Play Doh Fingers Fool Fingerprint Readers

Clarkson University Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Stephanie C. Schuckers has unmasked the weakness of most fingerpint readers by tricking them into accepting PLAY DOH fingers as real. She used "dental materials" to create a mold of a person's finger, then pressed the Play Doh into the mold. Other materials -- not to mention real-but-severed fingers -- do the trick as well. She and her team are working on improving the technology by teaching scanners to read perspiration patterns in fingers, instead of just the pattern of fingerprints.