The Myth Of Fingerprints - biometrics, schmiometrics

A short (thank you!) press release has just arrived. It says:

How Finger Prints Never Lie

The high street chain Budgens has just introduced biometric technology, (which finger prints all its staff) to help clamp down on employees clocking in for each other, and entering false hours. The scheme currently initially introduced to six stores (with immediate plans for twenty more), has already saved the company thousands of pounds. Money which was being claimed by staff under false pretences.

Ah, terrible stuff. If only they'd watched the Dialogue Box episode of a couple of weeks ago where Charles and I demonstrate how a spoonful of jelly with Earl Grey (and a splash of milk - sorry, tea lovers) can be used to fool fingerprint scanners with only a modicum of work.

Not that Budgens is a good source of tea, jelly and milk... ah, erm... still, as long as the staff feel suitably paranoid, that's what matters eh? Better to be feared, as Machiavelli (rhymes with jelly) said.