Image enhancement and segmentation on simultaneous latent fingerprint detection

A simultaneous latent fingerprint (SLF) image consists of multi-print of individual fingerprints that is lifted from a surface, typically at the crime scenes. Due to the nature and the poor quality of latent fingerprint image, segmentation becomes an important and very challenging task. This thesis presents an algorithm to segment individual fingerprints for SLF image. The algorithm aim to separate the fingerprint region of interest from image background, which identifies the distal phalanx portion of each finger that appears in SLF image. The algorithm utilizes ridge orientation and frequency features based on block-wise pixels. A combination of Gabor Filter and Fourier transform is implemented in the normalization stage. In the pre-processing stage, a modified version of Histogram equalization is proposed known as Alteration Histogram Equalization (AltHE). Sliding windows are applied to create bounding boxes in order to find out the distal phalanges region at the segmentation stage. To verify the capability of the proposed segmentation algorithm, the segmentation results is evaluated in two aspects: a comparison with the ground truth foreground and matching performance based on segmented region. The ground truth foreground refers to the manual mark up region of interest area. In order to evaluate the performance of this method, experiments are performed on the Indian Institute of Information Technology Database- Simultaneous Latent Fingerprint (IIITD-SLF). Using the proposed algorithm, the segmented images were supplied as the input image for the matching process via a state art of matcher, VeriFinger SDK. Segmentation of 240 images is performed and compared with manual segmentation methods. The results show that the proposed algorithm achieves a correct segmentation of 77.5% of the SLF images under test

A Review of Fingerprint Feature Representations and Their Applications for Latent Fingerprint Identification: Trends and Evaluation

Latent fingerprint identification is attracting increasing interest because of its important role in law enforcement. Although the use of various fingerprint features might be required for successful latent fingerprint identification, methods based on minutiae are often readily applicable and commonly outperform other methods. However, as many fingerprint feature representations exist, we sought to determine if the selection of feature representation has an impact on the performance of automated fingerprint identification systems. In this paper, we review the most prominent fingerprint feature representations reported in the literature, identify trends in fingerprint feature representation, and observe that representations designed for verification are commonly used in latent fingerprint identification. We aim to evaluate the performance of the most popular fingerprint feature representations over a common latent fingerprint database. Therefore, we introduce and apply a protocol that evaluates minutia descriptors for latent fingerprint identification in terms of the identification rate plotted in the cumulative match characteristic (CMC) curve. From our experiments, we found that all the evaluated minutia descriptors obtained identification rates lower than 10% for Rank-1 and 24% for Rank-100 comparing the minutiae in the database NIST SD27, illustrating the need of new minutia descriptors for latent fingerprint identification.This work was supported in part by the National Council of Science and Technology of Mexico (CONACYT) under Grant PN-720 and Grant 63894

The Potential of Using Brain Images for Authentication

Biometric recognition (also known as biometrics) refers to the automated recognition of individuals based on their biological or behavioral traits. Examples of biometric traits include fingerprint, palmprint, iris, and face. The brain is the most important and complex organ in the human body. Can it be used as a biometric trait? In this study, we analyze the uniqueness of the brain and try to use the brain for identity authentication. The proposed brain-based verification system operates in two stages: gray matter extraction and gray matter matching. A modified brain segmentation algorithm is implemented for extracting gray matter from an input brain image. Then, an alignment-based matching algorithm is developed for brain matching. Experimental results on two data sets show that the proposed brain recognition system meets the high accuracy requirement of identity authentication. Though currently the acquisition of the brain is still time consuming and expensive, brain images are highly unique and have the potential possibility for authentication in view of pattern recognition

Um novo arcabouço para análise de qualidade de imagens de impressões digitais de alta resolução

Orientador: Neucimar Jerônimo LeiteTese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de ComputaçãoResumo: A falta de robustez referente à degradação de qualidade de conjuntos de características extraídas de padrões de cristas-e-vales, contidos na epiderme dos dedos humanos, é uma das questões em aberto na análise de imagens de impressões digitais, com implicações importantes em problemas de segurança, privacidade e fraude de identificação. Neste trabalho, introduzimos uma nova metodologia para analisar a qualidade de conjuntos de características de terceiro nível em imagens de impressões digitais representados, aqui, por poros de transpiração. A abordagem sugerida leva em conta a interdependência espacial entre as características consideradas e algumas transformações básicas envolvendo a manipulação de processos pontuais e sua análise a partir de ferramentas anisotrópicas. Foram propostos dois novos algoritmos para o cálculo de índices de qualidade que se mostraram eficazes na previsão da qualidade da correspondência entre as impressões e na definição de pesos de filtragem de características de baixa qualidade a ser empregado num processo de identificação. Para avaliar experimentalmente o desempenho destes algoritmos e suprir a ausência de uma base de dados com níveis de qualidade controlados, criamos uma base de dados com diferentes recursos de configuração e níveis de qualidade. Neste trabalho, propusemos ainda um método para reconstruir imagens de fase da impressão digital a partir de um dado conjunto de coordenadas de poros. Para validar esta idéia sob uma perspectiva de identificação, consideramos conjuntos de minúcias presentes nas imagens reconstruídas, inferidas a partir das configurações de poros, e associamos este resultado ao problema típico de casamento de impressões digitaisAbstract: The lack of robustness against the quality degradation affecting sets of features extracted from patterns of epidermal ridges on our fingers is one of the open issues in fingerprint image analysis, with implications for security, privacy, and identity fraud. In this doctorate work we introduce a new methodology to analyze the quality of sets of level-3 fingerprint features represented by pores. Our approach takes into account the spatial interrelationship between the considered features and some basic transformations involving point process and anisotropic analysis. We propose two new quality index algorithms, which have proved to be effective as a matcher predictor and in the definition of weights filtering out low-quality features from an identification process. To experimentally assess the performance of these algorithms and supply the absence of a feature-based controlled quality database in the biometric community, we created a dataset with features configurations containing different levels of quality. In this work, we also proposed a method for reconstructing phase images from a given set of pores coordinates. To validate this idea from an identification perspective, we considered the set of minutia present in the reconstructed images and inferred from the pores configurations and used this result in fingerprint matchingsDoutoradoCiência da ComputaçãoDoutor em Ciência da Computação01-P-3951/2011147050/2012-0CAPESCNP

