Authentication System and Method

• US 20090138725A1
• Filed: 02/13/2008
• Published: 05/28/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 11/28/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Govindarajulu, Naveen Sundar, MADHVANATH, Sriganesh
• Granted Patent: US 8,700,911 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 713/186
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 9/37 using biometric data, e.g. fingerprints, iris scans or voice recognition
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2209/805 Lightweight hardware, e.g. radio-frequency identification [RFID] or sensor
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3231 Biological data, e.g. fingerprint, voice or retina network architectures or network communication protocols for supporting authentication of entities using biometrical features in a packet data network H04L63/0861

Abstract

An authentication system comprises a sensor for detecting a fingerprint and a doodle drawn by the user. The fingerprint, or other biometric information, is distorted in accordance with the doodle to provide distorted biometric information that is referred to as a doodleprint. The user can use different doodles on different systems, and if the doodleprint is compromised, can change the doodle to create a different doodleprint.

Claims

1. A method of generating authentication information for a user, comprising:

receiving biometric information for the user;

receiving an input from the user;

combining the biometric information with the input to generate authentication information.

2. A method according to claim 1, wherein the input comprises at least one of a graphical image or a text string.

3. A method according to claim 1, wherein the input comprises a doodle.

4. A method according to claim 3, wherein combining the biometric information with the input comprises distorting the biometric information in accordance with information relating to the doodle.

5. A method according to claim 1, wherein the biometric information comprises a fingerprint.

6. A method according to claim 1, wherein the biometric information comprises features extracted from a fingerprint.

7. A method according to claim 4, wherein the information relating to the doodle comprises features extracted from the doodle.

8. A method according to claim 4, further comprising storing the distorted biometric information.

9. A method according to claim 8, comprising retrieving previously stored biometric information and comparing the distorted biometric information with the retrieved distorted biometric information.

10. A method according to claim 4, wherein distorting the biometric information further comprises computing a distortion function based on the doodle information.

11. A method according to claim 10, comprising applying the distortion function to the biometric information.

12. A method according to 4, comprising computing a distortion function during an initial registration and storing the distortion function in a fuzzy cryptographic vault with the doodle as the key information.

13. A method according to claim 1, wherein the combination of the biometric information and the input comprises a cryptographic key set for a fuzzy cryptographic vault, wherein the vault stores a secret protected by the combination.

14. An authentication system comprising:

a processor to receive biometric information for a user, to receive an input from the user and to combine the biometric information with the input to generate authentication information.

15. An authentication system according to claim 14, wherein the input comprises at least one selected from a doodle or a text string.

16. An authentication system according to claim 14, wherein the processor is arranged to distort the biometric information in accordance with information relating to a doodle to generate the authentication information.

17. An authentication system according to claim 14, further comprising:

a first sensor for receiving biometric information; and

a second sensor for receiving a doodle.

18. An authentication system according to claim 14, comprising a single sensor for sensing the biometric information and a doodle.

19. An authentication system according to claim 18, wherein the single sensor is arranged to capture a doodle drawn on the sensor by a user and to capture a fingerprint of the user while the doodle is being drawn.

20. An authentication system according to claim 16, wherein the distorted biometric information comprises a first doodleprint, further comprising:

a comparison engine for comparing the first doodleprint with a second doodleprint stored against the user.