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To: Pierre-X who wrote (793)	9/4/1998 11:58:00 AM
From: Mark Oliver	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2025

Pierre, I got a small taste of the Biometric, Speaker Verification, at the ASAT conference. There was a company doing a voice based system called T-Netix. Their main business is managing prison calling and government security systems. Prisons have to control who an inmate calls to keep them from harrassing victims, or continuing criminal activities. These constraints are different from inmate to inmate. T-Netix started giving pin codes to inmates. Trouble was pins were open to fraud. The simple threat of violence to make inmates give out unblocked pins also made low security people at risk. A Speaker Verification made inmates and the calling system more secure. T-Netix is also working with long distance calling cards, cell phone and credit card companies. T-Netix developed and patented their own voice biometrics system. The voice has characteristics that are related to the physical structure of the larynx. It's not just a case of Rich Little making a show of sounding like WC Fields. It is impossible for people with different body types to duplicate a voice biometric. Then you have the obvious solution of recording voice pins and then playing back a tape. This could be complicated by using several pins and then randomly prompting. Anyway, every system can be cracked, but it seems like the number pad/password based pin is very vulnerable. It becomes a question of accuracy versus cost. Imagine how you would verify users through a pay phone? The cost of installing and maintaining a finger print reader or retinal scan would be huge. Voice systems can also be used as a plug in for internet based applications. A slow connection could use the plugg-in to gather the voice pin and send it. Many internet based systems use authentication keys, which are sold for about $40 for each user, to secure more guarded transactions. Most of us are given these keys by our on-line brokers. T-netix even claimed that they were installing a system for the Israelis to check the identity of workers coming across borders. Papers are too easy to falsify. The speed of checking a biometric could allow them to pass many more people more effectively. With thousands of people crossing check points daily, a voice metric is an easy control. If you think about it, even though it makes it easier to conveniently transact purchases or whatever, it has some Orwellian consequences that a police state like Israel could use to make life hard. Not sure I like it. Even so, the projections I saw for Speaker Verification sales weren't enough to make me invest even though the growth was impressive. I would guess Speaker Verification will more likely be a component that be integrated into other systems. It may enable new technologies like E-commerce and smart cards to be a success. Anyway, I mentioned Biometric systems in this forum because some may become hardware based add ons to the PC. I copied a table of sales projections which I will post in fixed font. Regards, Mark

To: Pierre-X who wrote (793)	9/4/1998 12:18:00 PM
From: Mark Oliver	Respond to of 2025

Sales projections made at the Keynote for Speech Related Products ...................1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 ASR..................353 801 1571 3412 8021 14186 22615 Sp. Ver..............11 26 73 153 253 398 625 TTS.................52 83 146 164 194 247 324 ASR Automatic Speech Recognition Sp. Ver. Speaker Verification TTS Text-to-Speech One can make any claim about how sales could be in 2003, but you can conclude that the strongest case if for buying into ASR companies. Most of them have TTS now, and will probably include some sort of verification. Interesting thing will also be trends to build special IC based solutions. This will lead to all those Star Trek like projections where you walk into the house and say, Lights on and make me a Martini. Regards, Mark

To: Pierre-X who wrote (793)	9/4/1998 12:36:00 PM
From: Mark Oliver	Respond to of 2025

<Let's discuss further, although the subject is somewhat afield of the thread. A new thread perhaps?> Security Technologies - Straight Talk This is a new thread that might bring some of the issues of how security and it's various elements will unfold into a single discussion forum. Message 5647122 Regards, Mark PS RE Mr Burke, I found him to actually have been correct about some things, but I never liked his style. There was another guy Mohan, who was also an interesting bear. Mohan seemed to be much more technically oriented.

To: Pierre-X who wrote (793)	9/4/1998 1:12:00 PM
From: Mark Oliver	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2025

Another deviation slightly off topic is the issue of bandwidth. It was recently a conclusion that the public networks would come to a halt as all this internet/data traffic usage way outpaced system capacity. Well, we don't hear this too much anymore. Wonder why? DWDM. "Dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) arrived with a bang earlier this year with the announcement that Cable and Wireless had applied the new optical technology to its trans-Atlantic fiber trunks. Cable and Wireless did this by multiplying the number of infrared bands that the trunks can support. Many experts believe that DWDM is a major step toward a National Information Infrastructure (NII) that one day could accommodate a limitless amount of information. In essence, DWDM increases dramatically the information handling ability of single-mode fiber. It weaves this magic by dividing the infrared light emitted by the laser into multiple wavelengths and by assigning an end-user payload to each wavelength. The long-term implications for both the public carriers and the customers they serve are both exciting and far reaching. " So, why should we need those ever faster high end computers or larger disk drives for that matter? Some say bandnwidth obstacles have held back the killer apps that will unfold as our computers become more connected to the public network. If you agree, this article is a good one. See the link for the whole story. nelsonpub.com Regards, Mark