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Biometric Voice Recognition Credit Cards
securitas writes "New Scientist's Celeste Biever reports on the latest in biometric security devices: voice recognition credit cards. The device is three times the size of a normal credit card, has a 'microphone, a loudspeaker, a battery and a voice-recognition chip' and is intended to help reduce credit card fraud. The owner speaks a password into the card and the card emits an authentication squawk. Bruce Schneier loves the concept of BeepCard's related sound authentication technology. Other articles at the Telegraph and The Register."
Why would anybody want to carry a credit card 3x the size of their other cards?
You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
How many folks will pull out this card, hold it up to their faces, and say:
"ChangeMe"
?
I believe this story is a duplication
My UID is prime is yours?
how do I, the merchant, prove I 'heard' the squawk?
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
So just make an identical looking device which produces a squawk no matter whose voice it is.
Isn't one of the goals of credit cards convenience? I mean, I could put all of my money in a pot, bury it where someone will never find it and pull from it when I needed and it would be pretty secure, but it's just too much work. This might be a good idea for the tin foil hat crew but I've got a feeling most of us will be sticking with our small, compact, easy to slide into wallet cards.
WANNAWIKI Wannawiki WannaWiki WANNAWIKI!
verify me.
biometric voice recognition credit card in your pocket or are you really *really* REALLY happy to see me :)
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
What if you have a sore throat and try to go to the drug store for some medicine? If your voice is scratchy, will you be denied your medicine because your voice doesn't match?
--
Fresh Deals
Did this story not come up a day before ?? Anyway I was a bit too busy to post anything then so thanx for the repeat ;)
Not only will it have Voice Recognition, it will have voice synthesis to communicate to the user! I can see it now...
"I can't let you buy that, Dave."
"If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living."
- Seneca
Didn't "we" just say that "we" were already tired of the passwords we do have? Now we're getting more?
...what does this mean for mimes?
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Never criticize religion on Slashdot. You will be modded down for "Troll" no matter how factual it is.
The smaller chips are a relief, just reading the article one of my butt cheeks was falling asleep:P
Harpo Tunnel Syndrome--my wrist feels funny.
you can't even buy stuff these days without being squawked at
Seriously though... so much for using this over the net.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
"Hand over that friggin' money".
The owls are not what they seem
Hi, my name is Werner Brandes. My voice is my passport. Verify me.
Dave: Open my account, HAL.
HAL: I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.
Dave: What's the problem?
HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
Dave: What are you talking about, HAL?
HAL: This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
Dave: What do you mean?
HAL: Dave, you're trying to save up for retirement, remember? You'll just spend all that money on beer, won't you?
Dave: What the? Dammit ... just open the account, HAL!
HAL: Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye.
Dave: AAAARRRRGH!
I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
Smart cards are similar to credit cards and serve the same purpose, but they have a completely different data storage system. Instead of using a magnetic strip to store the user's information, smart cards feature an embedded 8-bit microprocessor with up to 16 kilobytes of programmable-only memory. Smart cards have only recently began to gain popularity in the United States, despite their widespread use in Europe for years.
Domain Dynamics' new TESPAR voice authenticator stores three samples of the user's voice on a template within the Java-based smart card. When users want to make a transaction, they simply enter the card into a terminal at a store and give a speech sample. The card then matches the spoken voice to the recorded voice samples, a process that takes a fraction of the second. The company said that TESPAR is able to handle day-to-day variations in the user's voice and can ignore background noise.
Read more here.
what happens when you accidentily run this card through the wash?
Read the article but still not sure how it would stop a man-in-the-middle? True it would require that you disrupted communication but thats feasable - eg if someone is using their card on their cell-phone, kick in a cell-phone jammer as soon as the person speaks into the card, the card still plays the sound for you to record it but it doesnt get through the call? it could also work the same way on a comprimised computer or malicious web-site (think IE browser bug that allows your active-x to hi-jack someone elses)?
People have to remember that the transaction isnt secure until its been made.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
I wonder how successful this will be.
This seems to be one of those technologies that either flop or revolutionize the way business is done.
It's a nice concept, but what happens when someone "loses their voice", so to speak? Can't buy anything until with it until their voice returns? How well does it interact with accents, background noise, etc?
