Biometrics are preferred over traditional passwords
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
After 1 vote and with 3 points ahead, the winner is...
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 3
- Time for argument
- Two days
- Max argument characters
- 5,000
- Voting period
- One week
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
"Biometrics" - Using one's unique body signatures to identify individual people
"Preferred" - Would be better for society
"Traditional Passwords" - 1 2 3 4 5
Please refrain from juxtaposing biometrics or traditional passwords with ones of the historic past, or distant future. Limit your time span within reasonable lengths.
- Passwords are more unique
- Easier and faster to access
- You can't "forget" your fingerprint
- The ROI will easily pay for the implementation
- By 2020, there will be 300 billion traditional passwords
- 95 traditional credentials and passwords are stolen every second
- 200 000 web logins get stolen every week. This includes traditional passwords found on websites and mobile apps
- 3 out of every 7 people will have their passwords stolen at some point in their lives
- Stolen passwords will cost an estimated $6 trillion in damage by 2021
- Top researchers and scientists took 5 weeks to physically trick a hand scanner. 5 weeks!
- The accuracy of fingerprint scanning for most systems is well beyond 95%
- Accuracy increases exponentially with more fingers -- Three fingers will result in an 100% accuracy
- No two sets of biometric data is, or will ever be alike
- He provides zero sources to back up any of his factual claims. You should view his arguments extremely skeptically because of this. Compound this with him not unveiling all his constructive arguments in the first round, thus giving me less time/space to make responses to them, and you should be extremely doubtful of the validity of his claims.
- This debate is on which is better for society overall.
- The debate assumes we use only one type of security rather than layering things. You should look at the advantages of a type of security on it's own rather than combined with something else.
- Prefer my evidence for the lack of security of biometrics over his 'III' argument since I've cited my evidence validating my claim. He's yet to show any kind of evidence backing up his claims.
- Prefer my analysis on the ease of hacking biometrics over his (unsourced) stats of how many traditional passwords are stolen - I've outlined the specific method and how easy it is to do. This is something that any common person can do, which magnifies the threat and impact to hacking biometric locks.
- There's no source to this claim.
- There's no context behind this claim - what is costing money? Who's money is being lost? How is money being lost?
- This claim is intentionally misleading - it's an estimate of the future, and doesn't make any claim as to damage done in the present.
- This claim doesn't make sense - how does me stealing my buddy's Twitter password cost someone/thing $6 trillion?
He provides zero sources to back up any of his factual claims
not unveiling all his constructive arguments in the first round
So long as I don't tell anyone else what this password is, it's private - only I have access to it.
Barring sophisticated hacking skills, which your average person doesn't have access to, this password is secure.
We leave our fingerprint on everything we touch.
scientists in China discovered a cheap and effective way to bypass the 'aliveness detection'
Ease of hacking biometrics [..] I've outlined the specific method and how easy it is to do. [..] Any common person can do ...
This claim doesn't make sense - how does me stealing my buddy's Twitter password cost someone/thing $6 trillion?
The damage of a stolen password is relatively simple to fix - reset your password.
I only have one fingerprint, or one eye
Extend my argument that it's super unfair for him to hold arguments in reserve to the end of the debate because that gives me less time to be able to make responses to them so that we can, y'know, debate. His only response is that he didn't set up any explicit structure to the debate so it's okay but that doesn't address the fairness concern. Fairness is important because it's impossible to determine a winner and loser if the debate is skewed. Don't let him make new constructive arguments in the last round of the debate as I can't make new arguments to respond to them.
Also, don't allow him to get away with posting sources in the comments. This lets him bypass the 5k character limit that he set up when he made the debate. And don't let him say I can just do the same thing as I already had to spend room in my last round listing sources where I could've made more arguments so the damage is done. This is a game-over mistake because it means literally none of his arguments have any evidence to back it up - I'm the only one with valid cited sources.
- Hacking -
- Hackers exist -
- At best this is non-unique. He's not denying that biometrics are hackable as well, so whether or not something can be hacked is a wash.
- At worst, it's a reason to vote neg rather than pro. Not everyone has the capabilities to hack a phone or computer. But anyone can go to Walmart and pick up some cheap glasses. This makes the risk of hacking far higher for biometrics which is a net negative.
- Biometrics are harder to hack -
- Look back to my source. The most difficult part that they listed was that "you don’t want to wake up the victim"[1]. Hardly the elaborate story he wants to paint.
- Even if what he says is true, his own sources list ways to bypass this problem, such as "master prints" that can unlock a majority of devices and attacks on the databases housing the biometric data[3][4]. If anything this is a reason to vote neg rather than aff, because his arguments provide the illusion of security rather than actual protection, which could lead to people being more careless with their devices, making it easier for would-be thieves.
