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Computer Security Reading Group
The Computer Security Reading Group (CSRG) is an unscheduled course in
computer security.
Purpose
The goal of the Computer Security Reading Group is to provide an
informal atmophere where students can meet and discuss advanced topics
related to compuer security. Participation in the CSRG should be a
reward in itself, but student who wish to do an extra effort, e.g., by
writing a small report on one of the topics covered by the reading
group, will be able to earn study credits for that effort.
Operational Goals
The operational goals of the Computer Security Reading Group are:
Educational Through the discussion of scientific papers,
members of the reading group will reach a deeper understanding of
complex issues relating to computer security. Papers discussed by the
CSRG will generally cover current topics in computer security, this
includes new exciting research results and computer security related
topics currently mentioned by the media.
Political In order to provide politicians and citizens
objective, non partisan information about technological aspects of
computer security, the knowledge assembled by the reading group should
be documented and made available to others. Members of the reading
group who wish to obtain course credits from their participation will
generally be required to produce material that can be published,
either on the web, in daily news media or in popular science
magazines.
Social The reading group will be conducted in an informal and
fun atmosphere that will allow students to interact socially in a
technological context. Although some of the study credit giving
activities may be limited to a smaller number of students, reading
group meetings will generally be open, especially to alumni who may
wish to maintain a link to academic research or who wish use the
reading group to look for new employees for their current
employer.
Reading Group Format
The reading group will meet to discuss papers every week in the
semester. Members of the reading group are expected to propose
relevant research papers for discussion and participate in the
selection of the research paper to be discussed at the next
meeting. Each paper will be presented by one student, normally the
student who proposes the paper, and two to three other members of the
reading group will be elected to raise questions (roughly three
questions each) designed to help start the discussion. These questions
may address some of the theory or technology developed in the
presented paper, some of the underlying assumptions made in the paper
or some of the possible consequences of applying the technology
developed in the paper. All members of the reading group are expected
to have read the paper before the meeting.
The above format is not fixed and it is expected that the format will
evolve to accommodate the wishes of the members of the reading
group. However, in order to ensure depth in the discussion, it is
expected that the reading group will target no more than a few topics
each semester, so that consecutive meetings in the reading group will
generally discuss papers with a similar topic.
CSRG Spring 2005
In the spring 2005, the activities of the CSRG will focus on the
different proposals to improve the security of personal identification
documents through the use of biometrics. Since participation in the first
instance of the reading group will be strongly linked to the course credit
earning activities, participation will be limited to 20 participants.
In the spring 2005, the reading group will meet on Wednesday from 15
to 17 in Building 322, room 030. Students who wish to participate in
the reading group should indicate their interest by sending an email
to csrg@imm.dtu.dk before Friday
14 January. The email should have the text "CSRG" in the subject and
the name and student number of the interested student(s) in the body
of the email. Sending this email is not required toparticipate in the
reading group, but it helps plan the course and the limited places
will be allocated on a "first come first served" basis.
NB! Meeting room for the CSRG, spring 2005, is Building 322, room 030.
The use of Biometrics in Identification Systems
Traditional security systems are based on the ability to identify and authenticate principals who request access to protected resources. Biometrics has been proposed as a convenient and secure way to authenticate human principals, and through identity management to transfer the rights of the human user to any software agent acting on her behalf. Moreover, the ability of biometrics to identify humans means that they are being proposed as an appropriate mechanism to identify humans in traditional offline applications, e.g., in ID-cards or passports. In the spring 2005, the CSRG will examine the appropriateness of biometrics for this use. The reading group will examine the biometrics themselves, the machine readable identity documents and accompanying technologies. The reading group will produce a series of articles that reflect the discussions in the reading group and present any conclusions that may be drawn from these discussions. The articles should be in a format that is easily understood by a layman, so that the series can be brought in a daily news paper or in a special issue of a popular science magazine.
The following topics for writing papers have been identified. Papers selected for discussion by CSRG in spring 2005 should generally be directly relevant to one of these topics.
- An overview of biometrics
Biometrics records physical features of the individual and use
this recorded information to recognize the individual at a later
time. This requires a system that is able to enroll the individual
(record her biometrics), associate the biometrics with a particular
individual, store the biometrics and the identity of the individual
in a secure way, measure the same feature at a later time, match
the new measurement against the database of stored biometric
information and retrieve the identity of the individual if a
match is found. This sub-project will provide a general overview of
biometrics identification systems and explain the required
architecture for different uses of biometric identification, e.g.,
in national ID cards, travel documents or certificates of
competence.
