biometric (fingerprint) locks

[sj]

It is not 100% but works a lot of the time. Even if there are a few wrong ones then these should only have a few prints on them, but the correct ones will have lots. The correct way of using a keypad is to give everyone a different number and use a card to tell the door who's who. Then dusting won't be much of a help. Unless you have the card of the person who just went in, ibecause you can use the fact they heated the keys by touching them up to see the PIN.

[Pickey]

That heat trick doesnt really work, it's just in video games.

[sj]

That heat trick doesnt really work, it's just in video games.

I have heard it works from security researchers that I belive, but that is one thing I haven't tried myself (and searching for it only found Splinter Cell references). My lab just got a thermal imaging camera to play with so if I have time I'll try it out. Whether it is a real threat is a different question. The camera we have cost £20,000 so for the vast majority of cases I doubt it will be the cheapest way in, but it would be interesting to try. If it is possible to do with a normal infrared camera which you can get very cheaply (either one of the night vision CCTV cameras, or by removing the IR filter from a webcam) then it would be a serious threat, but these work on a much higher frequency than thermal imaging cameras, so might not work.