Vein Vending Machines - Purchasing With The Point Of A Finger

While Japanese banks have been using the technology for a few years, now Hitachi has introduced a vending machine that eschew coins and credit cards for the veins in your fingers. Image Credit: Getty via Gizmodo

Vein Vending Machines - Purchasing With The Point Of A Finger

Hitachi's proprietary biometric authentication system requires that users first register an account (probably linking their vein pattern to a credit card), but it allows one to purchase, say, a delicious can of green tea or icy cold black coffee by inserting a cautious hand into a machine for a quick scan.

Vein ID - How It Works - Image Credit: Hitachi via Symblogogy

Of course, the system exploits your identity a bit in the process, using age and gender information stored in a mass networking database file to display an appropriate video ad while you enjoy your refreshment. But hey, if a public Coke machine light-probing your innards doesn't bother you, why should a quick sales pitch?

Hitachi fingerscan approval vending machines. Image Credit: Mitsutsuka Satoshi for Hitachi

In theory, any retail outlet, hooked up to this network database and a fingerscan device would allow transactions with a proof of an ability to pay. Supermarkets, gas stations, and other common purchasing environments, when combined with technology, would bring about a cashless, cardless buying society.

If this ID through a tip of a finger thing catches on, it will bring about a whole new meaning to the phrase/term Point-Of-Sale.
(ht: Gizmodo)

2D Barcode Boarding Symbology Tested By The TSA

Ones next set of secure ID documents … discarded! Image Credit: upgradetravelbetter.com

2D Barcode Boarding Symbology Tested By The TSA

An automatic identification barcode symbology that has been in use for well over a decade and adopted for use in advertising messages for cellphones is now being tested as a way to speed up and verify boarding procedures.

Photographic image driver’s license numbers, passport and fingerprint image information is captured and digitally encrypted as squares within a square on boarding passes that can be decoded and verified in milliseconds at stations throughout an airport to confirm identity. What has worked for packages being sent and tracked through our nation’s major shipping service companies appears to be a benefit to humans shipping themselves to their desired destination with security and safety within the Transportation Security Administration managed environments.

The TSA is non-committal when it comes to a possible implementation timeframe, however, so be prepared for long lines and repetitive strip searched for now and the foreseeable future.

Datastrip is a leading provider of 2D bar code software, hardware and biometric verification devices. Datastrip’s products include the 2D Superscript Software Developers Kit (SDK), Datastrip 2D (public domain) SDK and the DSVerify 2D card/passport reader with associated DSVerify Win CE SDK. Both 2D Superscript and Datastrip 2D symbologies are ideal for bar code storage of photographs (both color and grayscale), multiple biometrics and text. Image Credit: Datastrip Group Inc.

This excerpted and edited from Security Director News -

TSA tests boarding pass technology
By Leischen Stelter, SECURITY DIRECTOR NEWS - 11.25.2008 - MINNEAPOLIS

An independent testing body for the Transportation Security Administration in late October completed a 45-day test of Laser Data Command's PassPro system, an automated airline passenger boarding system, which encrypts passenger information on boarding passes.
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The system was tested at the Minneapolis St. Paul International Airport using law enforcement officers as the test group. Officers were issued letters with PassPro barcodes giving them permission to carry weapons aboard commercial airlines. Officers presented the letters to airline security officers who scanned the encrypted barcode and confirmed the officers' identities.
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"We put the system into an operational environment at the Minnesota airport," said Gary Murray, manager of access control and biometrics testing for National Safe Skies Alliance. "We go in and set up the system exactly as it would potentially be set up in airports, and we try out the system to measure how useful it could be in the future."

Miometric Security - Eyes and fingers airport security. "Lufthansa and Siemens has successfully tested a biometric process for check-in and boarding at the Airport [2005]. The system identifies passengers from their fingerprints. After a passenger’s finger is rolled over an optical reader unit, the system converts the fingerprints’ characteristics into a 2D code which the reader prints on the boarding pass. Just before boarding, the fingerprints are again scanned by a reader and compared with the barcode. The data is erased after the passenger checks in. " Caption & Image Credit: wemakemoneynotart.com

The outcome of the testing is confidential, said Murray.

However, John Barclay, president and CEO of Laser Data Command, told Security Director News that he expects to receive a positive report from the TSA when an official report is released at the beginning of next year. "We've been told by the testing principles that all went flawlessly."

