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| June 16, 2006
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Dear readers,
The Biometrics Info provides you with the latest news on biometrics, smartcards and network security. We provide you with this free service 2 or 3 times a week depending on the news available.
We provide a RSS feed for daily use. During the week all the news will be available through the RSS feed with a weekly summary on friday through the Biometrics Info e-zine.
We carefully selected the newsarticles for this Biometrics Info and we hope you appreciate this edition.
Enjoy reading.
Reinier M. van der Drift
BioXS
English
IT outsourcing deal takes flight
Bristol International Airport has outsourced its IT operations to cope with an expected doubling of passenger numbers.
The airport has signed a five-year deal worth £6m with Steria to accommodate passenger traffic that is expected to rise from 4.5 million in 2004 to nine million a year by 2015.
Bristol Airport finance director Jim McAuliffe says the decision to outsource was prompted by a lack of in-house expertise.
What's So Secure About Social Security Numbers?
A Social Security Number (SSN) is essential to employment, to pay taxes, to even get a drivers license. But how secure is all the information connected to that number? In the move to a paperless society, those SSNs are put into databases and held on servers around the globe. With other personal information tacked to them, they are attractive targets for a hacker or a laptop thief.
With the latest SSN and personal data thefts, the privacy of citizens is at issue, and identity theft cases are becoming high profile. On June 9th the Georgia Merit System announced that a file was hacked which contained the names, SSNs and locations of 12,000 active Georgia state employees. Although officials are unsure if information was downloaded, the point is that the information was accessed.
Government Technology
Date: 2006-06-15 |
Multilink Introduces KF2000 Large Capacity Biometric Fingerprint System
Multilink Access Control Systems, and their systems manufacturer DDS, have introduced a new high capacity biometric fingerprint reader - the KF2000, which has been integrated directly into the Amadeus 5 software and the Toplock 4 control system, giving the end user a fully programmable system from one complete package. There is no longer a need for tedious pre-programming of the fingerprint reader and then copying the information to the access system software.
The KF2000 fingerprint reader is able to hold the templates for up to 1000 users and has further options up to 4000 users. The system is coupled to the Toplock 4 - 2000 user control system, with options for higher user quantities if required.
The KF2000 can read finger only for simple low security applications or can provide higher security via card and fingerprint, i.e. HID proximity card and keypad code. This makes the entire system very adaptable.
Security Park
Date: 2006-06-15 |
JCB to Run RFID Payment Trial in Amsterdam
June 15, 2005—In March, international credit card organization JCB said it was planning to introduce RFID-enabled credit cards (see JCB Developing RFID Payment System). The company now says it will also launch a technology trial in which its customers will use RFID-enabled Nokia phones, utilizing the near-field communication (NFC) protocol to charge purchases to their JCB accounts.
The trial, set to begin in early fall, will involve 100 JCB customers in Amsterdam, to whom the organization will supply the phones. A number of unidentified merchants in the Amsterdam World Trade Center will participate.
RFID Journal
Date: 2006-06-15 |
EDS Delivers 10 Millionth Smart Card To Department of Defense
HERNDON, Virginia – Responding to the global security needs of the American military, EDS today announced it has delivered the 10 millionth smart card to the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) under an aggressive five-year-old global security program managed by the Defense Manpower Data Center. It is the largest federal government advanced smart card program.
EDS also announced it has been awarded a new contract by the General Services Administration to provide additional smart cards to DoD and has received an initial delivery order for 1.25 million cards. The Java-based smart cards, known as common access or CAC cards, are provided to active duty, reserve, National Guard and DoD civilian personnel and provide authorized users physical access to military sites worldwide and need-to-know entry onto DoD networks and computer systems.
Official: E-mail is missing
Local investigators couldn’t find it. Sherburne County’s computer forensics expert couldn’t find it. The FBI couldn’t find it either.
The elusive e-mail that Sheri Gangle is accused of accessing from Steve Bloom’s e-mail account apparently is gone, and months of computer analysis couldn’t bring it back to life. That was the testimony Wednesday from an investigator at Gangle’s trial on charges that she illegally spied on the e-mail of former Waite Park City Administrator Bloom. Sherburne County sheriff’s detective Ronnie Sharbonno, who investigated the case to avoid a conflict of interest, was the last prosecution witness to testify. Defense witnesses are expected to begin testifying today.
