Method and apparatus for a token

• US 8,245,052 B2
• Filed: 02/22/2006
• Issued: 08/14/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 02/22/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: HID Global Corporation (Assa Abloy AB)
• Original Assignee: Digitalpersona Corporation (Assa Abloy AB)
• Inventors: Bjorn, Vance C.
• Primary Examiner(s): Pwu, Jeffrey
• Assistant Examiner(s): TRUONG, THONG P
• Application Number:
  US11/360,377
• Publication Number:
  US 20070198848A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,365 Days
• Field of Search: 340/5.62, 340/10.1, 713/201, 713/159, 713/172, 713/185, 713/186, 455/425, 380/270, 341/176, 726/9, 726/20, 705/65, 705/66
• US Class Current: 713/186
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/35 communicating wirelessly
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 2009/00365 in combination with a wake-up circuit
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 2009/00388 code verification carried out according to the challenge/response method
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 2009/00412 the transmitted data signal being encrypted
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 9/00309 operated with bidirectional data transmission between data carrier and locks
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 9/00563 using personal physical data of the operator, e.g. finger prints, retinal images, voicepatterns
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 9/28 the pass enabling tracking or indicating presence

Abstract

A method and apparatus of using a token comprises receiving an indication of a presence of a nearby short-range terminal and waking up the token in response to receiving the indication. The method further comprises performing authentication between the token and the terminal, without requiring a user to directly interact with the token.

Claims

1. A token comprising:

a secure memory in the token to store a biometric template for a user and data divided into a plurality of subsets;

a transceiver, in the token, to receive biometric data from a terminal;

an identity verifier, in the token, to determine if the received biometric data matches the stored biometric template without requiring a user to physically touch the token;

the transceiver to send a pseudonym and a certified public key to the terminal, wherein the pseudonym is a linked identity that does not include information about a real-world identity of the user;

a secure session creator to establish a secure communications channel between the wireless token and the terminal using the certified public key without passing the stored biometric template from the token to the terminal; and

the transceiver to transmit an acknowledgement to the terminal when the received biometric data matches the stored biometric template for the user, and the transceiver to transmit a subset of the data from the memory to the terminal based on a verification level of the terminal.

2. The token of claim 1 implemented as one of:

a key fob, a mobile phone, a watch, a smart card, and a touchless smart card.

3. The token of claim 1, further comprising:

a secure session creator to set up a secure communications channel between the wireless token and the short-range terminal without passing the stored biometric template from the token to the terminal.

4. The token of claim 3, wherein the transceiver receives the biometric data from the terminal through the secure communications channel

5. The token of claim 1, further comprising:

a low power receiver, in the token, to receive an indication indicating a presence of the terminal.

6. The token of claim 5, further comprising:

a low power processor, in the token, to determine whether the indication should be responded to, the low power processor including a wake-up logic to wake up the token in response to the determination by the low power processor that the indication should be responded to.

7. The token of claim 1, further comprising:

the transceiver to receive periodic maintenance pings after the transmission of the acknowledgement; and

the transceiver further to respond to the periodic pings verifying the continued proximity of the wireless token to the terminal.

8. The token of claim 1, further comprising:

insecure pseudonyms released to a terminal in response to a request, when a secure session has been established; and

secure pseudonyms released to the terminal in response to a request only after the transmission of the acknowledgment.

9. The token of claim 1, further comprising:

public pseudonyms released to any terminal in response to a request, when secure session has been established; and

private pseudonyms released only to the terminal that initially established the private pseudonyms.

10. The token of claim 1, further comprising a timer to put the wireless token back to sleep after an authentication process has been completed.

11. The token of claim 10, further comprising:

an always-on portion of the wireless token, which remains awake after the wireless token has been put to sleep, to continue monitoring for pings, the always-on portion of the wireless token including the low power receiver.

12. The token of claim 1, wherein the token communications with the terminal using wireless frequencies.

13. The token of claim 1, wherein the token communicates with the terminal using human skin conductance.

14. The token of claim 1, wherein waking up the token comprises waking up a cryptographic processor in the token, the cryptographic processor including the identity verifier.

