Fingerprints

Jack_Sylvane

I´ve been interested in modifying my fingerprints or erasing them, most of you are going to think that im on illegal things or something like that, but no, reality is that I want to became invisible for the gov. so I dont have any finger prints, I did my research and that is nearly impossible, I tried a "method" I thought it would be right, but it only changed some parts of my finger, I will explain it: 

Method 1: (Tried but with poor results)

1.-First I took a sample of my fingerprint on a piece of sheet. (This acted as a "database" to see if there were any diferences on the ending fingerprint) 

2.-I bought a box of this type of razor blade.

 

3.-Then I placed my finger on hot water for 2 minutes (to make sure the skin got soft and I could scrap it better)

4.-Everyday I scraped the skin off my finger, I did this for 5 minutes each day (somedays I went for 10 minutes)

5.-I used alcohol to heal any cut.

6.-I did this for 6 months straight, at that time my finger was very bad , I had a lot of cuts and I couldnt even move it, after that I took another fingerprint to compare the ending print, the result was kind of lame, my fingerprint only changed a little but I thinks this is a very poor result for all the things I did. 

Method 2 (Tried and didnt worked)

I tried using "bromelaine" thats an "acid" that the pineapple has. 

1.-I used the skin of the pineaple to get that "acid" (that part is where it have more quantity of it) 

2.-After I had the "acid" I placed my finger there for 30 mins everyday by 6 months

3.-Then I took another fingerprint to compare the ending print, the result was not positive , mi print didnt changed. 

Jack_Sylvane

The third method was too large to post it above:

Method 3: (Not tried)

Materials needed: 

Indelible extra-fine tip marking pen, the finer the better 

Magnifying glass

Scalpel

Tweezers 
Nail clippers

Caustic soda

Gauze 

1.-Using the magnifying glass and the fine-tip pen, dot the core and delta, as well as any outstanding groups of characteristics, on one of your fingertips. 
2.-Taking the scalpel and carefully cut a straight line 3/32 of an inch through each dot right into the epidermis, but NOT into the dermis, which would draw quite a noticeable amount of blood. Think "papercut." 
3.-Using the tweezers, pick up a small pellet of caustic soda and insert it into one cut. As soon as the lye combines with your bodily fluids, a chemical reaction will result that will last approximately one minute. And yes, this will hurt. It will, in fact, hurt like ******* hell. You may want something to bite down on. 
4.-The lye will burn a dark circle 3/32 of an inch in diameter into the dermis with little or no damage to the epidermis. Repeat the procedure with each dot. 
Taking the nail clippers, carefully clip the epidermis around the edge of each circle. This will expose concave cavities filled with semiclear jelly. (In case you're wondering, this jelly is burnt skin.) 

Within about a month your fingers will have healed. You should have obliterated (or at least seriously altered) any outstanding groups of characteristics. The total count on any one finger will now probably number around 10 - 15 points or less. As an added bonus, you'll have destroyed your cores and deltas, thereby making an accurate classification and ridge count impossible as well as changing the corresponding specifics and formulas. This makes it a bit harder to get an accurate file of your prints back into a computer. The healing process of severely damaged tissue, especially burnt tissue, permanently scars the epidermis, causing the misalignment of the ridge lines in the pattern area. Therefore, a before-and-after visual examination would show the fingerprints are similar but couldn't prove conclusively they are identical. And a before-and-after computer evaluation would indicate the fingerprints do not match and conclusively are not identical.

In conclussion

Do you have any method or idea to make this happen? BTW some people suggested to get them burnt, but that doesnt work, Why? If you burn them, you will only get more distinguishable marks. 

glims

This is interesting because you really only used 2 methods. Cutting and burning. The "burn them off" suggestion is actually just the same as methods 2 and 3 and so your concerns with each method and that method are all the same. 

Remember that oxidation is oxidation, no matter how you run it...

Basically you are looking at scaring methods, mostly oxidative instead of mechanical.  Your aforementioned techniques, while meticulous, would net you a similar result to pressing your fingertips on a flat iron.

There is (as far as I am aware) no way to do this without making it hurt like hell, no way to avoid the potential for serious infection resulting in lose of partial digits, no way to assure that it won't heal back to it's original state, and no way to have it completely smooth and without unique markings. 

