Body Computing Using Biometric Systems

…and successfully confirms his identification with his finger (biometric template).

What Is BIOMETRICS? Biometrics can be defined as the technique of studying the physical characteristics of a person such as fingerprints, hand geometry, eye structure etc. to establish his or her identity. This science is primarily implemented to identify individuals. Biometrics is a modern technological field that focuses on identifying an individual through his or her unique physical traits. Biometrics spans various fields such as artificial intelligence and biology, as well as various hardware-related fields

Why BIOMETRICS? The use of biometrics is no longer restricted to defense establishments or sensitive areas. An increased need for security has prompted even everyday office goers to install fingerprint recognition devices to boot up their laptops, thumb drives and other daily use gadgets. The question is, why? Why isn’t the 16-digit password good enough? Simply because fingerprints are more secure. A password is breakableand anyone with basic knowledge of computers can crack passwords using the myriad free programmes available on the Internet. For obvious reasons, a fingerprint, however, is difficult to fake without the help of the owner. It is also a lot more convenient to simply place your finger on to a scanner instead of remembering a long and complex series of characters and their cases. To make matters worse, they should, ideally, have no correlation whatsoever. So essentially, for maximum security, your password should be an alphanumeric ‘word’ that doesn’t mean anything.

Fujitsu’s PalmSecure™ takes on the challenges faced by many of the current biometric technologies available today. The USP of being purely contactless makes PalmSecure™ an ideal choice for deployment in various public programs and services and addresses the concerns of public hygiene and convenience at a mass scale and providing lower cost of operations and maintenance cost.

Biometrics can be separated into two classifications, physiological and behavioral. Physical identifiers do not change over time or with mood. Behavioral identifiers are generally considered less conclusive because they are subject to such limitations as illness, imitation, and mood changes. It is not so much to see which one is better, but it is important to determine which type of security works best in a given environment.

Physiological classification includes: Behavioral classification includes: Fingerprints Voice Authentication Hand Geometry Signature Analysis Eye Patterns Facial Recognition

How Biometric Processes Work The concept of Biometric verification is simple. The system has some pre-stored data. When youapproach the system (say a fingerprint scanner), your finger is scanned and matched with a record of fingerprints already in its database. Only when it finds a match, access is granted. The concept might be simple, but the process is quite ingenious. A biometric system is a real-time identification system which identifies a person by measuring a particular physical or behavioral characteristic and later comparing it to a library of characteristics belonging to many people. Fingerprint and other biometric devices consist of a reader or scanning device, software that converts the scanned information into digital form, and wherever the data is to be analyzed, a database that stores the biometric data for comparison with previous records. When converting the biometric input, the software identifies specific points of data as match points. The match points are processed using an algorithm into a value that can be compared with biometric data scanned when a user tries to gain access.

Verification and identification: Verification – The system verifies the claimed identity of the user by comparing his/her biometric sample with one specific reference template, which is either physically presented by the user or pointed to in the database. Verification can be knowledge-based (e.g. PIN or password) or token-based (e.g. smart card). The user says, "I am X!" and the system reply with "yes, your are X!" or "no, you are not X!"

Identification

– The system identifies the end user from his/her biometric sample by associating it with his/her particular reference template based on a database search among the reference templates of the entire enrolled population. The user asks, "who am I?" and the system reply with "you are X!" or "you are not an authorized user".

MEASUREMENT PARAMETERS :>> Everything, which is under the sun, has a unit or a parameter to describe its capability. Similarly we have units, to be precise the parameters that measure the capability of the type of biometric technique applied. These are FRR and FAR.

FAR: - It stands for False Acceptance Rate, which means that the rate at which an imposter is accepted as a valid match. FRR: - It stands for False Rejection Rate, which means that the rate at which a legitimate match is denied to access. The following four-stage process illustrates the way biometric systems operate:

1.Capture

— a physical or behavioral sample is captured by the system during enrollment. 2. Extraction — unique data is extracted from the sample and a template is created. 3. Comparison — the template is then compared with a new sample. 4. Match/non-match — the system then decides if the features extracted from the new sample are a match or a non-match.

Fingerprint Matching: Among all the biometric techniques, fingerprint-based identification is the oldest method which has been successfully used in numerous applications. Everyone is known to have unique, immutable fingerprints. A fingerprint is made of a series of ridges and furrows on the surface of the finger. The uniqueness of a fingerprint can be determined by the pattern of ridges and furrows as well as the minutiae points. Minutiae points are local ridge characteristics that occur at either a ridge bifurcation or a ridge ending. Fingerprint matching techniques can be placed into two categories: minutae-based and correlation based. Minutiae-based techniques first find minutiae points and then map their relative placement on Fingerprint classification is a technique the finger. However, there are some difficulties when using this to assign a fingerprint into one of the approach. It is difficult to extract the minutiae points accurately several pre-specified types already when the fingerprint is of low quality established in the literature which can provide an indexing mechanism. Fingerprint classification can be viewed as a coarse level matching of the fingerprints. An input fingerprint is first matched at a coarse level to one of the pre-specified types and then, at a finer level, it is compared to the subset of the database containing that type of

