Could your ‘evil twin’ unlock your new iPhone?
Sep 18, 2017, 5:11 PM | Updated: 8:40 pm
(AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
Apple announced last week a new feature for its latest iPhone — Face ID.
The technology is just as it’s worded. Instead of pressing your thumbprint against the screen, your phone can now read your face using a TruthDepth camera to unlock your device.
The idea behind this is it would stop hackers from sliding into your phone.
But Time magazine’s Aric Jenkins posed a brilliant question — could an evil twin hack your phone?
Mike Shultz, founder and CEO of a cyber risk firm Cybernance, told Time that your evil twin might not have too much trouble getting into the new iPhone.
“Could an identical twin trick the machine? I suppose the answer is yes,” he told the magazine.
Similarly, Chris Dore, an attorney at Edelson PC, told Time, “I think a twin could be a possible problem if you were truly an identical twin.”
Dore added that it all depended on how well Apple’s technology, which will use 30,000 invisible dots to outline your facial features, performs.
“It’s going to come down to a very, very granular level of measuring pieces of your face,” Dore told Time. “It’s looking at measurements like in between your pupils and the edge of your mouth to your ear.”
Apple’s new technology failed at its announcement event on Tuesday, though. Apple operating system chief Craig Federighi attempted to demonstrate the technology live on stage, but failed.
The company said later in the week that the failure was born from too many faces playing a role in the demonstration.
“People were handling the device for stage demo ahead of time and didn’t realize Face ID was trying to authenticate their face,” a company rep said, according to Engadget.
“After failing a number of times, because they weren’t Craig, the iPhone did what it was designed to do, which was to require his passcode.”