Fingerprint private key

[BitcoinNewbie15]

Oh creating a private key with your fingerprint is an awesome idea! I wonder if it will be possible one day?

Yeah totally awesome that way you leave your private key everywhere and anyone who knows you happen to be wealthy is powdering your door handle and emptying your btc wallet.

Then you will need to wear private key gloves which would make it even cooler  

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[Kprawn]

Well, why only finger prints? ..... What about retina scanners? or something linked to our DNA? There are some very cool biometric scanners out there. 

Do not shoot down a idea, because of the flaws in the current technology.  .... If you carry your Trezor {hardware wallet} with your built in finger print scanner with you... and it generates your private key from one of your fingers and use that finger to authenticate the device... you might have something special. 

I think it's a cool idea, but the implementation should be rock solid and preffably offline on a hardware wallet. 

[shorena]

Oh creating a private key with your fingerprint is an awesome idea! I wonder if it will be possible one day?

Yeah totally awesome that way you leave your private key everywhere and anyone who knows you happen to be wealthy is powdering your door handle and emptying your btc wallet.

Then you will need to wear private key gloves which would make it even cooler  

IIRC urine samples are unique and unlike gloves can not be forgotten or lost. Youd have a similar problem as with the fingerprints though, people need to urinate and the circumstances might not be secure for "dumping" your private key seed into the wilderness. Seed reminds me, sperm samples probably also work. The need to spread them in public or unintentional is usually limited. To keep the system available for everyone, how about blood samples?

Well, why only finger prints? ..... What about retina scanners? or something linked to our DNA? There are some very cool biometric scanners out there. 

Do not shoot down a idea, because of the flaws in the current technology.  .... If you carry your Trezor {hardware wallet} with your built in finger print scanner with you... and it generates your private key from one of your fingers and use that finger to authenticate the device... you might have something special. 

I think it's a cool idea, but the implementation should be rock solid and preffably offline on a hardware wallet. 

I think it would certainly be possible, the question is whether someone actually wants to pay with their blood in order to keep their coins safe. A typical problem with biometrics still stands and that is: you cant change it. Once your fingerprint/retina scan/sperm/vaginal fluid/blood sample is leaked you cant get a new one. I still think passwords stored in memory or a password database (which in turns needs a password stored in memory) is the way to go. Keep backups digital and physical in secure locations and even if you should have problems with your memory you have a place where you can look. Well unless you forget about that place as well...

[Denker]

I don't know all the flaws in retinal scanners but I think that would be a far better idea, you don't go leaving your eye everywhere.

(Again I don't know how easy it would be to use a photo to recreate and fake a retinal scanning.)

Not secure! A hacker named starburg from chaos computer club in Germany showed last year on a hacker congress how easy it is to obtain Iris pics (with normal digital camera) and fingerprints of politicians for instance and to misuse it and to break security barriers.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/29/german_minister_fingered_as_hackers_steal_her_thumbprint_from_a_photo/

And in german if you like: http://www.heise.de/security/meldung/31C3-CCC-Tueftler-hackt-Merkels-Iris-und-von-der-Leyens-Fingerabdruck-2506929.html

[Soros Shorts]

Keep in mind that your biometric data is not necessarily private. For example, my former employer already has one of my thumbprints and my retina scans of both eyes on file because I needed access to an area secured by biometric scanners. I am not sure what their data retention policies are for employee records, but I am not trusting them 100% that they won't share or leak this data at some point in time.

[coinpr0n]

The idea is actually pretty cool. I could see it being used as one of the factors of authentication. Fun to think about ... maybe hopefully some work will be done in this direction. Nice one!

[sgk]

I burnt my finger on a wood stove... my lappy reader had difficulty reading the print.

Exactly what I was thinking. Some people even lose some fingers or thumb in accidents. I won't risk my Bitcoins with this.

[Q7]

Just make it as simple as possible. I was thinking why not store your private key in a word file and then use a fingerprint security locking program on that file meaning that the file can only be accessed once it has scanned your fingerprint and confirm it is you. Much safer than using a program written specifically to calculate and determine private key based on a set of formula derived from your fingerprint image.

[arivar]

I agree with all the points against the idea of the fingerprint. However, I am still interested in finding a solution for me main problem:

How to store a safe private key without the need of writing or remembering anything ?

I believe both the fingerprint and iris scanner could achieve the conditions above if it wasn't so easy for other people to access. I would love to see some other suggestions.

Thanks.

[ensurance982]

Hello,

I was wondering if there is any way for me to create a private key using only my fingerprint and a password. Do you guys know if there is already a website to do so ?

Thanks.

You could use it as a seed to generate a private key, yeah. The question is: Is the entropy high enough (most likely yes), is the function creating a seed from your characteristics safe (could be)? Oh and pay attention not to get your fingerprint stolen. Biometrics generally are pretty bad security tokens.

[Abdussamad]

Hello,

I was wondering if there is any way for me to create a private key using only my fingerprint and a password. Do you guys know if there is already a website to do so ?

Thanks.

You leave your fingerprints everywhere so it wouldn't be very secure.

Discussion on creating keys using fingerprints:

http://crypto.stackexchange.com/questions/16370/generating-encryption-keys-from-biometric-fingerprint-templates

[Amph]

i could see biometric security taking place in the future side by side with bitcoin

retina scanning for private key, would be pretty cool indeed and better than fingerprint