Finger Condoms

Are your fingerprints on file somewhere? The answer is yes if you’ve been in the military, ever been arrested, or even recently gotten a driver’s license or had a document notarized. Chances are, in each of these situations they used ink on paper.

Not for long though. Indications are that electronic fingerprint readers are going to be everywhere soon. Already being built into laptops and security panels, these little devices read your fingerprint and can save you from entering a pin #, or carrying an ID card around your neck. For higher security situations, you may have to use a combination of these things, but for securing your laptop, most people will set it up with just one swipe of the finger to log in.

But how secure is this really? Ignoring the bizarre extreme where someone mugs you and chops off your finger to access your laptop (this actually happens - not just in mystery novels), what about someone stealing your fingerprint? Since you can get instructions for making bombs on the internet, there is probably already a website where you can learn how to take a latent fingerprint and process it into an artificial finger to use on security scanners.

Optical readers just require you to press your finger onto the pad and a matrix of sensors reads the print. Obviously this is not very secure since you leave your finger print right there on the reader for someone to lift. Consequently, these are already being replaced by readers that require you to sweep your finger sideways across a pad - apparently less susceptible to collecting prints on the surface.

If these readers really take off, and I believe they will, what are the social implications? Will we all get hyper-aware of leaving finger prints on things in public, carrying “wipe-down” rags with us or wearing finger cots? For those who don’t know this term, finger cots are used mostly by doctors and nurses for exam purposes (no need to go into more detail). They cover a single finger, come in different sizes and look like tiny condoms, which is undoubtedly what they will be called if people start wearing them.

Adults will seek ones that match their skin color, maybe with some new material that breathes. Teens will go the opposite route paying extra for brightly colored finger condoms. Groups will define themselves by finger color. Some will program their laptops to read their middle finger so they can offer up a fluorescent middle finger gesture when the situation calls for it. A whole new lexicon of gestures will emerge, maybe a whole new sign language based on a complex system of hand signals and colors.

Make it stop!!