Defeating fingerprints

[Jim Choate <ravage@ssz.com>]

Forwarded message:

> With regards to filling in your own card, what about using a disappearing 
> ink?? Then your prints would disappear! You could even do your name, 
> right infront of them, and it would disappear, leaving these anynonomous 
> prints behind!!

While the ink does become transparent/translucent I am shure the FBI chem
lab won't have a problem finding traces of the chemical. This would make for
jim dandy evidence in court.

> Or you could make an inkpad that is damp with sodium hydroxide (lye) 
> instead of ink.  That way, you could lightly roll your fingers in it, 
> like it was ink, and then wait a minute, and wipe it off.  That way, the 
> only skin being eaten away, would be the ridges of the fingerprints.  Do 
> this enought times, and the rigdes will end up the same height as the 
> valleys, and will then essentially be flat.

Burglars and safecrackers sand the ridges off.


                                                         Jim Choate