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Biometric Bilocation

OneWingedBird

OneWingedBird

Beloved of Ra
Joined
Aug 3, 2003
Messages
15,431
As with the Space Pigeons thread, I strongly suspect a technological explanation for this, thought I'd share it as it's still well weirded me out.

On Wednesday I was sat at my desktop in the attic doing a bit of job hunting when I got an email from my gym informing me that I'd just checked in - there is a biometric thing where you get your fingerprint scanned to get in so that is a bit weird. Had not been that morning as I'd slept in.

Email gives 12.20 as the check in time, last time before that I'd been was 8pm the previous evening.

Asked about this the next time I went in, reception had no idea how it could happen, she reckoned the odd checkin from very late one day could come in early the next, 12.20 is waaaay late though. Normally there isn't a delay on notifications at all, email comes through within minutes of checking in.

No idea how reliable the biometric scanner is, possible I suppose that it misread someone else's fingerprint as mine?

Still very odd.
 
The gym are incapable of acting on the instructions of their own general manager to make a laminiated sign asking people to be quiet when yoga is on and putting it up... I would not hold out any hope they're going to be helpful.

Fingerprints are by all accounts a lot less reliable than often thought, or at least the methods for mapping them become disturbingly unreliable in relation to large datasets.

I'm thinking the scanning system they use may be as effectual as anything else there ie not very. It may just be looking for a fairly small number of markers.
 
OWB:

There's a critical clue missing ...

Had you already received any email confirming your entry at 2000 the previous evening (Tuesday)?

More generally ...

How long had it been (as of 1220 Wednesday) since you'd received any routine emails from the gym?

My first guess is that there was an outgoing email failure effective as of Tuesday evening, and the Tuesday check-in notification wasn't (finally) sent until midday on Wednesday.

This sort of breakdown / logjam occurred here (with the new forum's outgoing emails) some weeks ago.
 
EnolaGaia said:
OWB:

There's a critical clue missing ...

Had you already received any email confirming your entry at 2000 the previous evening (Tuesday)?

More generally ...

How long had it been (as of 1220 Wednesday) since you'd received any routine emails from the gym?

My first guess is that there was an outgoing email failure effective as of Tuesday evening, and the Tuesday check-in notification wasn't (finally) sent until midday on Wednesday.

This sort of breakdown / logjam occurred here (with the new forum's outgoing emails) some weeks ago.
Click to expand...

I didn't get one from going in for yoga, thing there is that I'd already been in on Tuesday am and it never seems to do the notification for the second check in so that wasn't a surprise.

It may however have thrown their system for a loop.

Or as you say something may have been down and by the time it came up again, it realised it was a new day and went for it.

There aren't really that many routine emails coming out of there to otherwise give that much of a clue.
 
Simplest explanation is the email was simply wrong.

This morning i checked my bank account online to see if a particular payment had been received. It had, yesterday. But also yesterday, it says, £2.99 was debited from my card at a McDonalds. I hadn't left the house yesterday. Confused and concerned i clicked on it for more details...up popped a map showing exactly where my card had been used...at a McDonalds in Liverpool, New South Wales! (I'm in Liverpool UK)

It was while I was i was desperately searching for some hotline to call and report it that I recalled I had indeed spent £2.99 at McDonalds ...but in MY Liverpool last Friday! Somewhere in their system it had misdated and mislocated the transaction.

If it can happen with banks it can presumably happen with gyms.
 
INT21 said:
OneWingedBird,

Does your gym also notify you by email when you check out ?

And, if so, did it do so on this occasion.
Click to expand...

It does not.

I've just had a rather more interesting repeat of this happen on Monday.

Email came through at 16:06, hadn't been that day and was at work in Bradford so not even in the same city at the time.

Checked my trash emails from Sunday and it did sent me one when I went in early Sunday am, so more to this than just a delayed notification - either it's duplicated or someone else is getting clocked in as me.
 
INT21 said:
Is there a camera covering the 'clocking in' point ? Can you cross check this with the times you are supposed to have been there.

This could be identity fraud; you need to get the gym to look into it.
Click to expand...

I don't know but I'm going to find out next time I'm in, its a bit creepy to say the least.

Sent last dodgy notification to the general manager (who did not reply) and intend to do again... needs looking into.
 
We used to have a fingerprint clock in system at work.

It wouldn't work on me if my hands were cold, wet, sweaty or in any other condition other than optimum. So I frequently had to log in using my clock in number only. We recently stopped using the fingerprint system all together, so I can only assume that others had the same problem (we just use our numbers now). So I'm not sure these are the foolproof things people think they are - although duplicate entry is harder to explain.
 
I used to go to a bar/club which required you to use your thumb print as ID, every time you went in you would put your thumb on the reader - regularly it would bring up someone else's picture when i put my thumb on the reader! So i don't think they're that reliable - freaky experience at the gym though!
 
My husband, last week, was in the Middle-East for business, a very rare occurence. He was to fly from Dubai to London at around 11.00pm, yesterday. I checked where he was on the google tracker map, at around 10.30, just before going to bed, for a bit of reading before sleep. At midnight, ready to turn the light off, I checked where my hubby was.
The tracker on his Android said he was at the... Dubai Hospital! Then, a few minutes later, it said again that he was there.
Quite worried, I sent a message and tried to ring his phone on Whatsapp. A few minute later, I had a message from him in the plane. He was experiencing terrible turbulences over Iran. And his phone tracker was telling me he was still at that hospital!
I thought it was something to do with satelitte transmission and the hospital being north of the airport, the direction of Europe, and I managed to fall asleep.
Another thing about him. He has a biometric passport. Each time he tries the automatic gate at the airport customs, he is rejected, as if his eyes don't match the photograph in the chip. Also, he can never log into his phone using the pupils recognition. It doesn't work. Go figure that one!
 
