Wednesday, Nov 20, 2002
No playing with fingerprints
R. Savitha
A Pune-based company offers fingerprint-based security that, it claims, is hard to crack.
AS technology gets more sophisticated, fears of hackers getting more savvy and messing up one's security are also getting more pronounced. According to a market survey, there is a continuous rise in revenue drain due to password/PIN number hacking and fake authentication. In today's fast emerging e-transaction economy, the mere knowledge of a password or possession of some magnetic card, proximity card or smart cards obviously is not enough to deter fraud.
An article on fingerprinting in "World Book Multimedia Encyclopaedia" has this extract: "Fingerprints provide the most reliable method of identification because no person's prints are identical to those of another individual. Even identical twins have different fingerprints.''
So, tapping the opportunity, the Pune-based WYSE Systems is offering the Sentry Biometric Fingerprint device. "This hi-security device ensures that no one except you can access an application,'' says Y.D. Wadaskar, President, WYSE Systems. The compact hardware device records the user's fingerprint at the time of enrolling for a hi-security application. Subsequently, it verifies the same whenever the user accesses that application. "This level of authentication is 100 per cent tamper-proof, as the fingerprints of even twins are never the same,'' he says.
Is this the first device of its kind in the Indian market? Wadaskar says this is the first device to be manufactured and designed in India. "Till date, the devices placed in the Indian market are imported by re-sellers. It is also the first commercially available capacitance/semiconductor device in India,'' he says. The components used in the product such as integrated circuits are imported and the technology has been taken from the chip manufacturers. WYSE System's flagship product has been Sentry hardware lock, used by software package developers for piracy prevention.
Moving from optical sensor
The big players in the fingerprint recognition market currently have products based on optical sensor. The capacitance/semiconductor-based market is just beginning, and soon will surpass the optical sensors. In India, the available optical devices are supplied by SecuGen and Identix through the re-sellers. There is no visible presence/representation of capacitance/semiconductor-based sensors from any company. In the global market in the optical sensor segment, the two major players are SecuGen and Identix and in the capacitance/semiconductor segment, the players are Authentec, Veridicom and Infineon.
Areas of application
The application areas for this device include PC Logon, Attendance Recording & Payroll Solution, Access Control, Personnel Tracking Systems, Bank Transactions, File Access Handling, Home Security or Lock based on Fingerprint, ATM Centres and Car Security. Since the company is targeting the OEM segment, its application includes software solution/application such as time attendance/kiosk/access control, Internet security, etc. The company is estimating a turnover of Rs 3 crore for the first year from the OEM market and in volume terms it will be close to 5,000 units.
The unit is priced at Rs 8,000 plus taxes and the SDK is offered separately and is sold one time, with support/updates for a period of one year, he says. "We have planned to target the end-user market for providing PC log-on, file/folder protection using our fingerprint device, which has estimated volume of another 5,000 in the first year''. The SDK has API calls in the form of DLLs. The API communicate with the device, extract the fingerprint image, extract the fingerprint characteristics and do matching of fingerprints. These APIs can be called from any Win32-based application development environment like Visual C++, Visual Basic, Visual Foxpro, Delphi, etc. "WYSE provides its Fingerprint Server application, which interacts with the device and hence eases the programming efforts of the implementor,'' says Wadaskar.
But in the current context of slowdown, especially in the aftermath of September 11, is there any interest shown by the domestic market for such a product? "Since we started talking with OEMs, we have been getting a very encouraging response. The poor technical support and after-sales service provided by current re-sellers is a major concern of OEMs, and that is counted as an advantage on our side, apart from the huge price advantage and prompt delivery schedules,'' he claims.
Wadaskar says the Ethernet-based Sentry Biometrics Fingerprint device also assures the user of 100 per cent authentication over the intranet/Internet. The ethernet device will be connected to the currently laid Network i.e. on the Ethernet (Cat5 Cable). The software application would be installed on a PC, which acts as central server, located anywhere in the Intranet area. This central server will manage the functionality of all the installed fingerprint devices. The ethernet connectivity helps to authenticate a person from anywhere, where this fingerprint system is installed. The system will also have provision for access control for door lock, a Web camera (optional) to capture images of unidentified persons trying to hamper the system, he says.
All said and done, how far organisations, though worried about hackers, will go in for this kind of device is yet to be seen. Meanwhile, this might provide hackers some food for thought too.
rsavitha@hotmail.com
blonnet.com
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