Anything that heals will return to mostly it's original state. Fingers are really good at this. I worked in a kitchen for a while and have removed my fingerprints multiple times (on accident) as well as removed significant amounts of tips of fingers. Suckers just come right back, totally the same.

Wear gloves.

ThomasEgi

and there's a very good reason behind fingerprints growing back. all the bumps and groves serve a very important purpose. they convert movement over surfaces into skin vibrations which get picked up by the sensory cells in your finger. if you smooth out your fingertips you will lose a massive amount of touch sensitivity. especially small objects can hardly be felt anymore.

zombiegristle

I also don't think this will have the end result you are looking for. Fingerprints aren't intrinsically identifying, they have to be matched to a recorded image of that fingerprint on file. If you don't have fingerprints on file, then scarring your fingers isn't going to make you any more or less traceable.

On the flipside, if you mutilate yourself and then your new, barely-recognizable fingerprints are stored, you are now just identifiable as if you hadn't gone to all the effort of obscuring your originals. If someone lifts your scarred fingerprint off a glass, they can match it to the stored copy of your scarred fingerprint they have on record. You now need to re-scar yourself every time your fingerprints are taken, to essentially stay one step ahead and keep changing your fingertips to make the previous record unreliable.

Obscuring fingerprints is really a short-term solution for people who have records and are being actively hunted, it is not a magic pill for anonymity.

TheGreyKnight

What about an implant allowing you to alter the shape of your fingerprint at will?

Perhaps a micro-filament threaded some of the central features of your fingerprint that contracts when energized with electricity. 

glims

This would be akin to having something threaded through your facial tissues that altered your appearance enough that you were not recognizable as the same person. This would require nonstandard elasticity of the skin, a disconnection from the facial tissues that would most likely result in gloving, a significant amount of force (read: energy input), and hurt more than anything you could possibly consider.

Gloving, by the way, is when your skin is met with such force that it no longer adheres to your muscles and slides off, like a glove. it is a terrible thing.

Jack_Sylvane

Really good suggestions and opinions here, I think that sadly Im not going to be able of change/erase my fingerprints. BTW , this is just a comment and I want your opinion about this (because you clearly know more about this) I read some time ago that a man lost his fingerprints due to his cancer treatment. Do you think this is true? I dont think so and I wont risk myself to do that procedure, thats too dangerous for me, anyways I hope I can read more opinions about it. 

glims

My understanding is that if he had stopped the treatments, the fingerprints would have come back over time. It was just another chemical removal of the skin layers.

DirectorX

Heehee. I like this thread. Here is my crazy idea. Hands exposed to high humidity or water get wrinkly and pruned. That should fuck up identifying prints, right? The crazy thing about this wrinkling process is that it is caused by commands from your nervous system, not actual water itself. So, in theory, if you could stimulate the wrinkling response electrically with an implant at will....

glims

Associated with but not directly causative in regards to the nervous system. Dead people fingers wrinkle too, obviously without nervous system input. The response to moisture to make finger treads was discredited a bit back...

I also think that they tend to be somewhat similar each time which returns to the "new prints just get added to database" concept put forth earlier.

Jack_Sylvane

I like the way @DirectorX thinks, that, in theory could work, but @glims have a really good point, it will be almost the same problem , in theory we will just have a pair of fingerprints to use, It would be nice if that implant exist and our prints could be changed at will

mitravelus

I have an idea. This would be expensive and invasive. But what about bone anachors dermals? If we could find a supplier or someone who can coat titanium in hydroxyapetite it wouldn't reject and you could switch out finger pads.

Tellari

You know if you are willing to go as far as bone dermals or something else along the lines of seriously invasive, why not just work on a replacement hand with adjustable or non-existent fingerprints? There have already been some serious advances of hand replacement for veterans and I watched a TED talk that had new hands that gave almost perfect fine grip as well as power. 

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of being able to change the fingerprints at will. The kid/secret agent in me is all over this idea like a bum on a fresh bagel, however I think that because of the way our hands are designed, without becoming seriously painful or invasive this idea may not be feasible with current tech.

Feel free to disagree, I always love the reasoning and ideas that this forum generate. :)

mitravelus

I mean for the sole purpose of changing fingerprints it would definitely be above and beyond the effort for the gain you would get. That being said if was incorporated into something bigger. Like maybe the self healing synthetic skin material that was on her awhile ago then i feel it would be worth. Have a cut? Just hold it together for 5 minutes.

