Professor Anil K. Jain
Cracking the smartphone fingerprint code can be challenging.
The issue became big news when the FBI couldn't get into the phone of one of the shooters in the San Berdnardino shooting back in December. The FBI couldn't get Apple to cooperate, and a court battle ensued. But the FBI finally found an Israeli tech firm that had the know how and sidestepped more litigation.
Now, a Michigan State University professor has helped Lansing cops crack the fingerprint code for an encrypted Samsung Galaxy S 6 smart phone belonging to a murder victim. Police hope to find numbers in the phone that could prove helpful in the probe.
David Jesse of the Detroit Free Press reports that the Lansing Police initially turned to Detective Andrew Rathbuna of the Michigan State University campus police, who specialized in digital forensics. But he couldn't crack the caper.
So Rathbuna went to Professor Anil K. Jain at the MSU Department of Computer Science & Engineering, the Freep reports.
First off, they couldn't use the dead victim's fingerprints because the lock needed to sense electrical conductivity, something a corpse doesn't have, the Freep reports. They tried printing the fingerprints on special paper, and that didn't work. They tried printing the fingerprints on a 3D printer so someone could wear them. That didn't work.
So they printed the enhanced 2D fingerprints and used the thumb.
That worked.