Barclay said PassPro is intended not only to increase aviation security and eliminate the possibility of fake boarding passes, but also to speed up passenger travel times. "We see it as a convenience to passengers, but also as a way for security to know about passengers and have done a threat assessment on them," said Barclay.
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"It's entirely up to the TSA now that they've proven its use," he [Barclay] said. "It's quite scalable and has a variety of uses. The outcome of the trial will enable it be QPL (Qualified Product Listing) with the TSA and then it is applicable for anything they want to use it for."
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Fingerprint Biometric System Delivers A Sound Solution

Fingerprint points used to identify the unique qualities of ones biometric fingerprint pattern. Image Credit: L-1 Identity Solutions, Inc.

Fingerprint Biometric System Delivers A Sound Solution

When most people think of a machine that scans ones finger in order to gain entry to documents or a place, they think to themselves “well, this is a little like a page scanner capturing text from a document” … and most solutions feature this type of reflective image capture process.

A new process is beginning to find its way into applications that would greatly improve the development of the fingerprint image captured. The technology applied is “Ultrasound” and this approach has some significant advantages over a standard scan approach.

For example, oily, wet or dirty fingers won't be an issue any more when it comes to capturing accurate fingerprints, according to L-1 Identity Solutions, which announced a partnership to produce a fingerprint scan using high frequency sound waves, the same technology used in the medical profession.

Excerpts from SecureID News -

L-1 Identity Solutions and Ultra-Scan develop new live scan device based on ultrasonic imaging
Chris Corum, SecureID News - Wednesday, September 12, 2007

STAMFORD, Conn. -- L-1 Identity Solutions, Inc. announced a partnership with Ultra-Scan Corporation for the development and supply of a revolutionary new live scan biometric fingerprint reader based on ultrasonic imaging technology.

Capturing biometric fingerprint images with high frequency sound waves that are immune to surface conditions extends fingerprint total image accuracy into conditions where it has not been possible before with other scanning technologies. Further, the new device is expected to be significantly smaller and lighter than any solution on the market today. If successful, ultrasonic imaging represents a possible paradigm shift that could supplement or replace optical fingerprint sensors for a number of biometric capture applications.
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“Ultra-Scan's fingerprint technology is pushing the science of biometrics to yet another level of performance which will have a broader range of application,” said Robert V. LaPenta, Chairman, President and CEO of L-1 Identity Solutions. “Additionally, utilizing the new, ultrasonic solid state technology developed and patented by Ultra-Scan, these new devices could provide a smaller form factor for mobile and fixed applications, as well as offer a higher level of reliability and ruggedness than presently available.”
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Sound Waves Improve the Ability to Capture Fingerprints in Many Applications and Conditions

Fingerprint image developed through reflective light capture optical scanning technology. Image Credit: Ultra Scan Product Brochure

Operating much like a photo copier, optical scanners work well for capturing fingerprint images by taking a photo of the fingerprints placed on the glass surface.
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Fingerprint image developed through the ultrasonic scan engine developed and patented by Ultra Scan. Image Credit: Ultra Scan Product Brochure

Ultra-Scan’s technology, which works similar to medical ultrasound, effectively images through “real-world” contamination found on the finger or built up on the platen surface, to always capture a detailed image of the fingerprints being scanned. This low power device will withstand high degrees of shock and vibration making it ideal for a wide variety of applications.
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The Biomass Downside Of Biometrics

Silhouettes representing healthy, overweight, and obese. Image Credit: Wikipedia via FDA

The Biomass Downside Of Biometrics

Many security systems use a confirmation “second entry” in order to verify the clearance of an individual through a specific pass gate in a secure environment.

In a biometric secure system, however, a “growing” problem is coming of age here in North America.

It seems that the incidents of false positive readings on biometrics devices where a “biometrics only” confirmation verification are on the rise and the reason is a little surprising.

These false acceptances are being triggered through weight creep against many DOD biometric databases.

This item excerpted from TechInsider Blog (Allan Holmes, Bob Brewin and Daniel Pulliam on what's happening and what's being discussed in the world of federal information technology.) -

The Risk of Using Biometrics: People Get Fat
By Allan Holmes Wednesday, June 06, 2007 11:34 AM

The following item was posted by Bob Brewin.

