If the police took as long to take fingerprints as I do, the world would be a less safe place than it is. No matter how much I pressed that phone, the damn thing wouldn’t accept my fingerprint. You may now be wondering: why did that screen need your fingerprint?
It started with a software update on the Samsung managed by my employer that resulted in me being unable to use work related apps, which is why I got that damn thing right. I called the service desk and luckily fell into the hands of the endlessly patient Antwerp system administrator Jonas. After some research, he discovered that the problem was caused by my, well, weak password: 0000.
Now you may ask yourself: which idiot has the password ‘0000’? In my case, it was a combination of laziness and the idea that it is useful for bystanders if you are hit on a bicycle. I know of a story of a person who ended up unconscious in the emergency room and whose family could not be notified because the emergency personnel could not get into his phone. 0000 is the first thing a stranger tries, then 1234.
Jonas advised taking a fingerprint instead of a password: you don’t forget it and if you are unconscious, someone else can put your finger against your phone. But first you must consciously enter that fingerprint. After five minutes I still hadn’t succeeded, nor after ten minutes. That endlessly patient Jonas went inch by inch after what I was imagining, and then discovered that I was not moving my finger wrong so much as swiping in the wrong box. I told him that for a while last year I didn’t realize that you can’t scan a QR code with the front of such a rotten phone.