Draheste said:
My husband, last week, was in the Middle-East for business, a very rare occurence. He was to fly from Dubai to London at around 11.00pm, yesterday. I checked where he was on the google tracker map, at around 10.30, just before going to bed, for a bit of reading before sleep. At midnight, ready to turn the light off, I checked where my hubby was.
The tracker on his Android said he was at the... Dubai Hospital! Then, a few minutes later, it said again that he was there.
Quite worried, I sent a message and tried to ring his phone on Whatsapp. A few minute later, I had a message from him in the plane. He was experiencing terrible turbulences over Iran. And his phone tracker was telling me he was still at that hospital!
I thought it was something to do with satelitte transmission and the hospital being north of the airport, the direction of Europe, and I managed to fall asleep.
Another thing about him. He has a biometric passport. Each time he tries the automatic gate at the airport customs, he is rejected, as if his eyes don't match the photograph in the chip. Also, he can never log into his phone using the pupils recognition. It doesn't work. Go figure that one!
Click to expand...
I don't think retinal scans are reliable. I'm diabetic and there have been some changes in my retina over the years.
 
Mythopoeika said:
I don't think retinal scans are reliable. I'm diabetic and there have been some changes in my retina over the years.
Click to expand...
I had a friend at school which had blue eyes as a child and greenish-grey as a teen. The eyes are also often a reflexion of our state of health.
 
Draheste said:
My husband, last week, was in the Middle-East for business, a very rare occurence. He was to fly from Dubai to London at around 11.00pm, yesterday. I checked where he was on the google tracker map, at around 10.30, just before going to bed, for a bit of reading before sleep. At midnight, ready to turn the light off, I checked where my hubby was.
The tracker on his Android said he was at the... Dubai Hospital! Then, a few minutes later, it said again that he was there.
Quite worried, I sent a message and tried to ring his phone on Whatsapp. A few minute later, I had a message from him in the plane. He was experiencing terrible turbulences over Iran. And his phone tracker was telling me he was still at that hospital!
I thought it was something to do with satelitte transmission and the hospital being north of the airport, the direction of Europe, and I managed to fall asleep.
Another thing about him. He has a biometric passport. Each time he tries the automatic gate at the airport customs, he is rejected, as if his eyes don't match the photograph in the chip. Also, he can never log into his phone using the pupils recognition. It doesn't work. Go figure that one!
Click to expand...

Your husband has been replaced by an imperfect clone.
 
Ogdred Weary said:
Your husband has been replaced by an imperfect clone.
Click to expand...
Mmmm... That is a good suggestion but no, it is the same guy as when he left, I can tell you. I was thinking more in the realm of a parallel universe similar to ours and in there, his bad cough became worse, he collapsed and was transported to the hospital, instead of boarding his flight, like the one in our universe (My husband). Somewhat, I was able to see the phone location of my husband's double being picked up from the alternative world hospital.​
 
Draheste said:
Mmmm... That is a good suggestion but no, it is the same guy as when he left, I can tell you. I was thinking more in the realm of a parallel universe similar to ours and in there, his bad cough became worse, he collapsed and was transported to the hospital, instead of boarding his flight, like the one in our universe (My husband). Somewhat, I was able to see the phone location of my husband's double being picked up from the alternative world hospital.​
Click to expand...

Or the other one was the clone! Either way, definitely clones.
 
Asked at the gym about this and they did not have a clue, which in fairness, they don't have about anything else either.

Said they'd never seen it happen before, so no idea there.

Have emailed both of the dodgy check in emails to the general manager who has not bothered to reply, which he also usually does not.

At least I've covered my ass if it comes to anything in some unexpected way.
 
OneWingedBird said:
Email gives 12.20 as the check in time, last time before that I'd been was 8pm the previous evening. Asked about this the next time I went in, reception had no idea how it could happen, she reckoned the odd checkin from very late one day could come in early the next, 12.20 is waaaay late though. Normally there isn't a delay on notifications at all, email comes through within minutes of checking in. No idea how reliable the biometric scanner is, possible I suppose that it misread someone else's fingerprint as mine? Still very odd.
Click to expand...
I may have an explanation. MAY. I'm not saying I do, but I may. Is it possible that the app you are using is not set to your own time zone?
 
Sure I've mentioned this before but my old laptop just before it packed in often dated received emails as "tomorrow at .... ". Technology - pah you can keep it.
 
Phone locations are notoriously rubbish. I had to log in to my Apple account the other day, for the first time in utter yonks. Shortly after I'd done it, I got a message on my phone to tell me that my Apple ID had been logged in to from the other side of the country.
 
I was in a colleagues car going to some work thing in Birmingham (UK) and half way there the satnav suddenly decided we were in Italy, on the outskirts of Rome!
 
When I go to Google Maps, it thinks I'm in Luton.
I think that's probably where my Internet connection is routed to, so it's picking up the location of the server there.
 
AlchoPwn said:
I may have an explanation. MAY. I'm not saying I do, but I may. Is it possible that the app you are using is not set to your own time zone?
Click to expand...

The notifications come through as emails from the system at the gym, all of my other emails are timed/dated as one would expect.

Also the clock in time is in the body of the email, so wouldn't be affected by the email time/date being off.
 
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