DISA has develop a new guide detailing how individuals gain access to Defense Department computers and networks, which contains pages of cautionary warnings about the use of biometric identifiers.
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But the guide, which goes by the bureaucratic title “Access Control in Support of Information Systems Security Technical Implementation Guide (STIG),” also warns that current and planned biometric identification systems carry more than their share of risks.

“A compromised password can simply be changed, however once a biometric is compromised there is no going back or changing it,” according to the STIG. “For information systems that currently accept Biometrics-only for authentication, this must be combined with another authentication method such as a password.”

“The central risk of the verification process is that the technology will mistakenly verify a user’s identity when that person is actually someone else – a phenomena known as false acceptance,” according to the guide.
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Poorly designed biometric-recognition systems can be tricked into verifying someone else’s identity, the STIG reports. For example, with a poorly designed facial recognition system, an imposter may simply show the capture device a life-sized photograph of a valid user or, in the case of voice recognition, a tape recording of the valid user’s voice.

The DISA guide added: “For any biometric, one can devise a potential substitute to mimic the real user, though certainly some biometric characteristics are more susceptible to this than others. To mitigate this risk, robust biometric solutions have ‘liveness’ checks that validate the sample as coming from a live human being and not a facsimile.”
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I obtained the above information from a draft copy of the STIG, which is OK to write about because someone at DISA stamped the document “For Office Use Only,” instead of “For Official Use Only.”
Reference Here>>

Biometric Facial Recognition In Three Dimensions

The Vision Access face reader is comprised of a real-time 3D surface scanner working in invisible near-infrared light and can be used in both identification and verification modes. Image Credit: Bioscrypt

Biometric Facial Recognition In Three Dimensions

Not just a photo, or an algorithm analyzing a simple X, Y axis, or a PIN number process ... No, not for this Japanese company. What they were really looking for is a system that delivered a sort of "DNA" as in Dynamic Name Association process.

Actual DNA takes way too long but a new type of biometric that goes way beyond simple face recognition seemed to fit the bill.

3D facial recognition system uses structured lighting to create a facial grid of 40,000 measurable data points. Image Credit: Bioscrypt

Face recognition that uses a full three dimensional mapping technique (the first ever of its type) using sub-micron mapping points offered by Bioscrypt, an enterprise access control solution provider, is capable of passive recognition with high performance results in real life environments – typically all that is needed is a glance in the direction of the reader anywhere from 3-6 feet away (video below).

This from SecureIDNews -

Bioscrypt's facial recognition selected by Japanese agency for access control
SecureIDNews Wednesday, March 21 2007

Forget ID cards, PINs or 20th century keys, just your face will do. At least that's the premise behind Bioscrypt's VisionAccess 3D Face Reader, which is being deployed by a Japanese government agency. The system will, at sub-second speed, perform multiple facial scans against a database of stored images and corresponding data, granting authorized persons access.

Bioscrypt Inc., a leading provider of enterprise access control solutions, today announced the deployment of its VisionAccess 3D Face Readers at a Japanese Government Agency located in Tokyo. Employees will be identified based on a face match only, without the need for ID cards, keys or PIN technology. In using only biometric identification, the system eliminates the risk of tokens and keys being lost, stolen or misused.

Invariance to Angles - Real-time video feed adds to the richness of 3D parameters, performing recognition with full head motion of up to 30’ degrees each direction allowing for flexibility is user positioning. Image Credit: Bioscrypt

The VisionAccess 3D Face Reader, the world's first three-dimensional facial identification/verification reader with active user feedback, was chosen by the systems integrator, Barrier Reef, as the biometric component of the physical access system to be deployed at the Tokyo based agency because of the unique combination of accuracy and speed of recognition that the system provides.

"The facial recognition units monitor the entry and exit of hundreds of people each day without failure," stated Haruo Kosugi, Director, Barrier Reef. "The agency is extremely pleased with the results and plans on expanding the program to other agencies within the next few months."

"Government agencies around the world continue to rely on Bioscrypt to provide leading edge biometric physical access control technologies to verify the identity of individuals who enter their facilities and with the recent introduction of 3D face solutions, Bioscrypt now offers a greater range of products to meet the demands of partners and end-user prospects," said Robert L. Williams, President and CEO Bioscrypt. "Barrier Reef has proven to be a valued partner for us in the Japanese market and we look forward to continued success with them going forward."

