Biometrics used for random number generation

Mgr. Shkodran Gerguri

Bachelor's thesis

Abstract:

A lot of recent research focuses on the field of biometric key generation and “locking”, which promises to replace passwords by biometrics in the process of extracting a secret value from a secure storage. One of the major obstacles on the way to a reliable key generation technique is the variability in obtained biometric samples. This variability could be exploited for random number generation. The purpose of this thesis is to give an overview of some of the interesting results in the field of biometric key generation and “locking”, as well as to present a proposed method of generating random numbers from fingerprints and calculate the entropy of shift and rotation of fingerprints, which is seen as one of the contributing factors to the overall entropy of a fingerprint scanning.

Abstract:

A lot of recent research focuses on the field of biometric key generation and “locking”, which promises to replace passwords by biometrics in the process of extracting a secret value from a secure storage. One of the major obstacles on the way to a reliable key generation technique is the variability in obtained biometric samples. This variability could be exploited for random number generation. The purpose of this thesis is to give an overview of some of the interesting results in the field of biometric key generation and “locking”, as well as to present a proposed method of generating random numbers from fingerprints and calculate the entropy of shift and rotation of fingerprints, which is seen as one of the contributing factors to the overall entropy of a fingerprint scanning.

Keywords

biometrics, fingerprint, fingerprint shift and rotation, generation, information entropy, pseudorandom number

Language used: English

Date on which the thesis was submitted / produced: 22. 5. 2008

Thesis defence

• Date of defence: 26. 6. 2008
• Supervisor: prof. RNDr. Václav Matyáš, M.Sc.
• Reader: doc. RNDr. Jan Bouda, Ph.D.

Masaryk University

Faculty of Informatics

Bachelor programme / field:
Informatics / Informatics