Your fingerprint is the best password ever, it is with you everywhere you go, it cannot be guessed, it is not repeated, and also you will never forget it unlike all passwords, so Apple decided to be the main factor in selling and marketing the iPhone 5s. How does this technology work? And why is it special? Is it enough to be a magnet for the iPhone 5s?


Apple is famous for reinventing what was already there and its actual fame came from the success in doing that and providing a product worthy of use after many failed to provide it, so when you buy a product from Apple products you can feel the value of what you have bought and even feel all the effort expended in its design and manufacture This is a feeling that no one can describe in words, as everyone who has tried an Apple product knows this feeling well.

Today we will talk about Apple's creativity and touch identity technology, although many companies have introduced a similar feature many years ago that no one has been able to implement in a way that is worth using, for example this feature is found in some laptops and we believed when we tell you that we never use it. We deliberately turn off this feature due to its misapplication by most companies. Also, Apple is not the first company to consider the development of fingerprint recognition in smartphones, the beginning was with Motorola ATRIX in January 2011, but the presence of this feature was very sterile as you have to hold the phone specifically and use the fingerprint in a certain way, which is to swipe your finger from top to bottom quickly. It can only be used after pressing the lock button, otherwise it will not work for you. Also, you may try more than once to adjust the speed and location of your finger scrolling.

Consequently, everyone waited for Apple to provide a technology that uses a fingerprint with impatience, in order to set a high standard in this category of technologies, which makes the rest of the companies follow suit and offer all the best.

In order to explain the Touch ID feature, we start with numbers: the fingerprint sensor is 170 microns thick, which is finer than the hair, and an efficiency of up to 550ppi, which enables it to examine the lower skin layers and works at a 360-degree angle, that is, you can place your finger in any direction, and the home button has been replaced by its material The same that protects the camera lens is called "Sapphire Crystal" in order to protect the fingerprint sensor from the most severe shocks and repeated pressure, and so that the sensor does not work at all times and consumes the battery, a very conductive iron ring responsible for activating the sensor is placed when your hand touches the home button.

Before we continue talking about Touch ID technology, watch the official Apple video to explain the technology:

Is this feature useful and practical?

This is the question that is in your mind and was the first thing that came to our minds while watching the conference, what is new that drives me to buy an iPhone for the "Touch ID" technology, and what is new in it? And the answer was as follows:

  • Knowing your identity works faster than any other phone or device.
  • Identify your identity by placing your finger in any direction, regardless of holding the device.
  • You can register more than one person to the device, so you can record your identity and that of your wife, for example.
  • The device opens with just a touch and does not require further steps.
  • You can use the same technology with Apple applications, where you will be able to purchase through the software store only with a touch ID and without entering a password every time.

Watch the Hands-On Experience of Touch ID and learn its ease and speed:

Why would I need a phone that recognizes me by my fingerprint?

  • As my use of the iPhone increased, it now contains all the passwords for my various accounts.
  • Sometimes I have to unlock the device in front of my friends and they know the password, so I change it and see it, and so on.
  • I am one of the people who gets bored of typing the password continuously and has to disable the service.
  • It is the technology of the future and it is expected that Apple will do it in more applications.

The danger of this technique

Maybe the first thing that comes to your mind is Apple keeping my fingerprint? Is it possible for my device to be hacked or this fingerprint leaked, especially in light of the privacy violations currently taking place, such as espionage from the US National Security Agency "NSA" and its spyware such as "Prism" and others.

The blog administrator answers this question:

Apple knows the importance of preserving the fingerprint, and if anyone's fingerprint is known or leaked, Apple will destroy not only the reputation and shares of Apple, but the damage will be witnessed when the public loses confidence in this giant company.

So Apple has taken all the measures to make it nearly impossible to obtain a person's fingerprint. There is a lot of information that Apple has mentioned in this regard. And theAs important information Apple calls this technology Touch ID, not Finger Scan, and this is really very accurate. Apple does not take your fingerprint as if you put it on a scanner, but takes into account some of the elements that distinguish your fingerprint from others and it is located under your skin and divides the fingerprint into three categories (Arch - Loop - Whorl ) Then it picks up finer details such as the distances between the tines of the skin and the path of the blood veins) What I am mentioning here is not an actual fingerprint as you thought it was, but it is Touch ID or fingerprint identity, and this technology is not new at all, and I talked about a similar technology in One of the episodes of a program on his techniques

In addition to that, suppose there is a possibility, even one percent, that this information was leaked, and it will be useless to any party because it is not a real fingerprint, but only the identity of the fingerprint, it is like the IMIE number for the communication network, this technology comes with qualities that distinguish you from others and at the same time useless Except for the same device, we will be like someone who leaked the PassCode for your device, which is only useful for your device and your device.

Not only that, even this one percent, Apple did not let an opportunity to take the risk, preserving the identity of the fingerprint on the A7 chip and making this information only reach the Touch ID sensor. This is more than enough to make this task nearly impossible for any hacker, at least remotely.

Apple was not satisfied with that, but encrypted this information, this encryption is done by using a unique number such as the UDID of your device, but it is a special number for each Touch ID as a key for this code, and this type of code is a one-way encryption - in most cases - meaning that the data It is saved encrypted on the A7 chip and encrypted on the sensor, by which an encoder is compared to an encoder. If the match is matched, the operation succeeds and if it does not fail, but no one has the real information because it is encrypted upon reception immediately.

Conclusion

What has spread on Internet sites that this technology is dangerous is completely false, the most important of which is that Apple does not scan your fingerprint, but rather tries to determine the identity of your fingerprint through modern technologies, and there is a big difference between the two. The company has also encrypted this identity and will register it in the device processor, and it is not synchronized with the company's servers, which makes it nearly impossible to know this identity.

The only thing that you should be concerned about when you activate the Touch ID feature is for someone while you are sleeping to place your finger on the device and open it - you will be your wife in this case :) - In this case we advise every user to sleep so heavy and not safe where he sleeps Does not enable Touch ID and use normal passwords.

What do you think about Touch ID technology? And did you expect all of these things to happen just by touching your device? Share your opinion

Share in this article: Ahmed Muhammad Al Salhi

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