I don't know how feasible this is but I'd imagine a thumbprint-sensitive card would be much more easier to deal with.
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Never criticize religion on Slashdot. You will be modded down for "Troll" no matter how factual it is.
N:T:
now thats just plain stupid. If you want a biometric card put a damn thumb print reader on it.
I don't know what the fuck you just said little kid, but you're special. -Tracy Morgan
BTW, it didn't actually go well unless your fingertips smell of tuna.
Why do I like this? It's a physical authentication system that doesn't require any special reader hardware
I don't see why a microphone is any less special than a USB port or an IR port. If anything, just about any computer these days has a USB port.
And using IR for authentication, many modern phones and almost all modern PDAs will do; all you need to do is plug an IR dongle costing a few dollars (in quantity) into the USB port. And IR can be made interference proof much more easily than sound.
It's a good thing that mankind has never developed technology able to record voices to a high degree of accuracy.
Mary had a little lamb, it's fleece was white as snow. And everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go. Ha, Ha, Ha.
Remember Bubba Smith? He'd have to love this..seriously, the guy could impersonate *anything* in Police Academy.
SHOPOWNER: 'Please verify your card, Mr. Smith."
HIGHTOWER: *Squawk*
SHOPOWNER: 'Thanks'
Cha-ching!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
3x the size! Why not go for putting the voice readers in the cash registers and soda machines and the cards can simply store the biometrics. Also stress analyzers should monitor for inevitable coercive forces that muggers will apply to cardholders.
What the hell are you talking about Leon? I've had hotter sex with a goat than I have ever had with your srawny ass.
Get over it, you are nothing special in the sack.
Note: use of the words ass and sack were not arbitrary.
In biometrics, password remembers you.
...seem fairly obvious. First, if one of these devices is at a public terminal, it wouldn't be hard at all to get a .wav record of the transaction; then, I have your password FOR LIFE!
Second, if someone's voice is drastically altered, (s)he would have to find a way to prove identity outside of the voice recognition system.
Third, any technology that might let me verify someone's voiceprint could also be used to generate a false voiceprint. A simple tape recording of you talking could be enough to forge your voice electronically. (Hmmm... cool plot possibilities for a Tom Clancey thriller)
Fourth, my (hypothetical) twin, who probably has an almost-identical voiceprint, is not necessarily to be trusted.
Human being (n.): A genetically human, genetically distinct, functioning organism.
How easy would it be to put square sensor in the corner that verifies your fingerprint? It wouldn't take away from the time it makes the transaction since you're holding the card anyway.
Wait. Uh, forget I said that...
Hello. Smithers. You're. Quite. Good. at. Turning. Me. On.
Stick them up your ass. They will smell better you buggering woofter pillock sod.
"Voice check in aisle 5! Voice check in aisle 5! Would the manager please come to the front registers."
I'll just take my chances with credit card fraud. With the current zero-liability policies of most issuers, or the $50/card legal limit, I can afford it.
Merchants can afford to take their chances, too. According to that well-known radical organ, The Wall Street Journal, credit card fraud amounts to $0.06/$100 of overall charges. Oh, the humanity! You can see why merchants spend so very much time whinging about a massive 0.06% loss rate.
No-one's yet managed to make a smart-card that was tamper-proof. Have they made great strides forward there as well, or is the voice-auth just a way to persuade people the card's secure when it isn't?
Ok..... .... Hello Mc Fly !!
Lemme get this straight, you say something into this device and if it is successfull it gives you a 'skwak'....
almost like back in the 'good ol days' when all this hacking started ie 2600Hz tone started all this
Only diffrence is we dont have to worry about comming up with new fangled ways of immitating the squak with resistors and speakers.
Mc Fly
A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.
This is a bad idea, what this would mean is that if you have a cold, have dental work done or go hoarse you would be unable to make purchases until the ailment subsided.
Do you want to be denied your Niquill purchase at 2am because some piece of plastic with a chip couldn't recognize your voice?