Witnesses who are expected today include Waite Park City Attorney Gordon Hansmeier and city employees. Gangle will not testify, said her attorney, Dan Eller.
Gangle is charged with three misdemeanors — misconduct of a public officer or employee, unauthorized computer access and unlawful access of stored communication.
St. Cloud Times
Date: 2006-06-15 |
Jail fingerprinting agreement in limbo
BROOKSVILLE - Four months after the County Commission approved it, Hernando deputies are still no closer to taking over fingerprinting operations at the Hernando County Jail.
No one can explain why. On Feb. 14, the commission voted to enact a number of changes at the troubled jail, including assigning six deputies to run the LiveScan digital fingerprint machine.
The $305,000 annual cost would be deducted from the county's payments to Corrections Corporation of America, the company that runs the jail.
But this hasn't happened, despite the fact that the sheriff, the County Commission and CCA all agreed to it. The lack of action has surprised some commissioners. "I thought, to be quite honest, that we would have already been down that road," said Commissioner Robert Schenck. "That's definitely something our staff needs to get to work on."
ST. Petersburg Times
Date: 2006-06-15 |
School's U-turn on biometric library system
A campaign led by parent and local resident Amanda Penfold hit the headlines in March. Ms Penfold, who stood as a Green Party candidate in Chaucer ward in the local elections, handed out leaflets outside the Lant Street primary school.
But now the school's governors have voted to return to a barcode system.
In a statement, the school told us: "As there have been objections from a minority of parents to their children using a fingerprint to trigger a log in to the lending system in our new library, the headteacher asked governors to put this concern as a discussion item for their last meeting.
LondonSE1
Date: 2006-06-15 |
ICT security orgs blast ID smartcard, biometrics
The Federal Government’s planned national ID smartcard has come into further criticism – this time from some of the country’s leading ICT security organisations.
Speaking at a CRN/IT News roundtable on the current state of the security market, personalities from McAfee, Dimension Data, Secure Computing and Symantec have argued that the card is a step in the wrong direction. Offering up some of the harshest criticism, Dimension Data national security practice manager Neil Campbell said the card would see the centralisation of power.
“As an ex-cop it was very frustrating that [the police] didn’t have one gigantic database so that I could pluck information out about someone. It would have been an enormous help to me, but it would also have created a monster,” he said. “The identity card is one step closer to creating a monster of a Police State and it’s too much power.”
CRN Australia
Date: 2006-06-15 |
Head of US-VISIT leaves for GSA job
WASHINGTON, June 13 (UPI) -- The head of one of the Department of Homeland Security's few success stories, the US-VISIT program for tracking foreign visitors, is moving on.
Jim Williams, currently program director of the $1.1 billion United States-Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology project, will be leaving June 23 to join the General Services Administration as commissioner of the new Federal Acquisition Service, the GSA announced last week.
Anna Hinken, spokeswoman for the US-VISIT program office said there was no information available about who might succeed him.
US-VISIT is a multi-agency program using biometric technology to keep track of foreigners applying for visas or using them to visit the United States -- and of the millions of people entering the country every year under the visa waiver program.
Biometric Typists
Some 63 million votes were cast to determine this season’s winner of TV talent fest American Idol, a higher number than any U.S. President has ever received. With so much fuss over these amateur crooners, the show’s record label, RCA Music Group, decided to turn to cutting-edge security technology to deliver the winning debut single to radio stations—without news of the winner leaking out. To keep things under wraps, RCA selected a biometric product that analyzes an individual’s typing pattern to identify who’s doing the typing. Digital media distribution company Musicrypt says the product enabled it to send winner Taylor Hicks’ debut “Do I Make You Proud” to 1,400 stations without a hitch. Pioneered by Issaquah, Washington-based startup BioPassword, the technology could be picked up by more record companies keen on protecting their music. The company was named to Red Herring’s 2006 list of the top 100 private North American companies (see RH 100 N.A. – Security).
Red Herring
Date: 2006-06-13 |
Public sector: In at the cutting edge
by Arif Mohamed
Tuesday 13 June 2006
Public sector staff are plugging into an array of new technology which has boosted efficiency and cut costs. Arif Mohamed reports
Public sector IT has been transformed over the past decade as the government has poured billions of pounds into e-government. Public sector organisations have been able to invest in cutting-edge technology such as content management, customer relationship management, IP networks and the latest hardware. ....
