT on Tuesday March 28 2017, @07:54PM

      by DmT (6439) on Tuesday March 28 2017, @07:54PM (#485431)

      You don't need special firmware. All phones are equipped with a possibility to call emergency even without a SIM card (at least in Europe). Its standard stuff.