DIY Iris Scanning?

gadzook33 asks: "There have been rumors floating around about DIY iris scanning, using digital cameras for biometric security. Iris scanning presents a fantastic alternative to password-based authentication but hasn't really come to our desktops yet. I've looked around but can't find any concrete material on the subject. Is anyone doing this? Are there any efforts to develop open software for this sort of thing? Are patents holding things up? Given that passwords are an almost defunct technique for protecting data in certain situations, it would be nice to have an alternative."

Comments

Why would I want to...

[YowzaTheYuzzum]

... give anyone an incentive to gouge out my eyeballs?

Better than retina scanning

[jamesh]

which is where you use a laser to illuminate the back of the eye, and a camera to take a picture of the illuminated retina and then use some sophisticated pattern matching to recognize the unique pattern of scars left by previous scans.

Re:Better than retina scanning

[fyonn]

Retina scans are not likely to injure you, but are considered less acceptable than iris scanning as it gives away too much information. Yes, it can uniquely identify you, but it can also divulge various health issues and show if you're pregnant. This is usually information that employees prefer to reveal on their own, than have the door security guard congratulate or commiserate them about information that they haven't told their partner about yet, or might not even know them selves.

dave

really?

[Unknown_monkey]

Out of all the things to DIY, what would drive you towards a DIY project involving possibly lasers or bright LEDs and your eyes? Some things you shouldn't go bargain on, like never buy the cheap toiler paper. For both my eyes and my brown eye, I think it's worth spending the cash for premium.

Re:really?

[jamesh]

This iris is the front part of the eye (See here). No need for any special sort of illumination above a light bulb. The Iris Recognition article on wikipedia is also somewhat informative, it even mentions the problem of cosmetic contact lenses.

Not an alternative...

[Zadaz]

Iris scanning presents a fantastic alternative to password-based authentication...

This is an all too common mistake about biometrics. Security should never rely solely on biometric identification. Unlike a password or a physical key, your biometric information can't be changed. Which is its strength, right? No one can change their fingerprint to match yours!

However, any system can be spoofed or cracked. And if someone figures out how to feed information into a scanner that looks (to it) exactly like my iris, well then I'm fucked. That person is me anywhere they do an iris scan.

It would be like someone stealing your passwords and you not being able to change them.

Useful? Yes. But as an additional level of security, not an alternative.

Re:Not an alternative...

[Vo0k]

"That person is me anywhere they do an iris scan." is true. Except they get "Sorry, you don't have a clearance" as a reply, just like you do. If a building security is based on iris scan, sure they won't be able to enter after your iris pattern is revoked, but so won't you. Meaning no entry to the building, sorry sir, you must look for a job elsewhere, at least till we update our security system.

As for 2), the basic feature of biometrics is that it's simple. You touch a surface or look into a lens, and that's all, no typing passwords, no entering codes or searching your wallet for magnetic card. Take it away and you take away half of the charm of biometrics. You only leave the scare "they will knock you out and take your eye out in a dark backstreet to break in" plus vague and unreliable info about high security, which is neither verifiable nor unhackable and definitely doesn't appeal to management.

It's a bumpy road ahead of biometrics.

Re:Not an alternative...

[Zadaz]

1) Sure, my biometric permissions are revocable, but not re-issuable. At least no security outfit in their right mind would reinstate your biometric print once it had been broken.

If simple biometrics become prevalent, then someone stealing my iris print (for example) would pretty much end my life. I wouldn't be able to have a bank account or any other kind of security. Either my accounts would be wide open to whoever had a copy, or no bank would issue an account to a security risk.

At least until I could grow a new eye. It's identity theft on a very personal level.

2) Sure, they're getting more advanced. They could hardly be more primitive. However there are two problems with making them more sophisticated:
a) You can't make security so sophisticated it can't be broken. (duh.)
b) The more complex a system is the more likely it is to fail. I'm not an expert in the field, but many of the things you propose would ilkley prevent me from accessing my account if I was ill or under the effect of any number of legal drugs. Which is of course unacceptable.

A system that sophisticated will cost a ton of money. Compare that to to the cost of a card reader and 12 button keypad found on most ATMs. The amount of ATM fraud based on stealing user ID's at the terminal is much smaller than cost of installing and maintaining biometric devices and will be for the foreseeable future.

Static Iris Scanning is useless, not dynamic

[iendedi]

While it is true that one could hold up a photo of your iris to a camera and spoof a static iris scanner, doing the same to a dynamic scanner is not practical.

What is a dynamic iris scanner? One that looks not only for the unique patterns of the eye, but also simultaneously measures retinal response to stimuli such as dimming and brightening of the display. This is much more difficult to spoof (you would essentially need to build a model of the target's eye that could respond to external stimuli and then hold that up to the scanner).

Combined with facial recognition, dynamic iris scanning is very potent. First it recognizes your face and then your eye and then the retinal response with stimuli that is timed to be somewhat random. Just don't try to log on after a night of pubbing.

How I would do it...

[cr0sh]

I would start out with a cheap USB web camera. First, I would hack it in some manner to allow it to macro-focus. I would go down to goodwill or a pawn shop and pick up the cheapest, most busted VHS video camera being sold. From this I should be able to get much of the optical components and the needed eyecup.

I would attempt to obtain a fake eyeball of some sort. While it wouldn't work perfectly, it would give me some sort of method by which to focus with. Mounted with some tape to the eyecup, and then positioned in front of the webcam, I would be able to determine the focus fairly quickly.

I would then set up some kind of "ring illumination", wherein I would create a "ring" of LEDs - red/green/blue/IR - through which the webcam would peer. Focussing again might have to be adjusted. This ring would be set up in such a fashion so that I could trigger which set(s) of LED's would be active at once - likely via USB control, too.

Once I had that set up, and focussing correct, I would then work on the software. For this DIY project, I would simply set things up to take multiple image captures of my own eye, process the images through some filters to reduce the information to just my iris (cue on the white of eyeball, and black of the pupil), then (in some manner), use these images to create an "eigeniris" image, some kind of "average" of all the images I took (over several days or months, in different levels/conditions, so as to have the best average available). Then, the software could take an image, compare it to the "eigeniris", determine if it falls within range, and use that to trigger or deny access (to whatever).

That would be the route I would take if I was doing this. Overall, the hardware portion seems the simplest to implement - the software is where you will bog down. Just like any other pattern recognition project, I would imagine...