PERSONAL AUTHENTICATION

• US 20130006784A1
• Filed: 06/30/2011
• Published: 01/03/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 06/30/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cable Television Laboratories Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Cable Television Laboratories Incorporated
• Inventors: Krauss, Simon L., Marcia, Oscar G.
• Granted Patent: US 9,621,350 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/18
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/206 comprising security or operator identification provisions, e.g. password entry
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/388 using mutual authentication without cards, e.g. challenge-response
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/40145 Biometric identity checks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2209/56 Financial cryptography, e.g. electronic payment or e-cash
• 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

A method and system of authenticating a person is disclosed. The authentication may include verifying authenticity of the person when interacting with a point of sale system or other authenticating requesting device according to whether biometric information collected proximate in time to the authentication request sufficiently correlates with biometric information previously collected from trust sources.

Claims

1. A method of authenticating a purchaser comprising:

receiving biometric information reflective of biometric commands issued from the purchaser to command a user device, the user device communicating signals through a first access point to facilitate access to electronic services associated with a service provider, the biometric information being transmitted from the user device through the first access point;

determining a biometric signature of the purchaser from the biometric information transmitted through the first access point;

receiving a biometric authentication result from signaling transmitted through a second access point associated with a point of sale system, the second access point being remotely positioned from the first access point and less trusted than the first access point, the point of sale system being configured to facilitate purchase of a product by the purchaser, the point of sale system facilitating a biometric authentication test of the purchaser when the purchaser attempts to purchase the product, the point of sale system operable to;

i. administer the biometric authentication test to the purchaser;

ii. determine the biometric authentication result from one or more answers made by the purchaser to questions associated with the biometric authentication test;

determining a biometric authentication test score for the purchaser from the received biometric information and the received biometric authentication results, the biometric authentication test score correlating the biometric authentication result with the biometric signature; and

facilitating use of the biometric authentication test score by the point of sale system for use in authenticating the purchaser to purchase the product, including authenticating the purchaser to purchase the product if the biometric authentication test score is greater than a threshold and unauthenticating the purchaser to purchase the product if the biometric authentication test score is less than the threshold.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising determining the biometric signature at least in part from voice samples of the purchaser collected by the user device and transmitted through the first access point to a biometric authentication device, the biometric authentication device determining the biometric signature of the purchaser based at least in part on the voice samples.

3. The method of claim 2 further comprising determining the biometric authentication test to require the purchaser to speak a plurality of words selected from the voice samples such that the biometric authentication tests represents the correlation of the plurality of words spoken at the point of sale system to the same plurality of words included in the voice samples.

4. The method of claim 2 further comprising collecting the voice samples from voice commands of the purchaser used to control the user device.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the first access point is a cable modem and the customer devices is at least one of a mobile computer, a mobile phone, a media terminal adapter (MTA), a VoIP phone, and a settop box (STB).

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising overriding authentication of the purchaser to purchase the product if the first access point is untrusted in order to prevent the biometric test score from being based on cloned biometric signatures, the cloned biometric signatures being determined from biometric information collected through an untrusted access point.

7. The method of claim 6 further comprising:

determining the first access point to be untrusted in the event a MAC address of the first access point through which the biometric information is transmitted to generate the biometric signature fails to match with at least one MAC address previously associated with the purchaser;

determining the first access point to be trusted in the event the MAC address of the first access point matches with at least one MAC address previously associated with the purchaser, the second access point having a MAC address failing to match with at least one MAC address previously associated with the purchaser, resulting in the second access point being less trusted than the first access point.

8. The method of claim 1 further comprising the authentication test score associating a purchase limit amount with the purchaser, the purchaser limit amount recommending a pecuniary limit for the purchaser based on the authentication test score such that the pecuniary limit is greater for higher authentication test scores than for lower authentication test scores.

9. The method of claim 1 further comprising selecting the biometric signature from a plurality of biometric signatures collected through the first access point, the selected biometric signature being determined based on a biometric purchase request communicated from the purchaser to the point of sale system.

