Although companies are using biometrics for authentication in a variety of situations, biometric technologies are evolving and emerging towards a large scale of use. Standards are coming out to provide a common software interface to allow sharing of biometric templates and to permit effective comparison and evaluation of different biometric technologies. One of them is the Common Biometric Exchange File Format, which defines a common means of exchanging and storing templates collected from a variety of biometric devices.
Biometric assurance - confidence that a biometric can achieve the intended level of security - is another active research area. Another interesting thing to be examined is combining biometrics with smart cards and public-key infrastructure (PKI). A major problem with biometrics is how and where to store the user's template. Because the template represents the user's personal characters, its storage introduces privacy concerns. Also storing the template in a centralized database paves for attack and compromise. On the other hand, storing the template on a smart card enhances individual privacy and increased protection from attack, because individual users control their own templates. Vendors enhance security by placing more biometric functions directly on the smart card. Some vendors like Biometric Associates, have built a fingerprint sensor directly into the smart card reader, which in turn passes the biometric to the smart card for verification.
PKI uses public- and private-key cryptography for user identification and authentication. It has some advantages over biometrics as it is mathematically more secure and it can be used across the Internet. The main drawback of PKI is the management of the user's private key. To be secure, the private key must be protected from compromise and to be useful, the private key must be portable. The solution is to store the private key on a smart card and protect it with biometric. There are proposals for integrating biometrics, smart cards and PKI technology for designing Smart Access common government ID cards.
Notes:
PIN (Personal Identification Number) , .
EyeTicket .
Smart card , .
Common Biometric Exchange File Format .
Point-of-Sales system - , . .
PKI (Public Key Infrustructure) . , , .
ID (Identifier) , , .
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Assignments
1. Translate the sentences from the texts into Russian in writing paying attention to the underlined words and phrases:
1. Common physical biometrics include fingerprints, hand or palm geometry, retina, iris, and facial characteristics. Behavioral characters characteristics include signature, voice, keystroke pattern, and gait.
2. There are a variety of approaches to fingerprint verification, such as traditional police method, using pattern-matching devices, and things like moire fringe patterns and ultrasonics. This seems to be a very good choice for in-house systems.
3. Accuracy can be very high if desired, and flexible performance tuning and configuration can accommodate a wide range of applications.
4. A retina-based biometric involves analyzing the layer of blood vessels situated at the back of the eye. This technique involves using a low intensity light source through an optical coupler to scan the unique patterns of the retina.
5. An iris-based biometric involves analyzing features found in the colored ring of tissue that surrounds the pupil.
6. Voice authentication is based on voice-to-print authentication, where complex technology transforms voice into text.
7. There are several promising prototype biometric applications. One of them, EyeTicket, links a passenger's frequent-flyer number to an iris scan.
8. Point-of-sales (POS) system vendors are working on the cardholder verification method, which would enlist smart cards and biometrics to replace signature verification.
9. Some vendors like Biometric Associates, have built a fingerprint sensor directly into the smart card reader, which in turn passes the biometric to the smart card for verification.
2. Answer the following questions:
1. What is the goal of biometrics?
2. Why is biometrics the most secure means of security?
3. What are biometric technologies? Characterize them in brief.
4. How can biometrics be used for secure network and computer access?
5. Why does storing a user's biometrics templates present a problem?
3. Translate into English:
. , . , , . . (, ..), . . , , . , , , . , , , .
