Biometric presentation attack detection: beyond the visible spectrum

The increased need for unattended authentication in multiple scenarios has motivated a wide deployment of biometric systems in the last few years. This has in turn led to the disclosure of security concerns specifically related to biometric systems. Among them, presentation attacks (PAs, i.e., attempts to log into the system with a fake biometric characteristic or presentation attack instrument) pose a severe threat to the security of the system: any person could eventually fabricate or order a gummy finger or face mask to impersonate someone else. In this context, we present a novel fingerprint presentation attack detection (PAD) scheme based on i) a new capture device able to acquire images within the short wave infrared (SWIR) spectrum, and i i) an in-depth analysis of several state-of-theart techniques based on both handcrafted and deep learning features. The approach is evaluated on a database comprising over 4700 samples, stemming from 562 different subjects and 35 different presentation attack instrument (PAI) species. The results show the soundness of the proposed approach with a detection equal error rate (D-EER) as low as 1.35% even in a realistic scenario where five different PAI species are considered only for testing purposes (i.e., unknown attacks

Integration of biometrics and steganography: A comprehensive review

The use of an individual’s biometric characteristics to advance authentication and verification technology beyond the current dependence on passwords has been the subject of extensive research for some time. Since such physical characteristics cannot be hidden from the public eye, the security of digitised biometric data becomes paramount to avoid the risk of substitution or replay attacks. Biometric systems have readily embraced cryptography to encrypt the data extracted from the scanning of anatomical features. Significant amounts of research have also gone into the integration of biometrics with steganography to add a layer to the defence-in-depth security model, and this has the potential to augment both access control parameters and the secure transmission of sensitive biometric data. However, despite these efforts, the amalgamation of biometric and steganographic methods has failed to transition from the research lab into real-world applications. In light of this review of both academic and industry literature, we suggest that future research should focus on identifying an acceptable level steganographic embedding for biometric applications, securing exchange of steganography keys, identifying and address legal implications, and developing industry standards

Spread spectrum-based video watermarking algorithms for copyright protection

Merged with duplicate record 10026.1/2263 on 14.03.2017 by CS (TIS)Digital technologies know an unprecedented expansion in the last years. The consumer can now benefit from hardware and software which was considered state-of-the-art several years ago. The advantages offered by the digital technologies are major but the same digital technology opens the door for unlimited piracy. Copying an analogue VCR tape was certainly possible and relatively easy, in spite of various forms of protection, but due to the analogue environment, the subsequent copies had an inherent loss in quality. This was a natural way of limiting the multiple copying of a video material. With digital technology, this barrier disappears, being possible to make as many copies as desired, without any loss in quality whatsoever. Digital watermarking is one of the best available tools for fighting this threat. The aim of the present work was to develop a digital watermarking system compliant with the recommendations drawn by the EBU, for video broadcast monitoring. Since the watermark can be inserted in either spatial domain or transform domain, this aspect was investigated and led to the conclusion that wavelet transform is one of the best solutions available. Since watermarking is not an easy task, especially considering the robustness under various attacks several techniques were employed in order to increase the capacity/robustness of the system: spread-spectrum and modulation techniques to cast the watermark, powerful error correction to protect the mark, human visual models to insert a robust mark and to ensure its invisibility. The combination of these methods led to a major improvement, but yet the system wasn't robust to several important geometrical attacks. In order to achieve this last milestone, the system uses two distinct watermarks: a spatial domain reference watermark and the main watermark embedded in the wavelet domain. By using this reference watermark and techniques specific to image registration, the system is able to determine the parameters of the attack and revert it. Once the attack was reverted, the main watermark is recovered. The final result is a high capacity, blind DWr-based video watermarking system, robust to a wide range of attacks.BBC Research & Developmen

A Survey of Positioning Systems Using Visible LED Lights

© 2018 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.As Global Positioning System (GPS) cannot provide satisfying performance in indoor environments, indoor positioning technology, which utilizes indoor wireless signals instead of GPS signals, has grown rapidly in recent years. Meanwhile, visible light communication (VLC) using light devices such as light emitting diodes (LEDs) has been deemed to be a promising candidate in the heterogeneous wireless networks that may collaborate with radio frequencies (RF) wireless networks. In particular, light-fidelity has a great potential for deployment in future indoor environments because of its high throughput and security advantages. This paper provides a comprehensive study of a novel positioning technology based on visible white LED lights, which has attracted much attention from both academia and industry. The essential characteristics and principles of this system are deeply discussed, and relevant positioning algorithms and designs are classified and elaborated. This paper undertakes a thorough investigation into current LED-based indoor positioning systems and compares their performance through many aspects, such as test environment, accuracy, and cost. It presents indoor hybrid positioning systems among VLC and other systems (e.g., inertial sensors and RF systems). We also review and classify outdoor VLC positioning applications for the first time. Finally, this paper surveys major advances as well as open issues, challenges, and future research directions in VLC positioning systems.Peer reviewe

Biometrics

Biometrics-Unique and Diverse Applications in Nature, Science, and Technology provides a unique sampling of the diverse ways in which biometrics is integrated into our lives and our technology. From time immemorial, we as humans have been intrigued by, perplexed by, and entertained by observing and analyzing ourselves and the natural world around us. Science and technology have evolved to a point where we can empirically record a measure of a biological or behavioral feature and use it for recognizing patterns, trends, and or discrete phenomena, such as individuals' and this is what biometrics is all about. Understanding some of the ways in which we use biometrics and for what specific purposes is what this book is all about

Functional mobile-based two-factor authentication by photonic physical unclonable functions

Given the rapid expansion of the Internet of Things and because of the concerns around counterfeited goods, secure and resilient cryptographic systems are in high demand. Due to the development of digital ecosystems, mobile applications for transactions require fast and reliable methods to generate secure cryptographic keys, such as Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs). We demonstrate a compact and reliable photonic PUF device able to be applied in mobile-based authentication. A miniaturized, energy-efficient, and low-cost token was forged of flexible luminescent organic–inorganic hybrid materials doped with lanthanides, displaying unique challenge–response pairs (CRPs) for two-factor authentication. Under laser irradiation in the red spectral region, a speckle pattern is attained and accessed through conventional charge-coupled cameras, and under ultraviolet light-emitting diodes, it displays a luminescent pattern accessed through hyperspectral imaging and converted to a random intensity-based pattern, ensuring the two-factor authentication. This methodology features the use of a discrete cosine transform to enable a low-cost and semi-compact encryption system suited for speckle and luminescence-based CRPs. The PUF evaluation and the authentication protocol required the analysis of multiple CRPs from different tokens, establishing an optimal cryptographic key size (128 bits) and an optimal decision threshold level that minimizes the error probability.publishe