10. The method of claim 9 further comprising the biometric signature being a voice sample of the purchaser and the biometric purchase request being a fingerprint of the purchaser, thereby providing two factor identification of the purchaser.

11. The method of claim 9 further comprising the biometric signature being a voice sample of the purchaser and the biometric purchase request being an image of the purchaser, thereby providing two factor identification of the purchaser.

22. The method of claim 6 further comprising determining the first access point to be untrusted in the event an address of the access point through which the information was collected to generate the biometric signature fails to fall within a domain of addresses associated by the service provider with a service area of the purchaser.

23. The method of claim 6 further comprising determining the first access point to be untrusted in the event a certificate transmitted from the access point fails to match with a certificate previously issued to the purchaser.

12. A secure payment system operable to authenticate a purchaser attempting to make a purchase through a point of sale system, the system comprising:

a service provider operable to provide media services to one or more media output devices, the media devices being authenticated by the service provider as being trusted;

a biometric signature device operable with the service provider to generate biometric signatures for each of the users from media output device originating biometric information, the media output device originating biometric information biometrically characterizing purchaser interaction with one or more of the media devices;

a biometric authentication device operable to receive point of sale originating biometric information from the point of sale system, the point of sale system being untrusted at least in that the point of sale system has not been authenticated as trusted by the service provider, the point of sale originating biometric information biometrically characterizing purchaser interaction with the point of sale system; and

wherein the biometric authentication device is operable to authenticate the purchaser as the user having the biometric signature most closely correlated with the point of sale originating biometric information.

13. The system of claim 12 wherein the media output device originating biometric information corresponds with voice commands issued by the users to control one or more media output devices.

14. The system of claim 13 wherein the point of sale originating biometric information corresponds with verbal answers of the purchaser spoken at the point of sale system in response to one or more test questions.

15. The system of claim 14 wherein the biometric authentication device selects the one or more test questions and instructs the point of sale device to administer the one or more test questions to the purchaser, and wherein the point of sale system provisionally identifies the purchaser to the biometric authentication device whereupon the biometric identification device selects the test questions from a plurality of test questions determined according to the provisional identification of the purchaser.

21. The system of claim 12 wherein the service provider provisions the media output devices at least to access the media services, the service provider determining the media devices to be trusted if the media devices are successfully provisioned to access the media services, wherein the point of sale system is provisioned at least to facilitate purchase of the product independently of the service provider, thereby causing the point of sale system to be less trusted than the media output devices from a perspective of the service provider.

16. (canceled)

17. (canceled)

18. (canceled)

19. (canceled)

20. (canceled)

24. A secure payment system operable to authenticate a purchaser attempting to make a purchase through a point of sale system, the system comprising:

a service provider operable to provide media services to one or more media output devices, the service provider assigning unique addresses to each media output device to facilitate providing the media services;

a biometric signature device operable with the service provider to generate biometric signatures for each of the users from media output device originating biometric information transmitted from the one or more media output devices, the media output device originating biometric information biometrically characterizing user interaction with one or more of the media devices, each biometric signature being related to the address of the media output device transmitting the corresponding media output device originating biometric information;

a biometric authentication device operable to receive point of sale originating biometric information transmitted from the point of sale system, the point of sale originating biometric information biometrically characterizing purchaser interaction with the point of sale system; and

wherein the biometric authentication device is operable to identify the purchaser as the user having the biometric signature most closely correlated with the point of sale originating biometric information, the biometric authentication device authenticating the identified user to make the purchase if the address related to the biometric signature of the identified user is within an address domain of the service provider and denying authentication of the identified user to make the purchase of the address related to the biometric signature of the identified user is beyond the address domain.

25. The system of claim 24 further comprising the biometric authentication device associating at least one user with each of the media output devices such that each address assigned by the service provider relates to at least one user, and the biometric authentication device overriding authentication of the identified user to make the purchase if the address related to the biometric signature of the identified user fails to match with the address assigned by the service provider for the same user.