ComputerWeekly
Date: 2006-06-12 |
Canada Testing Biometrics For Immigrants
Contractors will look at facial and fingerprint biometric capabilities for security and identity verification at designated ports, border stations, an airport, a refugee processing center, and immigration offices in Canadian provinces, Seattle, and Hong Kong.
InformationWeek
Date: 2006-06-13 |
Biometrics Has Reached a Turning Point: What Are the Pinnacles of Growth in the Hottest New Convenient Security Technology Market?
PALO ALTO, Calif., June 13 /PRNewswire/ -- The Auto ID group at Frost & Sullivan (http://www.autoid.frost.com ) will host an interactive analyst briefing teleconference on Friday, June 16, 2006 at 16:00 BST.
As competition and co-opetition jostle for positioning among biometric technology vendors the key opportunities and challenges that lie ahead for biometric vendors is assessed. Enhanced security requirements in an increasingly paperless environment are creating immense opportunities for the global biometric industry. Highlights of the briefing include: an analysis of biometric technology
trends, market sizing, key opportunities and challenges.
Yell to introduce biometric sign-on for internal systems
by Bill Goodwin
Tuesday 13 June 2006
International directories company Yell plans to meet compliance regulations by using fingerprint recognition devices to authenticate thousands of staff logging on to its computer systems.
The biometric devices form part of a programme to introduce an enterprise-wide single sign-on system, which will give staff access to 10 applications via a single log-in.
The company believes that the single-sign on system, supplied by Imprivata, is an important step in helping it meet compliance with the BS7799 and Sarbanes-Oxley standards.
ComputerWeekly
Date: 2006-06-13 |
Privaris(R) Receives BiometriTech(TM) Magazine's ''Product of the Year'' Award for 2005; The BPID(TM) Biometric Security Device Honored for Outstanding Innovation
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 12, 2006--Privaris, Inc. announced today that Technology Marketing Corporation (TMC)'s BiometriTech magazine (www.biometritech.com) has named the BPID(TM) Security Device as a recipient of a 2005 Product of the Year Award.
"Each year BiometriTech magazine bestows its Product of the Year awards on companies that have demonstrated excellence in technological advancement and application refinements in the biometrics industry. Privaris has demonstrated to the editors of BiometriTech that it has gone the extra mile to create a truly innovative product," said Rich Tehrani, President and Group Publisher of BiometriTech.
Privaris' BPID Security Device revolutionizes existing "contactless" physical and computer (logical) security. The wireless, mobile device offers the heightened security of biometrics without the high implementation costs and privacy concerns associated with most biometric solutions. One single device provides on-board processing of biometric information to ensure privacy, and enables increased security for multiple physical and logical access applications that previously required disparate, embedded systems.
BusinessWire
Date: 2006-06-12 |
AuthenTec's Newest Biometric Fingerprint Sensor Selected by Lenovo; EntrePad 1610 is world's smallest fingerprint sensor for PCs
MELBOURNE, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 12, 2006--AuthenTec today announced that Lenovo has introduced its first notebook computer featuring the company's new EntrePad 1610 - the world's smallest fingerprint sensor for PCs. The introduction marks the third Lenovo notebook that includes an AuthenTec sensor. Lenovo integrated the EntrePad 1610 into the Lenovo V100, a new ultraportable widescreen notebook PC. AuthenTec's sensor, combined with password management software, is part of the Lenovo 3000 notebook's security system -- from initial authentication to web and application access.
Launched in January 2006, the EntrePad 1610 is based on AuthenTec's patented TruePrint and TrueMatch technologies, which provide the highest quality fingerprint imaging and matching -- enabling the company's extremely small sensors to provide higher accuracy and reliability than much larger competitive sensors.
BusinessWire
Date: 2006-06-12 |
Deutsch
Neue Sicherheitspässe ab Freitag
Wien - Mit der Einführung des neuen Sicherheitspasses kommt Österreich einem Übereinkommen mit den EU-Staaten nach. So werden einheitliche Standards geschaffen, sagte Innenministerin Liese Prokop bei der Präsentation des neuen, "fälschungssichereren" Dokuments am Dienstag in Wien. Belgien, Schweden, Großbritannien, Deutschland und Frankreich haben schon auf den Pass, der biometrische Daten auf einem Chip speichert, umgestellt. In Österreich kann das Reisedokument ab Freitag beantragt werden.