15. The token of claim 1, wherein the identity verifier is part of a high power system, in the token woken up by the low power processor in response to the determination by the low power processor that the indication should be responded to.

16. The token of claim 1, further comprising:

a user interface to enable the user to manually interact with the token to cause the token to release specialized data to the terminal.

17. A terminal to permit use of a wireless token for authentication, the terminal comprising:

a ping generator to generate periodic pings, a ping having a temporary lifetime based on information included within the ping that expires, for a response to be used by a wireless token;

a secure session logic to establish a secure session with the wireless token after determining that the connection request was within the temporary lifetime of the ping by verifying the information in the connection request;

a transceiver to send biometric data received through a sensor via the secure session to the wireless token for authentication by the wireless token, the transceiver to send a pseudonym and a certified public key to the terminal, wherein the pseudonym is a linked identity that does not include information about a real-world identity of the user; and

access control to provide access to a limited access system, in response to receiving authentication information from the wireless token, wherein the authentication information is received in response to the wireless token determining that biometric information stored on the wireless token matches the biometric data sent to the wireless token from the transceiver in the terminal, and wherein a selected level of data provided by the wireless token to the terminal is one of a plurality of levels of data, the selected level of data based on an identity of the terminal.

18. The terminal of claim 17, further comprising:

a minutia extraction logic to extract the biometric data for sending to the token from the biometric information on the wireless terminal.

19. The terminal of claim 17, further comprising:

a pseudonym verifier to verify that a pseudonym received from the user is an access database, wherein the pseudonym is a linked identity that does not include information about a real-world identity of the user.

20. The terminal of claim 19, further comprising:

additional data requested by the access control logic, if additional data is needed to provide access.

21. The terminal of claim 17, further comprising:

a continued access verifier to periodically send out a maintenance ping after a user has been provided to access to a limited access system, to verify that the user remains in proximity to the limited access system.

22. The terminal of claim 17, further comprising:

a random number generator used to generate random numbers for an initial connection between the terminal and the wireless token, such that only a current ping is available for response.

23. The terminal of claim 17, wherein the limited access system may include one or more of the following:

a building, a room, a computer system, an airport security terminal, a vehicle, or an automated teller or similar financial transaction system.

24. A method of using a wireless token comprising:

storing, by the wireless token, a biometric template on the wireless token and data divided into a plurality subsets, a subset of data being terminal-specific data;

receiving, by the wireless token, biometric data from one of a plurality of nearby short range terminals, without requiring a user to physically touch or interact with the wireless token;

sending, by the wireless token, a pseudonym and a certified public key to the terminal, wherein the pseudonym is a linked identity that does not include information about a real-world identity of the user;

determining, by the wireless token, if the received biometric data matches the stored biometric template;

sending, by the wireless token, a response to a nearby short range terminal when the authentication has been performed, wherein the response includes an acknowledgement to the nearby short range terminal when the received biometric data matches the stored biometric template for the user; and

a secure session creator to establish a secure communications channel between the wireless token and the terminal using the certified public key without passing the stored biometric template from the token to the terminal,

sending, by the wireless token, the terminal-specific data to the nearby short range terminal after authentication has been performed, the terminal-specific data being a subset of the data from the memory based on a verification level of the terminal.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein the wireless token is implemented on one of:

a key fob, a mobile phone, a watch, a smart card, and a touchless smart card.

26. The method of claim 24, further comprising:

setting up a secure communications channel between the wireless token and the short range terminal without passing the stored biometric template from the wireless token to the short range terminal.

27. The method of claim 24, wherein performing authentication comprises:

sending a pseudonym and a certified public key to the terminal, wherein the pseudonym is a linked identity that does not include information about a real-world identity of the user; and

establishing a secure communications channel between the wireless token and the terminal using the certified public key without passing the stored biometric template from the token to the terminal.

28. The method of claim 27, further comprising:

receiving the biometric template from the terminal through the secure communications channel.

29. The method of claim 24, further comprising:

receiving, by the wireless token, an indication indicating a presence of the nearby short-range terminal; and

determining whether the indication should be responded to;

waking up, by the wireless token, in response to the determining that the indication should be responded to.

30. The method of claim 29, further comprising:

continuing to receive periodic pings to verify continued proximity of the wireless token.