This is a master thesis in the field of information security. The problem area addressed is how to efficiency implement encryption and decryption of biometric image data in a FPGA. The objective for the project was to implement AES (Advanced Encryption Standard ) encryption in a Xilinx Kintex-7 FPGA with biometric image data as the application. The method used in this project is Design Science Research Methodology, in total three design and development iterations were performed to achieve the project objectives. The end result is a FPGA platform designed for information security research with biometric image as application. The FPGA developed in this project, is the first fully pipelined AES encryption/decryption system to run physically in a Kintex-7 device. The encryption core was made by Dr. Qiang Liu and his team while the fully pipelined decryption core was designed in this project. The AES encryption/ decryptions was further optimized to support image application by adding Cipher-block chaining to both the encryption and decryption. The performance achieved for the system was 40 GB/s throughput, 5.27 Mb/slice efficiency with a power performance of 286 GB/W. The FPGA platform developed in this project is not only limited to AES, other cryptography standards can be implemented on the platform as well. / <p>Validerat; 20140619 (global_studentproject_submitter)</p>

No description available.

This research focused on the evaluation of iris recognition on post-mortem subjects. It was to determine if iris image captures were suitable from post-mortem subjects and if the captures contained the features required to be used in recognition scenarios. One commercially available iris camera was used, the IriShield USB MK2120U. In order to complete this research, it was first necessary to obtain images from subjects that contain the proper features, including sharpness, pupil size, and image quality. The images were captured during three different conditions that would be possible to find under real-world circumstances. The first condition was as the decedent came into the coroner’s office before the vitreous fluid was sampled from the eyes. The second condition was after the vitreous fluid was sampled from the deceased. Sampling vitreous fluid is a common autopsy procedure. This second condition would also be similar to a subject with a punctured eye. The third condition was after replacing the volume of vitreous fluid with saline solution. Replacing the vitreous with saline restored the round shape to the eye. This study found that high quality images can be captured from a post-mortem eye and that matching images across conditions results in positive identification.<br>

Biometrics can provide alternative methods for security than conventional authentication methods. There has been much research done in the field of biometrics, and efforts have been made to make them more easily usable in practice. The initial application for our work is a proof of concept for a system that would expedite some low-risk travellers’ arrival into the country while preserving the user’s privacy. This thesis focuses on the subset of problems related to the generation of cryptographic keys from noisy data, biometrics in our case. This thesis was built in two parts. In the first, we implemented a key generating quantization-based fuzzy extractor scheme for facial feature biometrics based on the work by Dodis et al. and Sutcu, Li, and Memon. This scheme was modified to increased user privacy, address some implementation-based issues, and add testing-driven changes to tailor it towards its expected real-world usage. We show that our implementation does not significantly affect the scheme's performance, while providing additional protection against malicious actors that may gain access to the information stored on a server where biometric information is stored. The second part consists of the creation of a process to automate the generation of deep datasets suitable for the testing of similar schemes. The process led to the creation of a larger dataset than those available for free online for minimal work, and showed that these datasets can be further expanded with only little additional effort. This larger dataset allowed for the creation of more representative recognition challenges. We were able to show that our implementation performed similarly to other non-commercial schemes. Further refinement will be necessary if this is to be compared to commercial applications.

Information and communication technologies (ICT) are becoming a growing form of designing and implementing humanitarian response in emergency and post conflict areas. This research explores the role ICTs play in the new era of emerging humanitarian spaces, focusing on two main UN agencies, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the United Nations International Children’s Fund (UNICEF), that cover a wide range of services in Jordan. This master thesis investigates the different interventions of these two organizations in response to the Syrian refugee crisis in Jordan, asking how ICTs contributed to the efficiency of their service delivery. This study also analyses the changes ICTs brought to UNHCR’s and UNICEF’s humanitarian response in Jordan by comparing the nature of response before and after the integration of ICTs in the different programs. By examining the existing literature related to the use of ICT in humanitarian response combined with fieldwork conducting key informant interviews with UNHCR and UNICEF staff in the field of innovation and ICT, this master thesis aims to provide a critical perspective on the digital development discourse. This study argues that ICT has helped to increase the efficiency of humanitarian services delivery by decreasing the overall cost of interventions and decreasing the time needed to respond to the beneficiaries needs, leading to increase beneficiaries’ satisfaction.