- Theory -
biometrics are hackable as well
But anyone can go to Walmart and pick up some cheap glasses
The most difficult part that they listed was that "you don’t want to wake up the victim"
biometrics are used to protect far more important things in scope than simple passwords
biometrics are used to protect far more important things in scope than simple passwords, meaning that the damages from hacking are far more severe
There's literally nothing in this article that specifies damages from traditional passwords, rather it only says its damages from "cybercrime"
Don't let him make a new response to it in the last round. This is a clear neg vote.
you can't just get a new eye or a new finger
don't let him make a new response in the final round [...] Aff tries to get away with a lot of unfair stuff
- 60% of people surveyed abandoned an online purchase because they forgot their credit/debit card
- 32% forgot their password
Passwords are the weak link [...] they're hard for you to keep track of
IT needs to verify the identity [...] track down all the places where the password needs to be changed
- Large companies spend $70 per password reset
- Microsoft's IT spends $2 million a month helping people (and their own employees) to change their passwords
but ultimately the [traditional] password appears doomed in the face of a truly 21st century alternative - TNW
- He's not giving you any reasons why these arguments matter. There's no impact to be found here.
- Forgetting your password is good as it forces you to reset your password, which increases account security and makes it harder for your account to be hacked. This means you vote for me rather than him off this argument.
- The harms of having your account hacked outweigh the cost a company has to pay to reset someone's password.
- This is a completely new argument and should've been made a lot earlier if he wanted it to have any credence.
- Wut? No I don't. You can control+f his statement ("Because they are proven to be better for the companies that use them.") and you won't find it anywhere in my rounds. Nor is this what my source says.
Interpreting the resolution:
The debate was clarified to be a false dilemma, to which I must grade one side...
1. Safe and Secure
Uniquely generated by the user’s body, but sadly it’s still able to be spoofed (con used the term hackability, but I think that might be the wrong term). Some extra credit goes to con here, for explaining all about the layers of biometrics which prevent the bad movie bypasses such as photos of people; but he still showed why it is not actually as secure as people would like to think, it can instead be bypassed by cleverness...
2. Convenience
Easy access, and unforgettability. ... Con does a good mitigating point that initial convince is not necessarily a good thing, since if ever hacked under bio you can’t do anything about it, but with a traditional password you can.
3. Saves Money
I’m torn on this. Better sourcing would probably have come in handy.
4. Impact
Con conducted a pure refutation. A highlight was a source analysis which concluded that the damage listed was for cybercrimes in general, not specifically password theft.
5. Reversibility
This was the one that made me comfortable giving the debate to con. It was hard hitting in that that we can always reset our passwords, but if a biometric lock is bypassed we have no recourse.
---
Arguments:
See above review of key points. I was left worrying that if a hacker steals whatever password type thing my bio data is stored, I’m screwed... Pro, a lot of what con was doing was debate lingo, don’t worry so much about it, things like him saying neg all the time is not an insult, it’s a reference to types of reasoning used. Also in future please maintain headings across rounds.
Sources:
I have a pet peeve against posting sources in the comments. I am closer to ok with it when they’re still linked in the main body (as seen from pro after R1), but as the saying goes, a source is worth a thousand words. I also hate URL shorteners, as I like seeing at a glance what to expect.
This leans toward con, but I am just not feeling like reviewing the sources right now when already giving him the argument points.
Conduct:
Pro was a complete wise-ass, which tilts conduct away from him, but I did not see him cross the line into vileness which would cause the penalty to hit. Additionally, I appreciate the attempt at sprinkling in humor.
Oh yeah, thanks for your vote. No problem there.
I do wish there were more though...
I'm of course happy to clarify any part of my vote. I am very tired right now, and it's wholly possible I overlooked some important detail. (with just under two days left to vote, getting it submitted fast enough to be responded to was important)
Good debate. I had fun. See you soon!
Technically yes they aren't. But it's kinda hard to debate which one is better than the other if either of us can say "well if it doesn't work we can always have the second one as a backup". It makes every argument non-unique.
Please remind me to vote (like a day or two out, not right now).
And I got to say it, but the things are not mutually exclusive.
Oh and for formatting, this should be helpful: https://tiny.cc/DebateArt
Actually, nevermind. I'm not worried.
That doesn't really answer my question. Look at how I organized my use of sources. I'd like for you to do the same, or at least something similar.
I linked 5 sources in my speech, but most of my info could be generally applied.
Bruh, what are any of these sources backing up? Which link is for which argument?
Links for my second round:
https://www.howtogeek.com/169847/how-attackers-actually-hack-accounts-online-and-how-to-protect-yourself/
https://whatismyipaddress.com/hacking-basics
https://www.explainthatstuff.com/fingerprintscanners.html
http://theconversation.com/fingerprinting-to-solve-crimes-not-as-robust-as-you-think-85534
https://www.biometricsinstitute.org/what-is-biometrics/types-of-biometrics/
https://science.howstuffworks.com/biometrics2.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gait_(human)
https://www.biometricsinstitute.org/what-is-biometrics/standards/
https://www.sanitysolutions.com/understanding-the-cost-of-a-data-security-hack/
Here's the clip I was referring to in my speech (skip to 1:55):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcTK6uPPiAo
I thought this was off-topic in a debate so that's why I'm posting it here.
Links:
https://www.informationweek.com/strategic-cio/security-and-risk-strategy/are-biometrics-good-or-bad-for-digital-security-/a/d-id/1331991
https://opusresearch.net/wordpress/2018/04/27/biometrics-the-good-the-bad-and-the-reality/
https://www.onelogin.com/learn/biometric-authentication
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biometrics
https://cybersecurityventures.com/hackerpocalypse-cybercrime-report-2016/
https://www.bankinfosecurity.com/5-million-google-passwords-leaked-a-7299