Beating the iPhone X Face ID Is Hard. We Know, Because We Tried

When Apple announced the iPhone X last month--its all-screen, home-button-less, unlock-with-a-look flagship--it placed an enormous bet on facial recognition as the future of authentication. For hackers around the world, Face ID practically painted a glowing target on the phone: How hard could it be, after all, to reproduce a person's face--which sits out in public for everyone to see--and use it to bypass the device's nearly unbreakable encryption without leaving a trace? Pretty damn hard, it turns out. A month ago, almost immediately after Apple announced Face ID, WIRED began scheming to spoof Apple's facial recognition system. We'd eventually enlist an experienced biometric hacker, a Hollywood face-caster and makeup artist, and our lead gadget reviewer David Pierce to serve as our would-be victim.