The aim of this thesis is to provide comprehensive information on the possibilities of authentication, combination of authentication factors and the integration of this issue into corporate communication. The work focuses on this issue and specifies the possibilities for obtaining authentication information, analyses the authentication methods, identification and authorization. It examines the applicability of biometric technologies, the principle of their functionality, examples of their use, their impact, the advantages and disadvantages they bring. A natural, easy-to-use, convenient tool for effective and secure communication is authentication including the dynamic biometric signature. The issues of the dynamic biometric signature technology and its implementation are examined from a comprehensive perspective involving experiments. The research proved that the dynamic biometric signature can serve as a method for supporting secure corporate communication and reduce authentication risks in companies and for individuals.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The vein structure in the sclera, the white and opaque outer protective covering of the eye, is anecdotally stable over time and unique to each person. As a result, it is well suited for use as a biometric for human identification. A few researchers have performed sclera vein pattern recognition and have reported promising, but low accuracy, initial results. Sclera recognition poses several challenges: the vein structure moves and deforms with the movement of the eye and its surrounding tissues; images of sclera patterns are often defocused and/or saturated; and, most importantly, the vein structure in the sclera is multi-layered and has complex non-linear deformation. The previous approaches in sclera recognition have treated the sclera patterns as a one-layered vein structure, and, as a result, their sclera recognition accuracy is not high. In this thesis, we propose a new method for sclera recognition with the following contributions: First, we developed a color-based sclera region estimation scheme for sclera segmentation. Second, we designed a Gabor wavelet based sclera pattern enhancement method, and an adaptive thresholding method to emphasize and binarize the sclera vein patterns. Third, we proposed a line descriptor based feature extraction, registration, and matching method that is scale-, orientation-, and deformation-invariant, and can mitigate the multi-layered deformation effects and tolerate segmentation error. It is empirically verified using the UBIRIS and IUPUI multi-wavelength databases that the proposed method can perform accurate sclera recognition. In addition, the recognition results are compared to iris recognition algorithms, with very comparable results.

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 propelled the issue of aviation security to the forefront of the U.S. domestic agenda. Although hundreds of individual airports exist in the U.S., the travel activities at each of these airports combine to holistically comprise an aviation system that represents a significant portion of the U.S. social and economic infrastructure. Disruption at one airport resulting from a criminal act, such as terrorism, could exert detrimental effects upon the aviation system and U.S national security (9/11 Commission, 2004). Each U.S. airport is individually responsible for various aspects of security including the control of physical access to sensitive and secure areas and facilities (9/11 Commission, 2004). Biometric technology has been examined as one method of enhancing airport access control to mitigate the possibility of criminal acts against airports. However, successful implementation of biometric technology depends largely on how individual security directors at each airport perceive, understand, and accept that technology. Backgrounds, attitudes, and personal characteristics influence individual decisions about technology implementation (Rogers, 1995; Tornatzky and Fleischer, 1990). This study examines the problem of airport access control, as well as, the current trends in biometric technology. Utilizing a survey of airport security directors and security managers, this study draws upon innovation diffusion theory and organizational theories to determine what personal, organizational, and technical variables contribute to the propensity of airport security directors and managers to adopt biometric technology for airport access control.

No / With its numerous applications, automatic facial emotion recognition has recently become a very active area of research. Yet there has been little detailed study of the dynamic components of facial expressions. This article reviews research that shows gender is encoded in the dynamics of a smile, and how it may be possible to use the dynamic components of facial expressions as a form of biometric.

The emergence of the Internet in business as a marketing tool and as a communication medium is one of the existing challenges for the banking industry. Because of this evolution, the banking industry has adopted Internet banking both for financial transactions and for the provision of information about products and services. Based on the ideas mentioned, this study aimed to examine the factors which may affect the intention to use Internet banking in the Kingdom of Bahrain with the following research objectives to be achieved: first, to identify the factors which affect the intention to use and adopt Internet banking in the Kingdom of Bahrain; second, to develop a model based on the identified factors that affect the intention to use Internet banking in the Kingdom of Bahrain; and third, to test the reliability and validity of the proposed model and find its implications on the intention to use and adopt Internet banking. In this study, five variables were initially chosen, namely, perceived privacy protection, perceived security protection, perceived trust, perceived information quality and perceived risks/benefits that may affect the intention to use Internet banking. Besides the five variables, two more variables were included: cultural dimension and biometric technology to measure a significant relationship with any of the five variables that might affect the intention of bank customers to use Internet banking in Bahrain. As a quantitative method of research, the study focused on assessing the co-variation among naturally occurring variables with the goal of identifying predictive relationships by using correlations or more sophisticated statistical techniques. In analysing the data, the descriptive statistics were used. In addition, construct reliability and discriminant validity tests were conducted and structural equation modelling were used to test the research model and verify the hypotheses. The cultural context has rarely been commented on in previous research, but as a result of taking this factor into account in addition to the more technical issues, a number of practical implications became evident for banking in Bahrain that may have applicability elsewhere in the Arab world. These include both a focus on relationship management as well as the need for additional levels of security through biometric fingerprinting to be implemented by banks wishing to increase the adoption of Internet banking amongst existing customers. These strategies also have potential to attract new market segments.