An enhanced fingerprint template protection scheme

Fingerprint template protection (FTP) is required to secure authentication due to fingerprint has been widely used for user authentication systems. Fingerprint authentication consists of a microcontroller, fingerprint sensor, secure access control, and human interface. However, as many users frequently assess the systems, fingerprints could be replicated and modified by attackers. Currently, most existing FTP schemes fail to meet the properties of fingerprint authentication systems, namely diversity, revocability, security, and match/recognition performance, due to intra-user variability in fingerprint identifiers and matching issues in unencrypted domains. Therefore, this study aims to enhance the existing schemes by using chaos-based encryption and hash functions to meet the specified properties by securing users’ fingerprint templates (FT) within the embedded systems. Furthermore, an improved chaos-based encryption algorithm was proposed for encrypting FT. The MATLAB simulation with Fingerprint Verification Competition (FVC) 2002 database was used to measure the encryption results, secret key spaces, key sensitivity, histogram, correlation, differential, entropy information, matching/recognition analysis, and revocability. The proposed FTP scheme was also evaluated using Burrows–Abadi– Needham (BAN) logic analysis for protocol robustness with resistance to replay attacks, stolen-verifier attacks, and perfect forward secrecy. The results demonstrate that the enhanced chaos-based encryption algorithm for FTP improves its encryption time, which is 0.24 seconds faster than the selected benchmark study. The enhanced FTP scheme also achieved security, revocability, diversity, and matching/recognition performance properties. The matching/recognition performance evaluation produced higher verification rates and a low false rejection rate. The rates were 99.10 % and 0.90%, respectively. The equal error rate decreased from 2.10% to 1.05%. As a conclusion, the enhanced FTP scheme could be an alternative to the existing FTP for embedded system authentication to withstand various possible attacks and provides the desired security features. The scheme also can be a reference to comprehensive security analysis

An Analysis on Adversarial Machine Learning: Methods and Applications

Deep learning has witnessed astonishing advancement in the last decade and revolutionized many fields ranging from computer vision to natural language processing. A prominent field of research that enabled such achievements is adversarial learning, investigating the behavior and functionality of a learning model in presence of an adversary. Adversarial learning consists of two major trends. The first trend analyzes the susceptibility of machine learning models to manipulation in the decision-making process and aims to improve the robustness to such manipulations. The second trend exploits adversarial games between components of the model to enhance the learning process. This dissertation aims to provide an analysis on these two sides of adversarial learning and harness their potential for improving the robustness and generalization of deep models. In the first part of the dissertation, we study the adversarial susceptibility of deep learning models. We provide an empirical analysis on the extent of vulnerability by proposing two adversarial attacks that explore the geometric and frequency-domain characteristics of inputs to manipulate deep decisions. Afterward, we formalize the susceptibility of deep networks using the first-order approximation of the predictions and extend the theory to the ensemble classification scheme. Inspired by theoretical findings, we formalize a reliable and practical defense against adversarial examples to robustify ensembles. We extend this part by investigating the shortcomings of \gls{at} and highlight that the popular momentum stochastic gradient descent, developed essentially for natural training, is not proper for optimization in adversarial training since it is not designed to be robust against the chaotic behavior of gradients in this setup. Motivated by these observations, we develop an optimization method that is more suitable for adversarial training. In the second part of the dissertation, we harness adversarial learning to enhance the generalization and performance of deep networks in discriminative and generative tasks. We develop several models for biometric identification including fingerprint distortion rectification and latent fingerprint reconstruction. In particular, we develop a ridge reconstruction model based on generative adversarial networks that estimates the missing ridge information in latent fingerprints. We introduce a novel modification that enables the generator network to preserve the ID information during the reconstruction process. To address the scarcity of data, {\it e.g.}, in latent fingerprint analysis, we develop a supervised augmentation technique that combines input examples based on their salient regions. Our findings advocate that adversarial learning improves the performance and reliability of deep networks in a wide range of applications

Biometrics

Biometrics uses methods for unique recognition of humans based upon one or more intrinsic physical or behavioral traits. In computer science, particularly, biometrics is used as a form of identity access management and access control. It is also used to identify individuals in groups that are under surveillance. The book consists of 13 chapters, each focusing on a certain aspect of the problem. The book chapters are divided into three sections: physical biometrics, behavioral biometrics and medical biometrics. The key objective of the book is to provide comprehensive reference and text on human authentication and people identity verification from both physiological, behavioural and other points of view. It aims to publish new insights into current innovations in computer systems and technology for biometrics development and its applications. The book was reviewed by the editor Dr. Jucheng Yang, and many of the guest editors, such as Dr. Girija Chetty, Dr. Norman Poh, Dr. Loris Nanni, Dr. Jianjiang Feng, Dr. Dongsun Park, Dr. Sook Yoon and so on, who also made a significant contribution to the book