[/floatl]This news is five years old but seems pertinent to post today:Register: Gummi bears defeat fingerprint sensors
A Japanese cryptographer has demonstrated how fingerprint recognition devices can be fooled using a combination of low cunning, cheap kitchen supplies and a digital camera. First Tsutomu Matsumoto used gelatine (as found in Gummi Bears and other sweets) and a plastic mould to create a fake finger, which he found fooled fingerprint detectors four times out of five. Flushed with his success, he took latent fingerprints from a glass, which he enhanced with a cyanoacrylate adhesive (super-glue fumes) and photographed with a digital camera. Using PhotoShop, he improved the contrast of the image and printed the fingerprint onto a transparency sheet. Here comes the clever bit. Matsumoto took a photo-sensitive printed-circuit board (which can be found in many electronic hobby shops) and used the fingerprint transparency to etch the fingerprint into the copper. From this he made a gelatine finger using the print on the PCB, using the same process as before. Again this fooled fingerprint detectors about 80 per cent of the time...Matsumoto tried these attacks against eleven commercially available fingerprint biometric systems, and was able to reliably fool all of them...more...
You can see Matsumoto's English presentation of his technique here (PDF). The main drawback would seem to be that the wait at immigration is now so long, you'll be tempted to eat your fingers. Another idea involves pineapples. Apparently people who handle pineapples have their fingerprints disfigured by the bromelain in the fruit. Some suggest soaking your fingers in pineapple juice will do the same. If you need any more convincing, this was used as a plot point in the first episode of the 1973 season of "Hawaii Five-O". Gratuitous video of The Ventures playing the theme tune below:
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