Unlocking A Cellphone Using The Dead Owner's Finger

[ramonmercado]

Grave misconduct by the police.

Police try to unlock phone with dead man’s finger

Police in Florida have revealed that detectives attended a funeral home in an attempt to gain access to a dead man’s phone by using his finger to unlock the device. The attempt was unsuccessful, and the man’s family have filed a formal complaint.

http://www.theweek.co.uk/odd-news/93097/boy-borrows-parents-credit-cards-to-fly-to-bali

 

[EnolaGaia]

It appears a dead person's finger can indeed be used to access a mobile phone. In this new Ohio case a man murdered his roommate, cut off the victim's thumb, and successfully used it to access the victim's cellphone.

Police: Man murders roommate, cuts off thumb to access phone

A body has been found in Indiana that may belong to the 25-year-old who police say was murdered by his roommate.

Troy Police Chief Shawn McKinney said a body has been found in Greenville Creek in Randolph County, Indiana, not far from where suspect Sean Higgins said he dropped the body. It has not yet been confirmed to be the victim of the Troy murder.

A release by the Troy Police Department said some of 25-year-old Easton Ho’s roommates called police to the 2200 block of Morning Glory Circle around 8:31 a.m. ...

Both of Ho’s roommates received unusual texts around 2:45 a.m. Thursday from his number, according to court documents. One text read: “An old enemy found me, and I had to kill him. You will not see me.” ...

Hours later, at 6:30 p.m., officers found Ho’s vehicle in Kettering. After further investigation, Troy police said evidence showed Ho was likely the victim of foul play. ...

Detectives continued to investigate and interviewed the roommates. According to police, one of the roommates, 25-year-old Sean Higgins, admitted to killing Ho.

McKinney said Higgins took Ho’s car to dump his body in Indiana, drove the car to Kettering where he left it, then took an Uber back to Troy.

According to court documents, Higgins cut off Ho’s thumb to access his cell phone. McKinney said it appears Higgins used the access to pose as Ho. ...

FULL STORY: https://www.wcvb.com/article/melrose-cemetery-crash-massachusetts/39742946

 

[Coal]

From memory it depends on the technology of the sensor. If strictly optical, a dead finger looks just like alive one. Some newer tech. uses RF to scan the fingerprint at a sub-epidermal layer and this only works for a short time after the finger is 'de-personned'. I imagine an IR sensor could be used to check for appropriate heat, or even monitor for heartbeat…

 

[hunck]

I don’t know why he had to chop the guy’s thumb off. He could simply have murdered him then applied the thumb with no unnecessary cutting.

 

[EnolaGaia]

I don’t know why he had to chop the guy’s thumb off. He could simply have murdered him then applied the thumb with no unnecessary cutting.

I don't know for sure, but I think the confessed murderer dumped the body at a distant location first, then kept the thumb so he could access the victim's cellphone and send fake messages from it hours later.

 

[hunck]

I don't know for sure, but I think the confessed murderer dumped the body at a distant location first, then kept the thumb so he could access the victim's cellphone and send fake messages from it hours later.

But he could’ve unlocked the phone with thumb still attached before dumping the body. He clearly put some thought into the chopping route. Honestly - murderers these days...

 

[EnolaGaia]

But he could’ve unlocked the phone with thumb still attached before dumping the body. ...

Yes, but ... If the phone had locked down again before he returned to the home area and got around to trying to use it, he'd have been screwed. Also (assuming he's been thinking clearly) activating the phone at the body dump site ran the risk of inadvertently generating a network link-up record that connected the phone to that place and a particular time.

 

[hunck]

Yes, but ... If the phone had locked down again before he returned to the home area and got around to trying to use it, he'd have been screwed. Also (assuming he's been thinking clearly) activating the phone at the body dump site ran the risk of inadvertently generating a network link-up record that connected the phone to that place and a particular time.

Fair enough. I withdraw my criticism.

 

[escargot]

It appears a dead person's finger can indeed be used to access a mobile phone. In this new Ohio case a man murdered his roommate, cut off the victim's thumb, and successfully used it to access the victim's cellphone.

FULL STORY: https://www.wcvb.com/article/melrose-cemetery-crash-massachusetts/39742946

Website not available in my region.

However, having been distracted during a degree by scholarly papers on this fascinating subject - or rather, the general one of electronically or physically connecting one's valuable possessions to oneself to prevent theft - I learned that it is certainly a concern, and not a particularly modern one.

Going back to a more traditional type of crime, keeping valuables attached to oneself entails a physical risk.
A finger or hand may be severed to expedite the theft of rings or bracelets. Chaining an attaché case full of money or jewels to one's wrist might be equally chancy.

The danger applies in a complicated equation of the fear of theft, the need to own or transport valuables, the desperation of criminals and their calculated chance of being caught, the reluctance of the victim to relinquish their goods and so on.

So yeah, in a culture where more affluent people try to protect their valuables by attaching them to their bodies in some way, now as ever there will be thefts that involve mutilation.