Bioscrypt's advanced 3D facial recognition system uses structured lighting to create a facial grid of 40,000 measurable data points. The system performs multiple facial scans and comparisons against a database of stored images and corresponding data, and conducts accurate identification at sub-second speeds, from which authorized persons are confirmed for access.
Reference Here>>

A typical secured space door access application demonstration:

"Look Ma, no hands!" - The advantage of biometric facial recognition in three dimensions.

Cross Match Delivers Biometrics For “Snakes” In Iraq

The MV 100 offers in-the-field identity checks using a forensic quality fingerprint scanner, an integrated Personal Digital Assistant, a digital camera, a magnetic stripe card reader and wireless communications. The MV 100 uses the same optical technology found in Cross Match’s industry leading Verifier® fingerprint scanners capturing high quality fingerprint images regardless of skin pigment or the presence of stains from ink, dyes, grease, or dirt. Image Credit: Cross Match Technologies

Cross Match Delivers Biometrics For “Snakes” In Iraq

The military and police forces in Iraq have much in common with the police forces in major cities throughout the United States, especially those cities with organized gang activity.

For both efforts, quick field identification of suspected individuals who may be involved in illegal or deadly insurgent activity is a must in order to remove offending culprits.

At home, our police departments are provided full IT (information technology) tools, all of the way down to their patrol units, where the patrol officer can log-in and check available databases (many linked to nationwide networks) and have delivered to him all of the information he would need to make a proper assessment. Job done!

In Iraq, however, there does not exist the infrastructure to place all that equipment the average patrol car has but through technology, there is an answer.

The cornerstone to a database development system as well as a field tool that identifies people once the information has been captured is supplied by Cross Match Technologies. This portable tool combined with radio access to existing databases in Iraq may help the military and Iraqi security forces turn the tide in hunting down and stopping insurgent activity.

The Iraqi Army has a nickname for the “gang” of insurgents who seek to do harm to the citizens of Iraq – “Snakes”.

Excerpts from The Wall Street Journal’s Opinion Journal –

The Snake Eater
Give our troops the tools our cops have.
BY DANIEL HENNINGER, Deputy Editor – Editorial’s, The Wall Street Journal - Thursday, February 8, 2007 12:01 a.m. EST

Subject:

A case study of how the U.S. got bogged down in Iraq.

Problem:

If a cop in Anytown, USA, pulls over a suspect, he checks the person's ID remotely from the squad car. He's linked to databases filled with Who's Who in the world of crime, killing and mayhem. In Iraq, there is nothing like that. When our troops and the Iraqi army enter a town, village or street, what they know about the local bad guys is pretty much in their heads, at best.

Solution:

Give our troops what our cops have. The Pentagon knows this. For reasons you can imagine, it hasn't happened.

This is a story of can-do in a no-can-do world, a story of how a Marine officer in Iraq, a small network-design company in California, a nonprofit troop-support group, a blogger and other undeterrable folk designed a handheld insurgent-identification device, built it, shipped it and deployed it in Anbar province. They did this in 30 days, from Dec. 15 to Jan. 15. Compared to standard operating procedure for Iraq, this is a nanosecond.

Before fastening our seatbelts, let's check the status quo. As a high Defense Department official told the Journal's editorial page, "We're trying to fight a major war with peacetime procurement rules." The department knows this is awful. Indeed, a program exists, the Automated Biometric Identification System: retina scans, facial matching and the like. The reality: This war is in year four, and the troops don't have it. Beyond Baghdad, the U.S. role has become less about killing insurgents than arresting the worst and isolating them from the population. Obviously it would help to have an electronic database of who the bad guys are, their friends, where they live, tribal affiliation--in short the insurgency's networks.
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Some, like Marine Maj. Owen West in Anbar, have created their own spreadsheets and PowerPoint programs, or use digital cameras to input the details of suspected insurgents. But no Iraq-wide software architecture exists.

Operating around the town of Khalidiya, north of Baghdad, Maj. West has been the leader of a team of nine U.S. soldiers advising an Iraqi brigade. This has been his second tour of duty in Iraq. When not fighting the Iraq war, he's an energy trader for Goldman Sachs in New York City.

