Borrowed Biometric Bypass: Difference between revisions

'''Kryten:''' Sir, you are ''sick!'' You are a ''sick, sick person!'' How can you possibly even conceive of such an idea?<br />

'''Lister:''' Hey, cheer up... or I'll beat you to death with the wet end.<br />

 

 

Unfortunately, the more dangerous individual won't need to get your guards to agree: He'll find someone with the right access, and engage in some very [[Eye Scream|unpleasant surgery]]. He may remove a guard's eye, or he may simply lop off his or her head and hand with a big ol' sword. Then equipped with those body parts, he'll simply apply these to the biometric authentication device in question, and get through.

 

== Film ==

** Might have been an iris scanner, of course.

*** Except the door says "retina coding accepted"

** John Spartan also mentions that Phoenix can't mug anyone for money "...unless he rips off somebody's hand, and let's hope he doesn't figure ''that'' one out."

* In ''[[Double Team]]'' [[Jean Claude Van Damme]] cuts out the skin of his own thumb to provide time-needed biometrics while he is elsewhere.

* Subverted in ''[[District 9]]''. Since the alien weaponry can only be used by an alien hand, various attempts are made to use severed arms to fire the guns. That doesn't work, though, since the arms need to be ''alive''.

* In [[The Film of the Book]] of ''[[The Dead Zone]],'' John Smith has a vision of Gregory Stillson as president. Stillson is hot to launch a nuclear strike at the Soviet Union, but to activate the Nuclear Football, he needs a general's handprint-scan in addition to his own. Stillson tells the general, "Put your hand on that pad or I'll cut it off and do it myself!"

* In ''[[Back to The Future]] Part II'' we see a brief glimpse of a news article in 2015 that says "Thumb Bandits Strike Again". Since all monetary transactions in that future are done by thumb scanners, criminals would start to steal victims' thumbs.

* In ''[[Doomsday]]'', a dying infected man armed with an axe uses this method to break into the building sheltering {{spoiler|the UK's Prime Minister}}.

* In [[Doom]] The Movie, Sarge takes the severed arm of a dead scientist and places the palm on an access scanner to obtain the [[BFG]].

* A robotic version appeared in ''Futureworld'', the sequel to ''[[Westworld]]''. A door has a device that scans the retinas of anyone trying to get in. To pass, you must have a pattern that only robots possess. The [[Heroes]] deactivate a robot and rip off its face, then use the face (and its eyes) to fool the device.

* In ''[[National Treasure]]'', Gates uses Chase's thumbprint he acquired to infiltrate the vault storing the Declaration of Independence.

 

 

== Literature ==

** In a later book, the fairies have one that is specifically designed to detect a pulse in order to prevent this (justified due to the fact that it was designed by [[Genre Savvy|Foaly]]).

* In the [[Dan Brown]] novel ''[[Angels and Demons]]'', physicist Leonardo Vetra gets his eye cut out to get past a retinal scan.

* In [[Sergey Lukyanenko]]'s ''A Lord From Planet Earth'' amongst one of the Precursors' artefacts there are little one-time use devices capable of making planets barren wastelands. However, they need to be activated by a human hand. Attached to a living human being capable of reasoning its activation. Yes they tried other options, including a severed warm human hand.

* ''[[Star Wars Expanded Universe|Rebel Force: Trapped]]'' has Luke Skywalker going through an Imperial base with a stolen passcard just fine until he reaches a palm scanner. Fortunately, it was guarded by the only two stormtroopers he'd encountered in the base who were inclined to shoot first, so he could kill them and use one's hand without violating his [[Martial Pacifist]] preferences.

 

 

== Live Action TV ==

* In one of the ''[[Lexx]]'' movies, Giggerota ripped off Stan's hand so she could pilot Lexx without him. The former Shadow brains provided the voice.

* In ''[[Dark Angel]]'', a man got both his eye gouged out and his hand cut off (at two different occasions by the same guy) so that the maiming guy could get into two different high security installations after he had gone rogue from the evil corporation he used to work for.

* The ''[[Myth Busters]]'' tested biometric fingerprint scanners, including a top of the line model which was supposed to read body temperature, salinity, and electrical current, but they all proved very easy to fool.

** To wit: One of them was fooled by a ''black and white computer printout of the finger in question'' (that had been licked to cover salinity).

** In another episode, Vila got round a scanner by doing the lifting fingerprints trick.

* ''Kessler'' (a 1981 spin-off of ''[[Secret Army]]'') has the title character informing his fellow war criminals in South America that they can't access his Swiss bank accounts by cutting off his hand, as the system only works with a living hand.

** In a different episode, a time traveler from the past with a stolen time machine from the future (got that?) tries to kidnap Data. Since his handprint is required to open the door, nobody has been able to get into or to even scan the inside of the craft. Once the time traveler learns that he can't incapacitate Data (due to his stolen phaser being disabled), Data subtly but effectively convinces him to give himself up...

{{quote| '''Data''': I assume your hand print will open this door, whether you are conscious or not.}}

* In [[Jekyll]], Hyde is obviously a bit gleeful about this one--to the point where he puts the victim's severed thumb in a lunch box and abruptly presents it to a passing scientist:

{{quote| "Give this to Dr. Gilligan." <br />

 

== Video Games ==

** Used in a more comprehensive way with the "nuclear football" that the president must have access to to activate a nuclear weapon. Inside the briefcase is a complex device that constantly monitors the president's, well, ''everything,'' so if he dies or is in an altered state of consciousness, no nukes can be activated.

* Likewise in ''[[Splinter Cell]]'', though you need a breathing, conscious person for the retinal scanner, as the scanners can tell if they're living or dead.

* Used straight in ''[[Fallout 2]]'' in an abandoned Military Base. Retinal scanners operating locks in various sections of the base require specific eyes to unlock.

* The 2005 FPS [[Area 51]] had one puzzle be solved by picking up the severed hand to a guard and placing it on a scanner while you hit the other one. Later, you had to pick up a severed head to get through a retinal scanner.

* This is a solution to get to the shuttle bay and steal a shuttle in ''[[Space Quest]] 6: The Spinal Frontier''. The shuttle bay entrance is guarded by two security guards, who won't let Roger inside. After knocking them out, Roger realizes that both buttons have to be pushed simultaneously in order to open the doors. He goes to the ship's android Lieutenant Commander Circuit Sidney and asks to borrow his arm. After using his own arm and Sidney's to open the door, he realizes that the shuttle can only be started by an authorized crewmember, which Roger (despite being an [[Almighty Janitor]]) isn't. He goes back to Sidney and asks for one of his eyes (why a senior officer would give his body parts to a janitor without explanation is not explained), which he uses to fool the shuttle's retinal scanner.

 

 

* Used in ''[[Chopping Block]]'' [http://choppingblock.org/d/20010417.html here]

* [http://www.poisonedminds.com/d/20010716.html Done] [http://www.poisonedminds.com/d/20090803.html twice] in [[SSDD]], and kind of an [[Ironic Echo]] when you consider the second one was chronologically before the first.