Right, and I don't think the author necessarily disagrees with the idea of including TouchID in Apple products as an alternative to 'completely unlocked'.
As the author indicates, "This isn't a knock on Apple, as Thinkpad have embedded fingerprint readers for nearly a decade. My intention is to help stop and think about the place of biometrics in security."
The danger is viewing biometrics as a secure alternative to passwords; it's not. But comparatively few people are technically inclined enough to realize that; with Apple embracing it for convenience, we run the risk of people not understanding the security implications; the author saw evidence of that when asked to implement biometrics for file encryption, which is a terrible idea.
I think I remember the issues: good passwords are arbitrary, hard to guess, can be changed at any time, are used for one purpose only. Biometrics (fingerprints) are none of these things.
As the author indicates, "This isn't a knock on Apple, as Thinkpad have embedded fingerprint readers for nearly a decade. My intention is to help stop and think about the place of biometrics in security."
The danger is viewing biometrics as a secure alternative to passwords; it's not. But comparatively few people are technically inclined enough to realize that; with Apple embracing it for convenience, we run the risk of people not understanding the security implications; the author saw evidence of that when asked to implement biometrics for file encryption, which is a terrible idea.