It had become clear to him last fall that the Iraqi soldiers were becoming the area's cops. And that they needed modern police surveillance tools. To help the Iraqi army in Khalidiya do its job right, Maj. West needed that technology yesterday: He was scheduled to rotate back stateside in February--this month.

Since arriving in Iraq last year, Maj. West had worked with Spirit of America (SoA), the civilian troop-support group founded by Jim Hake. In early December, SoA's project director, Michele Redmond, asked Maj. West if there was any out-of-the-ordinary project they could help him with. And Maj. West said, Why yes, there is. He described to them the basic concept for a mobile, handheld fingerprinting device which Iraqi soldiers would use to assemble an insurgent database. Mr. Hake said his organization would contribute $30,000 to build a prototype and get it to Khalidiya. In New York, Goldman Sachs contributed $14,000 to the project.

Two problems. They needed to find someone who could assemble the device, and the unit had to be in Khalidiya by Jan. 15 to give Maj. West time to field-test it before he left in February.
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To build the device, they approached a small California company, Computer Deductions Inc., Its basic platform would be a handheld fingerprint workstation called the MV 100, made by Cross Match Technologies, a maker of biometric identity applications. The data collected by the MV 100 would be stored via Bluetooth in a hardened laptop made by GETAC, a California manufacturer. From Knowledge Computing Corp. of Arizona they used the COPLINK program, which creates a linked "map" of events. The laptop would sit in the troops' Humvee and the data sent from there to a laptop at outpost headquarters.

Regardless of whether a weapon system is wired or wireless, the biggest challenge facing any Military market is obtaining proper connection between weapons systems. Since reliability is a major factor under the toughest environment, only a rugged notebook such as the A790 can meet the challenge. The A790 can be modified to be equipped with special interface cards in its expansion bay allowing it to receive and transmit data between systems. Image Credit: GETAC, Inc.

Meanwhile, SoA began to think about how they'd get the package to Maj. West by Jan. 15. They likely would have less than seven days transit time after CDI finished.
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This meant finding someone who could get into Iraq quickly.

The someone was Bill Roggio. Mr. Roggio is a former army signalman and infantryman who now embeds with the troops and writes about it on his blog, the Fourth Rail, or for the SoA Web site. He was at home in New Jersey, about to celebrate his birthday with his family. He agreed to fly the MV 100 to Iraq as soon as it was ready, in conjunction with an embed trip. With SoA's Michele Redmond, he started working out the logistics for getting to Iraq ASAP.
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And so, a month from inception, Bill Roggio handed the electronic identification kit to Maj. West.

Fingerprinting and photographing the bad guys. Database development and identification in the field. Image Credit: U.S. Marines, The Iraqi Army via Opinion Journal

On the night of Jan. 20, Maj. West, his Marine squad and the "jundi" (Iraq army soldiers) took the MV 100 and laptop on patrol. Their term of endearment for the insurgents is "snakes." So of course the MV 100 became the Snake Eater. The next day Maj. West emailed the U.S. team digital photos of Iraqi soldiers fingerprinting suspects with the Snake Eater. "It's one night old and the town is abuzz," he said. "I think we have a chance to tip this city over now." A rumor quickly spread that the Iraqi army was implanting GPS chips in insurgents' thumbs.

Over the past 10 days, Maj. West has had chance encounters with two Marine superiors--Maj. Gen. Richard Zilmer, who commands the 30,000 joint forces in Anbar, and Brig. Gen. Robert Neller, deputy commanding general of operations in Iraq. He showed them the mobile ID database device.

I asked Gen. Neller by email on Tuesday what the status of these technologies is now. He replied that they're receiving advanced biometric equipment, "like the device being employed by Maj. West." He said "in the near future" they will begin to network such devices to share databases more broadly: "Bottom line: The requirement for networking our biometric capability is a priority of this organization."

As he departs, Maj. West reflected on winning at street level: "We're fixated on the enemy, but the enemy is fixated on the people. They know which families are apostates, which houses are safe for the night, which boys are vulnerable to corruption or kidnapping. The enemy's population collection effort far outstrips ours.

The Snake Eater will change that, and fast." You have to believe he's got this right. It will only happen, though, if someone above his pay grade blows away the killing habits of peacetime procurement.
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