What's new out there in access control device
By Zatni Arbi
JAKARTA (JP): First, here's a tip from a fellow computer enthusiast, Dr. R.J. Jorna from Jakarta. He wrote me and suggested that I share with you his experience in installing CorelDRAW 7.0 on a notebook.
We should thank him for the time and effort he put in to write the letter, as the information is quite valuable. My hope is that more of you who read this column regularly will also share your experiences, particularly in troubleshooting computer problems, with other readers.
As you already know, the floppy diskette drive and the CD-ROM drive on most mid-range and high-end notebooks share the same bay. Therefore, you can only have one or the other connected to the system at one time. When installing CorelDRAW 7.0 in his notebook, Jorna noticed that the machine appeared to hang for about three minutes. The reason might have been that the installation program was trying to locate the floppy diskette drive, which was not present.
As a result, once people notice that their notebooks are remaining idle for more than two minutes, most of them will think that CorelDRAW is refusing to install and will start hitting the ENTER key. What they should do is be patient and wait, as eventually the Setup program will pick up and continue with the installation process.
I also noticed that CorelDRAW appeared to put my PC to sleep for some time before it started to pick up and proceed, but the slumber period was very brief and I was too busy doing other things to really become worried by the delay.
So, the gist of the story is, when installing a program, don't jump to the conclusion that your PC is stuck. Have a little more patience, and things may work all right. This is also to say that you should avoid installing software programs when you don't have ample time. Computers are very fast, yet you cannot hurry them.
Authorized access
Embassies, banks, corporations, research laboratories, intelligence agencies and many other organizations around the world are faced with a number of common problems, not the least of which is the problem of making sure that only the authorized persons can enter an area, a vault, or a room, open a safe or access a sensitive computer database.
A wide variety of methods have been devised to filter the unauthorized parties out. In the past, a password or a personal identification number (PIN) was considered adequate. The problem is, we human beings are too lazy to remember strange passwords or complex numbers, so we tend to replace them with the ones that we can remember more readily.
What gives? Ill-intentioned people are smart enough to guess the words and numbers that are important to us, and they can break in easily. Also, as the number of passwords and PINs that we have to memorize increases, we tend to use exactly the same ones for different purposes.
Do you have a different code for your suitcase and ATM card? Maybe not. However, by using the same code for different access checkpoints, we increase the risk of negligently revealing them to those who are not supposed to know them.
Then card readers became more commonplace, and chip cards as well as plastic cards with magnetic stripes became a common device for proving your authorization for access. However, because cards can be stolen or simply found by others after they are inadvertently left in public places, passwords and PINs are needed.
Without them, these cards are useless as far as security is concerned. As the recent rape case in a new hotel in Manado, North Sulawesi sadly testifies, magnetic cards can be copied and used by perpetrators. (For those who are not familiar with the case, here's a brief summary: A hotel employee had a duplicate magnetic card for the room where a female guest was staying. Before the guest returned to her room, he entered it and hid in the bathroom). Unfortunately, passwords and PINs remain an inconvenience.
What alternatives are there? For some time, one security method takes advantage of the fact that our voice has some unique characteristics that may distinguish us from other people. Combined with our natural way of speaking certain phrases, this audio pattern matching may increase the reliability of the security system based on the "Open sesame!" method.
Another interesting method has been developed by Siemens Nixdorf Advance Technologies GmbH, and this was one of the highlights during their recent trade conference in Dublin that I had the chance to attend.
FaceVACS
Siemens' method of access verification is based on the fact that human faces have certain physiological characteristics that change very slowly over time. The procedure of recognizing faces using computers is called biometrics, and the verification package is called FaceVACS. The latter part of the name, VACS, stands for Visual Access Control System.
The security system consists of a device for capturing the image of the person who is entering a request for access or inserting a card. A simple camera will suffice. Then the captured image is analyzed and compared with a database of reference faces of people who are allowed to have access. When a match is found, the person will then be able to open a door or start a computer program.
What about changes in our appearance, such as a different hairstyle or a new pair of glasses? What happens when we are very tired and have a drooping face? What if we stood farther back when our picture was taken than when our face is being verified? It doesn't really matter, because the software program uses neural algorithms and can tolerate a certain degree of inconsistency, as long as the most important patterns still match. The four faces you see in the accompanying picture actually belong to the same person, and the system can recognize him without any significant problems.
The software can be set to be as stringent or tolerant as necessary. If it is too stringent in its pattern matching, there will be a risk that even a fully legitimate person will be denied access. On the other hand, if the tolerance level is too high, the system may give access to a con artist with a face similar to that of an authorized person.
A reference picture can be taken in a short time. It can be done, for instance, at the time a hotel receptionist hands over a magnetic card to a guest. Will hotel rooms, in the future, be equipped with facial recognition devices to ensure guests' safety? Why not? For sure, the terrible crime in Manado wouldn't have happened so easily if such an access control device had been installed there.
Certainly facial recognition has a lot of potential uses, including at ATMs and other self-service terminals. As Siemens Nixdorf puts it, recognizing faces is what we do every day, so it's the most natural way to verify identification.
FaceVACS is a Windows NT-based software package that can be integrated into other systems, so the possible applications are limitless. For the utmost in security, one may combine a facial recognition system like FaceVACS with voice verification. With state-of-the-art computing technology, it shouldn't be hard to do.