- The role of biometrics in security
Biometrics are
being heralded as a panacea for security problems in society,
infrastructure and computer systems. The purpose of this
sub-project will in greater detail examine how bometrics can be
used in identification systems and identify possible limitations to
the use of biometrics in personal identification.
- Face recognition
As one of the two forms of
biometrics required by the new EU passport standard, the use of
face recognition in identification systems should be examined. At
the moment, the proposed facial biometric is a simple photograph of
the owner, but it is possible that future standards will require
standardized machine verifiable facial biometrics. This sub-project
should examine different facial biometrics recognition systems and
assess their security and reliability with respect to being used in
identification systems.
- Fingerprint recognition
As the other form of
biometrics required by the new EU passport standard, the use of
fingerprint recognition systems should be investigated. This
sub-project should examine different forms of fingerprint
biometrics and assess their security and reliability. As there has
been considerable success in defeating fingerprint identification,
special attention should be made to identify and assess ways of
defeating fingerprint biometrics. The impact of the relative ease
with which fingerprint biometrics can be defeated on the possible
use of fingerprint biometrics in identification systems should be
assessed.
- Other biometrics recognition systems
Any uniquely
identifiable feature of the human physiology can potentially be
used for biometric identification. This sub-project should identify
and describe the different forms of biometric identification
systems that have been proposed by research or industry. As
possible alternatives (or supplements) to the already proposed
biometrics in EU passports, these biometrics systems must examined
and the strenght and weaknesses with respect to their use in
biometrics identification systemsmust be assessed.
- The use of biometrics in machine readable documents
Biometrics have been proposed as part of the national ID card in
the UK and as part of new passports issued by EU member
states. Moreover, The US have indicated that they will require
biometric identification of everyone entering the US in the near
future. This sub-topic should examine the proposed standards for
biometrics identification in machine readable travel documents and
assess the potential security implications of the proposed
infrastructure, the security and reliability of the proposed
biometrics, the security of the proposed interfaces between the
biometric identification system and the machine readable travel
document and the potential impact on the privacy of ordinary
citizens if such systems are implemented.
- Survey of Biometrics Identification Systems
As the
different subprojects identify and study different biometrics
identification systems, they should compile a common survey of
biometrics identification systems. It is the ultimate goal that
this document may be published in one of the academic journals that
carry survey articles.
CSRG Reading List
The CSRG reading list contains both the papers that will be discussed at the reading group meeting as well as other material, which is relevant to the current topic of investigation.
Reading Group Papers (Spring 2005)
Date |
Paper |
9 Feb |
1. The Economist: The Evolution of the Photofit. The Economist.com, 2 December 2004.
2. J. Bigun, K. Choy, and H. Olsson: Evidence on skill differences of women and men concerning face recognition. In J. Bigun and F. Smeraldi, editors, Audio and Video based Person Authentication - AVBPA 2001, pages 44-51. Springer, 2001.
Papers presented by Jens Fagertun.
Papers questioned by Simon Thyregod.
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16 Feb |
1. Lawrence O'Gorman: "An Overview of Fingerprinting
Verification Technologies". In Elsevier Information Security
Technical Report, Vol. 3, No. 1, 1998, pp. 21-32.
2. Younhee Gil et al.: Access
Control System with High Level Security Using
Fingerprints. In Proceedings of the 32nd Applied Imagery
Pattern Recognition Workshop (AIPR'03), Washington, DC, October 15 - 17, 2003.
Papers presented by Simon Thyregod.
Papers questioned by Yan Hong and Xin Hu.
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23 Feb |
Tsutomu Matsumoto et al.: Impact of Artificial "Gummy" Fingers on Fingerprint Systems. Proceedings of SPIE Vol. #4677, Optical Security and Counterfeit Deterrence Techniques IV, Thursday-Friday 24-25 January 2002.
Paper presented by Yan Hong.
Papers questioned by Simon Thyregod, Simon will also repport on published FAR and FRR for fingerprint systems.
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9 Mar |
Papers on biometric passports, details will be available shortly.
Paper presented by Xin Hu.
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30 Mar |
London School of Economics: The Identity Project, Interim Report and assessment of the UK Identity Cards Bill & its implications, London, March 2005.
Report presented by Christian D. Jensen.
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13 Apr |
International Civil Aviation Organization: ICAO - Machine Readable Travel Document.
No presentation will be made, instead we will construct a common mindmap of the specified
requirements for the mrtd, issuing infrastructures and
verification infrastructures envisaged by the ICAO proposal.
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Additional Reading (Useful links)
This list is currently under construction.
Fingerprints
Marie Sandström: Liveness Detection in Fingerprint Recognition Systems.
M.Sc. Thesis LITH-ISY-EX-3557-2004, Institutionen för systemteknik,
Linköping University, 2004.
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