AUTHENTICATION METHODS:

Fingerprint …. In recent years, fingerprints have rallied significant support as the biometric technology that will probably be most widely used in the future. In addition to general security and access control applications, fingerprint verifiers are installed at military facilities, including the pentagon and government labs. Although machines tend to reject over 3% of authorized users, the false accept rate is less than one in a million. Today, the largest application of fingerprint technology is in automated fingerprint identification systems (afis) used by police forces throughout the U.S. and in over 30 foreign countries. Verification of fingerprints is also fast and reliable. Users experience fewer errors in matching when they use fingerprints versus many other biometric methods. In addition, a fingerprint identification device can require very little space on a desktop or in a machine. Several companies have produced capture units smaller than a deck of cards.

Security Level Overview…

Security Level Overview… SECURITY Level I Level II Level III Access Authorization and Identity Management through Fingerprint

logon with bioLock bioLock Logon

bioLock checks authentication rules

bioLock user/ function

bioLock prompts you for fingerprint bioLock templates

Fingerprint comparison with table

Logon blocked

 Please Note:

Logon authorized

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Our technology identifies unique points on your finger and creates an encrypted, digital template – we never take an actual image of the finger!!!

Humans have fingerprints for the exact same reason that tyres have treads. It helps in better grip and, by a bizarre twist of nature, different people have entirely different sets of fingerprints, which enables identification. A fingerprint is made up of ridges and valleys (lines and the gaps separating them) and it is these ridges and valleys which are scanned to verify the authenticity of a print. To authenticate a set of prints, a scanner needs to do two things: first, it needs to get the image of the prints which are to be authenticated, and second, it needs to actually go about the business of verifying them. The most commonly used method of scanning is optical scanning. An optical scanner has a CCD sensor (Charge Coupled Device) similar to the ones used in digital cameras. There is an array of light sensitive diodes (photosites). When these diodes come in contact with light, they generate an electrical signal. Every photosite records a pixel representing the light it came in contact with. An analogue to digital converter (ADC) system in the scanner processes the electrical signals to generate digital representations of the image. It is not necessary that the same kind of light falls on all diodes. So what is generated is a mix of dark and light areas, which together make up the image. The process begins as soon as you place your finger on the glass plate. The scanner has its own source of light (mostly an array of

Retinal Scanning Despite being shown as the absolute cutting edge, retinal scanning is actually rather old in the chronology of technology innovations and research on this started way back in the 1930s. For the retina to be scanned, the user looks through a small hole in the scanning device and focuses on a particular point for the time period during which, a low intensity light and a CCD analyse the layer of blood vessels at the back of the eye for matching patterns (akin to fingerprint checking) and validate or repudiate the persons identity. This technology is still not in the public domain (unlike fingerprint recognition, which is) and is used only to secure highly sensitive security areas. Unlike fingerprints, there is absolutely no known method of replicating a person’s retina and to use a dead person’s retina is no good as it deteriorates too fast to be of any help.

Iris Scan Iris Scan, though relating to the eye (like retinal scan) uses a completely different method of identification. The Iris is the coloured ring surrounding the pupil. The scan analyses the features that exist in this coloured tissue. Over 200 points can be used for comparison such as the rings, furrows and freckles. The scan is done with a regular camera and the subject stands about a foot from the lens (of the camera) so it is a lot more convenient. The Iris pattern is much more unique than a fingerprint. A statistical analysis puts the probability of two irises matching at 1 in 10 to the power 78 while the population of humans on earth is roughly 7 billion that is 7 to the power 9.

Signature verification Signature verification enjoys a synergy with existing processes that other biometrics do not as people are used to signatures as a means of transaction related identity verification and mostly see nothing unusual in extending this to encompass biometrics. Signature verification devices have proved to be reasonably accurate in operation and obviously lend themselves to applications where the signature is an accepted identifier.

Facial Recognition While fingerprinting and retinal scanning are relatively easy to administer, since the people going through the process are aware of it and are consenting to subject themselves to these measures, the main application of facial recognition is in security wherein the software is expected to pick a face out of, say, thousands of passengers at the airport, and match it with a database of wanted criminals and positively state whether or not that face belongs to the guilty party. To make the computer recognise a face from a picture or a video feed is quite an achievement in itself, but a bigger achievement is to identify clearly if the face is that of the wanted man or not. If you look in the mirror, or at a persons face for that matter, you will notice that every face has certain characteristics and distinguishable features, which allow us to differentiate between two people. The equipment used here is not really too fancy or cutting edge, and the brains for this lie entirely in the software. The software divides the face into 80 nodes, some of the common ones being distance between eyes, width of nose, and depth of eye sockets, cheekbones, jaw line, and chin. The system generally needs to match between 14-25 nodes in order to obtain a positive ID.

