System and method for controlling access to resources with a spoken CAPTCHA test

• US 8,868,423 B2
• Filed: 07/11/2013
• Issued: 10/21/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 06/23/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Knapp Investment Company Limited
• Original Assignee: John Nicholas and Kristin Gross Trust
• Inventors: Gross, John Nicholas
• Primary Examiner(s): COLUCCI, MICHAEL C
• Application Number:
  US13/939,993
• Publication Number:
  US 20140020084A1
• Time in Patent Office: 467 Days
• Field of Search: 704/246, 704/243, 704/244, 704/256.4, 704/273, 705/18, 705/14.69, 379/168, 455/410, 709/225, 726/2, 726/23, 726/7
• US Class Current: 704/260
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/32 using biometric data, e.g. fingerprints, iris scans or voiceprints
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/027 Concept to speech synthesisers; Generation of natural phrases from machine-based concepts generation of parameters for speech synthesis out of text G10L13/08
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/08 Text analysis or generation of parameters for speech synthesis out of text, e.g. grapheme to phoneme translation, prosody generation or stress or intonation determination
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/02 Feature extraction for speech recognition; Selection of recognition unit
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/063 Training
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/22 Procedures used during a speech recognition process, e.g. man-machine dialogue
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 17/00 Speaker identification or verification techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 17/02 Preprocessing operations, e.g. segment selection; Pattern representation or modelling, e.g. based on linear discriminant analysis [LDA] or principal components; Feature selection or extraction
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 17/04 Training, enrolment or model building
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 17/06 Decision making techniques; Pattern matching strategies
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 17/22 Interactive procedures; Man-machine interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 17/26 Recognition of special voice characteristics, e.g. for use in lie detectors; Recognition of animal voices
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/102 Entity profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/123 received data contents, e.g. message integrity
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/2027 Live party detection

Abstract

Systems and methods for controlling access to resources using spoken Completely Automatic Public Turing Tests To Tell Humans And Computers Apart (CAPTCHA) tests are disclosed. In these systems and methods, entities seeking access to resources are required to produce an input utterance that contains at least some audio. That utterance is compared with voice reference data for human and machine entities, and a determination is made as to whether the entity requesting access is a human or a machine. Access is then permitted or refused based on that determination.

Claims

1. A method of controlling access to one or more resources using a computing system comprising:

coupling the computing system to a voice reference database containing voice reference data for both human and machine related entities;

processing a request for access from a first unverified entity with the computing system to the one or more resources;

in response to said request for access to the computing system from said first unverified entity, presenting an access challenge task with the computing system;

wherein said access challenge task requires that said first unverified entity provide an input utterance with at least some entity related audio information to the computing system as part of a challenge response in order to be satisfied;

processing said entity related audio information input with the computing system based on a comparison to said voice reference data for both human and machine related entities;

performing a determination with the computing system or a second computing system as to whether said first unverified entity is a human or a machine;

controlling with the computing system whether said first unverified entity is allowed to access the one or more resources based on said determination.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein access is denied to the one or more resources if a response given by said first unverified entity is incorrect and/or originated from a machine.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein access is granted to the one or more resources only if a response given by said first unverified entity is correct and originated from a human and/or an authorized machine.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein access is granted to the one or more resources only if a response given by said first unverified entity is correct and originated from an authorized machine.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein access is granted to the one or more resources only if a response given by said first unverified entity is correct and originated from a human.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein said processing identifies whether individual words in said input utterance for said entity related audio information were articulated using machine concatenation.

7. The method of claim 1 where the computing system directs said input utterance to said second computing system based on selecting the latter after an electronic auction process.

8. The method of claim 1 further including a step:

storing a voice print for said first unverified entity as part of a machine database after determining that it is a machine.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein both a closest human match and a closest machine match is identified for said input utterance.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein said comparison is made to at least one of a reference human voice print and a reference machine voice print.

11. The method of claim 1 further including a step:

identifying a nationality and/or location of a human speaker of said input utterance.

12. The method of claim 1 where no speech recognition processing is performed to identify a substance or content of said utterance.

13. The method of claim 1 wherein said access challenge task further includes a visual component including a image that is revealed gradually over time to said first unverified entity and which must be identified in said input utterance.

14. The method of claim 1 wherein said access challenge task is comprised of a sentence of randomly selected words.

15. The method of claim 1 wherein said input utterance is analyzed to determine prosodic features which are also used to perform said determination.

16. The method of claim 1 wherein first text for said access challenge task is presented and said determination is made based on said first unverified entity provided a response containing second text identified as correlated to said first text based on collaborative filtering.

17. The method of claim 1 wherein said access challenge task is presented as part of a game or a puzzle to said first unverified entity.

18. A challenge system for identifying a source of data input to a computing system comprising:

one or more software routines implemented in a non-transitory computer readable medium and adapted to cause the challenge system to;

couple the computing system to a voice reference database containing voice reference data for both human and machine related entities;

process a request for access from a first unverified entity to the one or more resources;

present an access challenge task in response to said request for access from said first unverified entity;

wherein said access challenge task requires that said first unverified entity provide an input utterance with at least some entity related audio information to the computing system as part of a challenge response in order to be satisfied;

process said entity related audio information input based on a comparison to said voice reference data for both human and machine related entities;

perform a determination with the computing system or a second computing system as to whether said first unverified entity is a human or a machine;

control whether said first unverified entity is allowed to access the one or more resources based on said determination.