Futurists have long proclaimed the coming of a cashless society, where
dollar bills and plastic cards are replaced by fingerprint and retina
scanners smart enough to distinguish a living, breathing account holder
from an identity thief.
What they probably didn't see coming was that
one such technology would make its debut not in Silicon Valley or MIT
but at a small state college in remote western South Dakota, 25 miles
from Mount Rushmore.
Two shops on the School of Mines and
Technology campus are performing one of the world's first experiments in
Biocryptology - a mix of biometrics (using physical traits for
identification) and cryptology (the study of encoding private
information). Students at the Rapid City school can buy a bag of potato
chips with a machine that non-intrusively detects their hemoglobin to
make sure the transaction is legitimate.
Researchers figure their
technology would provide a critical safeguard against a morbid scenario
sometimes found in spy movies in which a thief removes someone else's
finger to fool the scanner.
On a recent Friday, mechanical
engineering major Bernard Keeler handed a Red Bull to a cashier in the
Miner's Shack campus shop, typed his birthdate into a pay pad and swiped
his finger. Within seconds, the machine had identified his print and
checked that blood was pulsing beneath it, allowing him to make the buy.
Afterward, Keeler proudly showed off the receipt he was sent via email
on his smartphone.
Fingerprint technology isn't new, nor is the
general concept of using biometrics as a way to pay for goods. But it's
the extra layer of protection - that deeper check to ensure the finger
has a pulse - that researchers say sets this technology apart from
already-existing digital fingerprint scans, which are used mostly for
criminal background checks.
Al Maas, president of Nexus USA - a
subsidiary of Spanish-based Hanscan Indentity Management, which patented
the technology - acknowledged South Dakota might seem an unlikely
locale to test it, but to him, it was a perfect fit.
"I said, if it flies here in the conservative Midwest, it's going to go anywhere," Maas said.
Maas
grew up near Madison, S.D., and wanted his home state to be the
technology's guinea pig. He convinced Hanscan owner Klaas Zwart that the
2,400-student Mines campus should be used as the starter location.
The
students all major in mechanical engineering or hard sciences, which
means they're naturally technologically inclined, said Joseph Wright,
the school's associate vice president for research-economic development.
"South Dakota is a place where people take risks. We're very entrepreneurial," Wright said.
After Maas and Zwart introduced the idea to students this winter, about 50 stepped forward to take part in the pilot.
"I
really wanted to be part of what's new and see if I could help improve
what they already have," said Phillip Clemen, 19, a mechanical
engineering student.
Robert Siciliano, a security expert with McAfee, Inc., minimized potential privacy concerns.
"We
are hell bent on privacy issues here in the U.S. We get all up in arms
when someone talks about scanning us or recording our information, but
then we'll throw up everything about us on Facebook and give up all of
our personal information for 10 percent off at a shoe store for instant
credit," he said.
Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst with the
American Civil Liberties Union, said fingerprint technology on its own
raises security issues, but he called "liveness detection" a step in the
right direction.
"Any security measure can be defeated; it's a question of making it harder," he said.
The
key to keeping biometric identification from becoming Big Brother-like
is to make it voluntary and ensure that the information scanned is used
exactly as promised, Stanley said.
Brian Wiles, a Miles mechanical
engineering major, said it's exciting to be beta testing technology
that could soon be worldwide.
"There was some hesitation, but the
fact that it's the first in the world - that's the whole point of this
school," said Wiles, 22. "We're innovators."