De Standard
Date: 2006-06-13 |
Größter Interoperabilitätstest für elektronische Pässe in Europa
13.06.06) - Vom 29. Mai bis 1. Juni 2006 fand in Berlin der bisher größte Interoperabilitätstest elektronischer Reisepässe in Europa statt. secunet Security Networks, Anbieter von Produkten und Dienstleistungen im Bereich der IT-Hochsicherheit, war maßgeblich an der technischen Organi-sation, Durchführung und Auswertung des Interoperabilitätstests beteiligt.
Bei den so genannten Interoperabilitätstests wird geprüft, ob die verschiedenen elektronischen Pässe kompatibel zu den vielfältigen Lesegeräten sind. Damit soll erreicht werden, dass mit biometrischen Merkmalen ausgestattete Ausweise international und auf den verschiedensten Systemen lesbar sind. Internationale Tests zur Interoperabilität fanden bisher in Australien, den USA, Japan und Singapur statt.
IT-SecCity
Date: 2006-06-13 |
Nederlands
Sony brengt reeks Vaio TX3-laptops uit
Sony heeft zijn assortiment kleine laptops vernieuwd met de Vaio TX3-serie. Deze nieuwe worp designerschoothondjes volgt de TX2-serie op. Het dunne 11,1" lcd-breedbeeldscherm met led-backlight is gehandhaafd, evenals de compacte basisafmetingen. Nieuw is de toepassing van Core Solo-processors, met naar keuze kloksnelheden van 1,06 of 1,2GHz; dat zijn enkelkernige varianten op basis van Intels Core Duo 'Yonah'. Daarnaast is ook een op 1,06GHz klokkende Celeron M een optie. Met die Celeron M komt de maximale gebruiksduur van een standaard acculading uit op zeven uur; met de Core Solo's zou dat worden verlengd tot tien uur.
Beveilig je PC met Snappy gezichtsherkenning
Wie geen vertrouwen heeft in wachtwoorden of tokens kan voortaan zijn computer met gezichtsherkenning beschermen. De Snappy Face Recogniser gebruikt gezichtsherkenning om gebruikers te authenticeren. Hierdoor behoren wachtwoorden tot het verleden. "Het product is ideaal om te voorkomen dat kinderen, familieleden, collega's en andere gebruikers ongeautoriseerde toegang tot de computer krijgen" aldus de importeur.
De Snappy kost 75 euro, weegt slechts 120 gram en kan plaatjes tot 1200x1024 pixels en video's van 640x480 pixels opslaan.
Security.nl
Date: 2006-06-12 |
BioXS levert nieuwe beveiligde USB-memory stick
BioXS International, specialist op het gebied van biometrische beveiligingsoplossingen, introduceert de Stealth MXP USB geheugenstick. Deze geheugenstick biedt overheidsinstanties, bedrijven en particulieren een goed beveiligd en gemakkelijk te gebruiken data-opslagmiddel. Daarnaast kan de Stealth MXP ook worden gebruikt als authenticatie-apparaat om mensen toegang te geven tot bedrijfsnetwerken en - informatie. De Stealth MXP maakt gebruik van vingerafdrukherkenning, wachtwoorden en data-encryptie. De Stealth MXP USB geheugenstick maakt gebruik van geavanceerde biometrische beveiligingstechnieken, waarbij maximaal vijf gebruikers en zes vingerafdrukken kunnen worden opgeslagen. De gegevens op de Stealth MXP worden versleuteld met behulp van AES 256-encryptie, terwijl voor gebruikersauthenticatie gebruik wordt gemaakt van secure hash (SHA-1 en SHA-256) en Portable Security Token Service (PSTS) WS-Trust beveilging. Verder voldoet de Stealth MXP aan bekende standaarden, zoals X9.31, PKCS #1 en SAML 1.1.
De Stealth MXP USB geheugenstick is verkrijgbaar vanaf € 245 (128MB).
Hardware.info
Date: 2006-06-14 |
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