The Definitive Debunking of Touch ID Fingerprint Hack

When Touch ID was announced at the iPhone 5s launch, it was immediately besieged by detractors.

One area in particular for detractors is that the Touch ID system is susceptible is via spoofing an owner’s fingerprint. If true, this would  pretty much leave the whole system open to an attacker, and now, with the iPhone 6 and Apple Pay, spoofing would easily expose the owner to fraudulent charges placed on the his credit cards.

The most convincing  exposition on this was by the German Chaos Club group which quickly posted online video of how to spoof the Touch ID sensor system.

With the advent of Apple Pay based on Touch ID, this issue becomes even more critical.

Two facts are clear:

1. it works,
2. it is not all that difficult.

However, there is one clarification to point #2. It ought to read:

Understanding Tokens: Digging Deeper

Apple (AAPL) just announced its new iPhone 6 models and the Apple Watch, and what to my mind is the real killer app of mobile space – Apple Pay. This service will truly revolutionize payments in the $13 trillion per year credit/debit card industry.

In an article for Seeking Alpha, I went over the basics of the Tokenization system that is now being used by the industry when possible. I explained how a Point of Service (POS) transaction with a credit card goes through the following steps:

Smartcard

Apple Watch: ASP at $510 or higher? [Updated]

There has been a lot of interest in Apple Watch since it was announced last week. The two big questions for investors are

1. How many will Apple sell? and
2. What will the average selling price be?

An article at Seeking Alpha by Stone Fox Capital make the argument that it will likely not move earnings significantly.

They note that, with revenue close to $200 billion next year, the Watch would need to sell $22 B in order to account for 10% of the total.

Additionally, they note that Citigroup estimated Apple will sell 14 million units next year. They then go on to calculate out at a price of $349.

If my calculations are accurate, Apple must sell roughly 55 million watches at the average low-end price of $349.

While the writer’s point is made, the price is obviously absurd. This is the base price and we all know that it will only go up from there.

So, I have made some projections of price points and percentage of sales in each range. I created what I see as reasonable ranges for low, middle, high and ultra-high ranges, and I believe the distribution curves are both rather reasonable. In each price range I have expected that the average price is closer to the bottom than the top.

First I do a conservative estimate using the 14 million units estimate.

Most Amazing Thing about Apple Watch

I know that most people miss it. They don’t think about it much.

If you ask several people what they think is the most extraordinary feature or aspect of the newly announced Apple Watch, they will give you many answers: