Fingerprint Reader / Dry Atmosphere Warning

[WilsonF]

I have discovered a significant (to those of us who live in northern climates or travel on long flights) problem with the fingerprint reader.

The reader rseems to equire moist finger pads to recognize a finger. I have had it fail to recongize any of my five enrolled fingers three times (once at the end of a four hour flight) and twice in buildings where the weather outside was cold, and the heat was high and humidity low inside. In the plane, I used skin cream which made the machine recongize me, but then I couldn't use the machine to avoid gooping up the keyboard.

Changing from fingerprint logon to UVM or normal windows logon to gain access to the user profile is difficult for anyone and impossible for most corporate users.

To disable the fingerprint logon substitution, you must log on as Administrator. This will result in the loss of any work that was unsaved when the screen saver went on or the system hibernated and is generally a pain in the neck.

Logging on as Administrator is impossible for most corporate users because IT departments properly won't give users administrative privileges on company machines and won't give out administator passwords to anyone outside the IT department.

An exception was made in my case because I am the boss and insisted. Otherwise, I would have been away in need of my ThinkPad but with no access to it.

[sugo]

That's an interesting finding. If it's not 99% reliable I can imagine many business flyers who use thinkpad for work would just disable it.

[brewt]

Does licking your finger to moisten it up a little work?

[Champ]

Just use one of those wetnaps or ask for a glass of water to dip your fingers into. I doubt this is a real worry through since at least one of your fingers should stay moistish such as the pinky ones or thumbs or something

[Volker]

I don't have a fingerprint-enabled thinkpad but the last time I arrived in the US my fingers were also too dry for the mandatory finger print. The INS officer asked me to wipe my finger across my forehead and then it worked. Maybe that solves your problem. I think the reader needs not really water but some oil that is usually on your skin.

[erik]

it may have more to do with the electrical properties (or lack thereof) in a dry-skin finger.   the FPR white paper explains the system very well.

-erik

[WilsonF]

Thanks, all. I'll re-enroll and try the forehead trick.