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Thanks for sharing the PDF. This isn't a subject I know much about but curious to learn more. Bipartite biotokens do seem significantly more secure than naked

Thanks for sharing the PDF. This isn't a subject I know much about but curious to learn more. Bipartite biotokens do seem significantly more secure than naked biometrics, but I'm not sure I understand the benefit if security still boils down to user passwords, especially if one assumes that any static security component will eventually be compromised. Using the password to salt the original biometric improves privacy and security, but there are a lot of other ways to compromise biometrics - people look at a lot of cameras and leave a lot of fingerprints, and existing biometric systems (while improving) are fooled by photocopies.

gcr 13y ago
That's true. It all boils down to whether you have more information than the adversary. By default, you have both a password and a biometric; with the biotoken strategy, authentication requires both. If you lose your password (eg. password database being compromised, doesn't require local access), only your biometric can protect you. With biotokens, the idea is that if the biotoken fingerprint database is compromised, the adversary can't get any useful representation of your fingerprint, even if they have your password. Sure, as you say, you can lose your fingerprint if your attacker tails you at the coffee shop to lift it from the glass table or your discarded coffee mug ("local access"). But now the adversary has all the information that you do -- your password and your biometric -- so you're doomed no matter what. Boult and Scheirer, the author of the above paper, gave a great tutorial about these kinds of privacy/security issues at 2011's International Joint Conference on Biometrics (IJCB), if you're interested about learning more. Both happen to be my former advisors too ;) Tutorial: http://www.securics.com/~walter/IJCB2011/ http://www.securics.com/~walter/IJCB2011/ Slides, "Part I: An Overview of Issues Related to Biometric Privacy and Security" http://www.securics.com/~walter/IJCB2011/IJCB11-tutorial-part1.pdf http://www.securics.com/~walter/IJCB2011/IJCB11-tutorial-par... "Part II: A Survey of Template Protection Technologies" http://www.securics.com/~walter/IJCB2011/ijcb-survey-templates.pdf http://www.securics.com/~walter/IJCB2011/ijcb-survey-templat...

gcr 13y ago

That's true. It all boils down to whether you have more information than the adversary. By default, you have both a password and a biometric; with the biotoken strategy, authentication requires both. If you lose your password (eg. password database being compromised, doesn't require local access), only your biometric can protect you. With biotokens, the idea is that if the biotoken fingerprint database is compromised, the adversary can't get any useful representation of your fingerprint, even if they have your password. Sure, as you say, you can lose your fingerprint if your attacker tails you at the coffee shop to lift it from the glass table or your discarded coffee mug ("local access"). But now the adversary has all the information that you do -- your password and your biometric -- so you're doomed no matter what. Boult and Scheirer, the author of the above paper, gave a great tutorial about these kinds of privacy/security issues at 2011's International Joint Conference on Biometrics (IJCB), if you're interested about learning more. Both happen to be my former advisors too ;) Tutorial: http://www.securics.com/~walter/IJCB2011/ http://www.securics.com/~walter/IJCB2011/ Slides, "Part I: An Overview of Issues Related to Biometric Privacy and Security" http://www.securics.com/~walter/IJCB2011/IJCB11-tutorial-part1.pdf http://www.securics.com/~walter/IJCB2011/IJCB11-tutorial-par... "Part II: A Survey of Template Protection Technologies" http://www.securics.com/~walter/IJCB2011/ijcb-survey-templates.pdf http://www.securics.com/~walter/IJCB2011/ijcb-survey-templat...