Same story, different malleable substance...
Cheers,
RAH
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Subject: [Clips] Engineer Outwits Fingerprint Recognition Devices with
Play-Doh
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http://www.linuxelectrons.com/article.php/20051209175034721
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Engineer Outwits Fingerprint Recognition Devices with Play-Doh
Friday, December 09 2005 @ 05:50 PM CST
Contributed by: ByteEnable
Potsdam, New York - Eyeballs, a severed hand, or fingers carried in ziplock
bags. Back alley eye replacement surgery. These are scenarios used in
recent blockbuster movies like Steven Spielberg's Minority Report and
Tomorrow Never Dies to illustrate how unsavory characters in high-tech
worlds beat sophisticated security and identification systems.
Sound fantastic? Maybe not. Biometrics is the science of using biological
properties, such as fingerprints, an iris scan, or voice recognition, to
identify individuals. And in a world of growing terrorism concerns and
increasing security measures, the field of biometrics is rapidly expanding.
Biometric systems automatically measure the unique physiological or
behavioral 'signature' of an individual, from which a decision can be made
to either authenticate or determine that individual's identity, explained
Stephanie C. Schuckers, an associate professor of electrical and computer
engineering at Clarkson University. Today, biometric systems are popping
up everywhere - in places like hospitals, banks, even college residence
halls - to authorize or deny access to medical files, financial accounts,
or restricted or private areas.
And as with any identification or security system, Schuckers adds,
biometric devices are prone to 'spoofing' or attacks designed to defeat
them.
Spoofing is the process by which individuals overcome a system through an
introduction of a fake sample. Digits from cadavers and fake fingers
molded from plastic, or even something as simple as Play-Doh or gelatin,
can potentially be misread as authentic, she explains. My research
addresses these deficiencies and investigates ways to design effective
safeguards and vulnerability countermeasures. The goal is to make the
authentication process as accurate and reliable as possible.
Schuckers' biometric research is funded by the National Science Foundation
(NSF), the Office of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense. She
is currently assessing spoofing vulnerability in fingerprint scanners and
designing methods to correct for these as part of a $3.1 million
interdisciplinary research project funded through the NSF. The project,
ITR: Biometrics: Performance, Security and Societal Impact, investigates
the technical, legal and privacy issues raised from broader applications of
biometric system technology in airport security, computer access, or
immigration. It is a joint initiative among researchers from Clarkson, West
Virginia University, Michigan State University, St. Lawrence University,
and the University of Pittsburgh.
Fingerprint scanning devices often use basic technology, such as an
optical camera that take pictures of fingerprints which are then read by
a computer. In order to assess how vulnerable the scanners are to spoofing,
Schuckers and her research team made casts from live fingers using dental
materials and used Play-Doh to create molds. They also assembled a
collection of cadaver fingers.
Clarkson University Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer
Engineering Stephanie C. Schuckers, with imitation fingers. Simple casts
made from a mold and material such as Play-doh, clay or gelatin can be used
to fool most fingerprint recognition devices. Schuckers, an expert in
biometrics, the science of using biological properties, such as
fingerprints or voice recognition, to identify individuals, is a partner in
a $3.1 million interdisciplinary biometrics research project funded by the
National Science Foundation with support from the Department of Homeland
Security.
In the laboratory, the researchers then systematically tested more than 60
of the faked samples. The results were a 90 percent false verification rate.
The machines could not distinguish between a live sample and a fake one,
Schuckers explained. Since liveness detection is based on the recognition
of physiological activities as signs of life, we hypothesized that
fingerprint images from live fingers would show a specific changing
moisture pattern due to perspiration but cadaver and spoof fingerprint
images would not.
In live fingers, perspiration starts around the pore, and spreads along
the ridges, creating a distinct signature of the process. Schuckers and her
research team designed a computer algorithm that would detect this pattern
when