These are just general ideas. Many different test runs of the different aspects of all this would need to be tested before a concentrated effort would even be pulled together. For example, the largest issues with dermals is that they reject, I'm currently trying to find companies that hydroxyapatite coatings for what will amount to a microsd card in my arm with a visible port. If that works we can all move up from there.

As far as pain. We're grinders man ;p. Albeit grinders with local anesthetic reasonably available.

Jack_Sylvane

I have an idea, im thinking on some skin implants , like the ones you get when you have a 3rd degree burn, my idea is, Why not cut your fingerprints off and get the skin implant and that will make your fingerprints dissapear, That could work? 

mitravelus

@Jack_Sylvane Hypothetically. Yes. That being said you'd be losing touch sensitivity. Along with that, if the purpose of these were to conceal identity it wouldn't work. They test for fingerprints, palm prints, side prints, and writers print. All of which are unique, besides the obvious problems with diminishing your touch sensitivity all over your hand there is a hypothetical chance that the creases that would appear due to the skin folding would eventually just become another identifier, albeit, a far less detailed one.

glims

I love how really out there this is going. I mean, you guys aren't holding back witht he really impressive mod ideas... however...

*whispers* ...gloves....

McSTUFF

If we're throwing out wild ideas...
Could you cut strips of skin off two fingers and swap them?  After shuffling a few times they wouldn't be recognizable.  That made me woozy just thinking about it.

As a point of curiosity and assuming everything healed well, would that even work or would your fingers fix themselves?

glims

Your fingertips would not reset if the skin transplant was a success. There is a precedent for this. However, it again leaves us with the just a new set and ignores the fact that "fingerprints" per se are only a small part of the picture, as @mitravelus pointed out. When they print you, they print like, every part of your hand that has wrinkles....

Jack_Sylvane

@mitravelus I think you are right, I need to think in more ideas haha , this can be done, we just dont have a way to do it. 

@glims The gloves are the "best" option, the problem with that is that I cant go to get my licence/ID with gloves on. (I used krazy glue on my fingerprints to hide some parts of it) 

Jack_Sylvane

That idea its veeeery clever @McStuff, I think it could work, I mean, we could be one step ahead. Im going to start digging on doing that. 

Saal

Erm....maybe the process is more extensive for felony arrests, but when I was last printed they only took the fingertips O.o.

glims

Maybe it's different by region. Any arrest in Seattle that gets you booked results both hands getting printed. Fingers, palms, and the sides of hands

mitravelus

When I got arrested in Colorado they took every part of my hand and retina. And I was only going in for  misdemeanor.

DirectorX

Alright, I've got the answer for you guys. What you guys want is Lamellar Ichthyosis. New set of prints every time.

@glims: Can you brew up a batch of that Lamellar Icthyosis hand lotion you were telling me about? On a serious note though, could a condition like Lamellar Ichthyosis be given through an AAV or something and localized to the hands? Like maybe daily injections of a non replicating HIV virus?

mitravelus

@DirectorX that sounds like something horrible to subject yourself to even if it is just localized to the hands. That being said, maybe a way to express it temporarily?

DirectorX

yeah, I had a guy who worked for me that had this. It is pretty severe. He was constantly slathering himself in lotion. His eyes were continuously shedding tears and he couldn't sweat.

The trick would be activating it with enough time to start working. I guess if you activated it every 7 days so that your prints changed a few times a month you should be golden.

glims

The problem with this idea is the complications in targeting. Even if one were to make a batch of modifications and cram the into a vector, I would most likely be permanent, non localized, and it would come with all its other issues.

Gene toggling and vector lotion are unfortunately, much outside of anyones reach at this time.

Saal

@mitravelus holy shit, they retinal scanned you? That's some dystopian shit right there O.o

mitravelus

@Saal yeah it was kinda fucking crazy. i've been looking on an off on how to beat those and have come up with 2 options that might be sorta feasible, though it would remove the ability to obtain IR vision provided the recent project is a success.

But yeah, bullshit charge, bullshit court, and has since only helped my previous opinion of the state. which is to say, not favorable. 45 days for telling a cop to eat shit, what a world, what a world.