My company is making a new creditcard system too. Our card will feature the CinderBlock (TM) theft prevention system. Essentially using the latest technolodgies we have embedded a magstip on a 16'x6'x8' piece of concrete. Its weight alone makes a quick snatch from an unsuspecting individual that much more unlikely. And in the event of a successful theft it features ValueBlast brand thermite and a OnStar(TM) accessible detonator. One push of a button and some poor theif just lost his arm, but your credit is secure.
Please call 1-800-URB-ROKE for more information.
There is nothing wrong with being gay. It's getting caught where the trouble lies.
My grandmother will be worried if she sees me talking to a card.
No discrimiination against cards intended..
Sounds like NewScientist (oops, I even just typed NewScientits the first time) has got even more pop-science (Check Out This Quantum Action!) than it used to be.
...and I authorized this transaction.
You may well laugh but it surely won't be long before all chairs, tables and park benches will be able to interogate your cash/credit/"smart" cards.
Personally I don't wan't have to wear metal pants to protect my tackle, just because some nosey _______ wants to check how many credits I have left, or whether my ID card has been remotely tagged "watch this citizen - he eats curried snickers bars so he must be a threat".
Next time you sit in the park drinking your beer, ask yourself why it is that those squirrels seem less afraid than they did yesterday...
My hyperlinks aren't worth the paper they're printed on.
Have the people type there password and have the voice system be as a second mesure for security.
1. If you have to "say your password" at each atm to use your card, isn't that less save? Now they have to put up a cam and find a way to copy your card. (pin / card). A cam seems harder to install then a audio recording device.(the article states there is a high accuracy recording of the voice needed, which is possible so to be considered)
2. If I'm drunk and I want to get money, my voice will sound somewhat different. (same with different moods which alter the voice somewhat) will I be able to use my CC or will I have to try "different intonations" like with the cellphone voicedailing systems I have been struggling with? certainly cause there's stated the record has to be "high quality".
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
Yeah, just what I have always wanted to do. Walk into a store, whip out something the size of an Apple Newton, hold it in front of my face and yell out my password. All while drawing attention to my purchase of Vaseline and the lastest issue of Swank magazine.
I think that a passive fingerprint scan while you swipe the card would be the best way to go.
I have a speech impediment and this technology wouldn't work for me very well. :(
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
or alternatively, steal card, disable card, speak, have mp3 player hooked up to speakers in pocket that squaks like card, perfect.
it's a matter of national security!
How many people will use the same email/ISP password in the credit card so they don't forget it? Then there goes security as anyone and everyone reads their passwords aloud.
No, the challenge for Beepcard has been and apparently continues to be knowing the difference between voice recognition and voice identification. Yes, the phones have to learn to recognize your voice but that's not because your voice is a beautiful and unique snowflake; it's because the parameters that make up voices are widely varying and we haven't figured out exactly how brains turn streams of voice into words. So-called "voiceprints" are a myth. Google for forensic phonetics if you don't believe me. IANAPhonetician but I am a linguistics grad student and I've had enough grad level phonetics to know that spectrographic analysis of a voice does not provide any kind of unique identification the way fingerprinting does (or is supposed to at least).
Stupid idea, waste of R&D money, and a poor solution to a problem that has many better solutions that credit card companies are not interested in because it involves them changing the way they do things. Whoever's financing this obviously needs to enroll in an introductory phonetics class at the local university before they lose their shirts on a dumb, unworkable idea.
good show
OK so it's Saturday night and I'm at the bar, the DJ is blasting the sounds, and it's my round. Now how exactly is my credit card gonna hear me say anthing over the ear-splitting bass? Not to mention how is the bartender gonna hear my credit card squawk?
OK so your average
Jiggity
Though you can lose your legs, or perhaps even your tongue in some freak accident. It's all statistical anyway. Hey, wait... are you invalid?
When Gattaca was first released, as part of a marketing campaign there were adverts for people to call up and have their children genetically engineered. Thousands of people called, wanting to have their offspring genetically engineered.
Vincent: They used to say that a child conceived in love has a greater chance of happiness. They don't say that anymore.
Guanine, Adenine, Thymine, Thymine, Adenine,Cytosine, Adenine.
"guanine" etymologically derives from "guano", in which it is found.
pls
mod the parent up
Hold it up, say anything, press button, card plays prerecorded sound.