[2113] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Biometric HA patent
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (tamaster@technologist.com)
Fri Feb 6 14:38:43 1998
From: tamaster@technologist.com
Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 12:30:18 -0600 (CST)
To: cryptography@c2.net
Method and apparatus for securely handling a personal identification
number or cryptographic key using biometric techniques
(assignee -- mytec technologies inc.)
Patent Number: 5712912
Issue Date: 1998 01 27
Inventor(s): Tomko, George J.{#buStoianov, Alexei#}
February 6, 1998
MicroPatent via Individual Inc. : Abstract: A method and apparatus using
biometric information (such as a fingerprint, an iris structure, etc.) as a
cipher for encrypting and decrypting a personal identification number (PIN)
which is used as an input to a PIN requiring device. The method of
encryption of a PIN includes generating a sequence of random characters
representing a PIN to be encrypted; obtaining a generating function such
that the random characters are coefficients in an expansion of a square of
said generating function over basis functions; and dividing a transform of
the generating function by Fourier transformed information image signal to
obtain the encrypted PIN. The latter is stored digitally or as a hologram
in a personal card or a database. To decrypt the PIN, a full-complex
spatial light modulator is illuminated with an optical beam carrying the
Fourier transform of the biometric image of an individual to be identified.
The encrypted PIN may be also stored in a reflective hologram which is
nondestructively attached to a personal card, and the decryption of a PIN
comprises illuminating the hologram with the beam carrying the Fourier
transform of the biometric image. In other embodiments of the invention, a
cipher may be derived from an intensity distribution (captured directly by
a camera) of the Fourier spectrum of the biometric image. The PIN may be
encrypted and decrypted either optically (with phase conjugation
techniques) or digitally (using an encryption algorithm).
Ex Claim Text: A method for securely storing at least a personal
identification number (PIN), comprising the following steps: obtaining a
biometric information signal bearing information from a body part;
generating a sequence of random characters to obtain a PIN; obtaining a
generating function such that said random characters of said PIN are
parameters of said generating function; obtaining a transform of said
generating function; encrypting said transform of said generating function
with said biometric information signal to obtain an encrypted PIN; and
writing said encrypted PIN into a store. writing said encrypted PIN into a
store.
