Ursula Gertrud von der
Leyen, is a German politician who has
been the Minister of Defence since 2013, and is the first woman in German
history to hold that office. A physician by trade, she previously also served
as the Minister of Labour and Social Affairs.
Ms Ursula is tipped as a possible future successor to Chancellor Angela
Merkel and she regularly polls among the most popular politicians in Germany.
In good olden days, in sophisticated Offices, the Security Guard would open
the entry gate, wishing the employee.
The regular scene in movies was – all employees getting up to greet the
boss, who would walk fast not paying much attention to them ! then came swipe cards restricting entry only
to authorised people – soon to replaced by biometric attendance. It is not Office alone, it could be the use
of equipments including mobile and laptops too.
Remember, the voice recognition to that famed laptop of Rajnikant in ‘Sivaji the Boss’. Biometrics refers to
metrics related to human characteristics used to identify individuals in groups
that are under surveillance. Now in many Offices, entry, exit and movement at
gates is by biometric – one places the finger on the equipment installed at the
gate, upon reading and authenticating, the door would open and allow the
person’s entry or exit. Taking a cue, the Govt is launching a new initiative
which will allow anyone to track the employee attendance numbers in government
organisations. A new Biometric Attendance System (BAS) has been launched for
government employees which will make use of the UIDAI’s Aadhar card and the
attendance data visible on the portal attendance.gov.in
Crime novels are always interesting ….the hero (a Police Officer or
Lawyer) would unravel the mysteries logically reasoning out how they got the
offender….. in good olden days, in many stories, it used to be the shirt of the
offender at the scene of the crime; in
some the label of the tailor would provide vital clues. In ‘Nylan Kayiru’ of Sujatha published in Kumudam
in 1968 – the Investigating Officer would re-enact, by reaching the probable
place from where the criminal would have come and murdered by working on
probability of the distance, time taken to travel, the building from which he
could have walked calculating the availability of taxis and more …..
As one would have seen in
Cinemas [and in some real crime scenes], Police would take out the
‘fingerprints’ at the scene of offence, which would provide vital clues. A fingerprint in its narrow sense is an impression
left by the friction ridges of a human finger. The recovery of fingerprints
from a crime scene is an important method of forensic science. Fingerprints are
easily deposited on suitable surfaces (such as glass or metal or polished
stone) by the natural secretions of sweat from the eccrine glands that are
present in epidermal ridges. Deliberate impressions of fingerprints may be
formed by ink or other substances transferred from the peaks of friction ridges
on the skin to a relatively smooth surface such as a fingerprint card. Human
fingerprints are detailed, unique, difficult to alter, and durable over the
life of an individual making them suitable as long-term markers of human
identity and may be employed by police or other authorities to identify individuals
who wish to conceal their identity, or to identify people are incapacitated or
deceased and thus unable to identify themselves, as in the aftermath of a
natural disaster.
Sometime back there was
news of University of California scientists having developed a novel method for detecting fingerprints
based on the chemical elements present in fingerprint residue. Known as
micro-X-ray fluorescence, or MXRF, the technique has the potential to help
expand the use of fingerprinting as a forensic investigation tool. This news in
BBC reports of technology adapted at a very different plane. According to the news, a member of the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) hacker
network claims to have cloned a thumbprint of a German politician by using
commercial software and images taken at a news conference.
Jan Krissler says he
replicated the fingerprint of defence minister Ursula von der Leyen using
pictures taken with a "standard photo camera". Krissler had no physical print from Ms Von der
Leyen. Fingerprint biometrics are already considered insecure, experts say. Mr
Krissler, also known as Starbug, was speaking at a convention for members of
the CCC, a 31-year-old network that claims to be "Europe's largest
association" of hackers. He told
the audience he had obtained a close-up of a photo of Ms von der Leyen's thumb
and had also used other pictures taken at different angles during a press event
that the minister had spoken at in October.
"Biometrics that rely
on static information like face recognition or fingerprints - it's not trivial
to forge them but most people have accepted that they are not a great form of
security because they can be faked," says cyber security expert Prof Alan
Woodward from Surrey University. "People are starting to look for things
where the biometric is alive - vein recognition in fingers, gait [body motion]
analysis - they are also biometrics but they are chosen because the person has
to be in possession of them and exhibiting them in real life." In September this year Barclays bank introduced
finger vein recognition for business customers, and the technique is also used
at cash machines in Japan and Poland.
With regards – S.
Sampathkumar
30th Dec 2014.
No comments:
Post a Comment