Facial Scan Technologies

As suggested by the graphic, distinctive characteristics of the entire face are highlighted for use in future authentication. The vast majority of faces can be reconstructed by combining features of approximately 100-125 eigenfaces. Upon enrollment, the subject's eigenface is mapped to a series of numbers (coefficients). For 1-to-1 authentication, in which the image is being used to verify a claimed identity, one's "live" template is compared against the enrolled template to determine coefficient variation. The degree of variance from the template, of course, will determine acceptance or rejection. For 1-to-many identification, the same principle applies, but

Voice Recognition Like fingerprints and face attributes, every person has a unique speech pattern. Voice recognition works by first storing voice patterns and then using them as a database to authenticate a subject. Voice recognition is often confused with speech recognition, which is a technology that converts speech to text and the conversion software needs to go through extensive training by the user before any suitable and acceptable results are obtained. Voice recognition works by noting a person’s voice (physical characteristics of the vocal tract, the harmonic and the resonant frequencies) and converts it into an audio file which is known as a voice print. During the creation of a voice print, the subject is asked to choose a phrase and asked to repeat it. The phrase should be 1 to 1.5 seconds in length since a smaller phrase provides the system with too little data, and beyond that, too much data. Both of these conditions result in reduced accuracy. The problem with voice recognition does not lie in its integrity since

DNA (Deoxyribo Nucleic Acid) DNA samples can be taken from the body if the subject or his personal belongings are passed through chemical processes. This DNA fingerprint is in the form of a sequence of A’s, T’s, G’s, U’s and C’s in random order. These alphabets refer to the nitrogenous bases. Here A stands for “Adenine”, T stands for “Thymine”, G stands for “Guanine”, U stands for “Uracil” and C stands for “Cytosine”. The length of this sequence is immense and beyond comprehension! DNA matching has advantages over other means of biometric verification. DNA samples can be collected in many more forms than blood samples, retina scans or fingerprints. Even the personal belongings of people like hairbrushes, toothbrushes or clothes carry their DNA from phenomenon like natural skin flaking. So it becomes close to impossible for an imposter to fake a DNA sample or avoid leaving a trace at a crime scene. Microsoft has recently declared that they will introduce biometrics in their coming versions of windows operating system. Well, nothing wrong with that buy hope that they don’t use DNA fingerprinting because if that is the case then if you want to start your PC on Saturday than you either you have to switch on your PC either on Wednesday or on Tuesday. Present day technology still takes more than couple of days for DNA verification.

As we rapidly move towards the new millennium, Security and Access Control are becoming more important than ever before. Passwords, though still extensively used, are fast becoming a hazard, requiring an enhanced method of security. Positive Identification of individuals is now a serious business considering the fact that people have to be allowed access to areas only if they are authorized. Attendance is to be recorded in all kinds of workplaces eliminating “buddy Punching” and “ghost workers”. Money is to paid over “wires” - the internet obviating the need for people to go to banks. Criminals have to be caught and proven guilty without a doubt social and medical benefits have to be paid by the state. Newer chip designs and supporting software, has spurred the development of solutions based on these crucial needs beyond boundaries. Parts of the human body - the hand, the iris/retina, the face and the voice, all provide a means of positive verification. Commendable progress has been made by various companies using the above parts of the human body with various levels of success. Although Card Based systems have been in the market for several years now, the latest and most secure technology involves the use of the human body both physical and behavioral - for positive verification and identification - known as Biometrics.

Biometrics in Public Contactless Biometrics – the most viable option Future Applications(Some Common Ideas) With the increased use of computers as vehicles of information technology, it is necessary to restrict access to sensitive/personal data. By replacing PINs, biometric techniques can potentially prevent unauthorized access to or fraudulent use of ATMs, cellular phones, smart cards, desktop PCs, workstations, and computer networks. PINs and passwords may be forgotten, and token-based methods of identification like passports and driver's licenses may be forged, stolen, or lost. Thus biometric systems of identification are enjoying a renewed interest. There are many views concerning potential biometric applications, some popular examples being – ATM machine use - Most of the leading banks are considering using biometrics for ATM machine and as a general means of combating card fraud. Workstation and network access Public identity cards Internet transactions Telephone transactions Gunlock - A miniature electronic fingerprint capture and verification device is being developed. When built into the authorized user of the gun would be able to fire it. Elections - This technology can also be integrated with voting procedure so that, the cases of fraud or bogus voting is reduced to minimal. Automated Border Control - This idea is covered in airport security and is very similar to that. This technology can also be implemented in railways.

Conclusion: The increased need of privacy and security in our daily life has given birth to this new area of science. These devices are here and are present around us everywhere in the society and are here to stay for a long time to come. Indeed, it will be interesting to watch the future impact that they will have on our day-to-day lives ... Biometrics is a very interesting and exciting field that has been growing exponentially in recent years (especially 2008). The wide variety of physically unique traits of our bodies will soon allow us to live in a very secure password-less world.