Communications: electrical – Continuously variable indicating – With meter reading
Patent
1994-05-26
1997-03-04
Zimmerman, Brian
Communications: electrical
Continuously variable indicating
With meter reading
382118, 34082531, H04Q 100
Patent
active
056083874
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
This invention relates to personal identification devices, and to various applications of such devices, which in particular include access control systems, as well as authentication and encryption systems. Examples of access control systems are door entry systems and computer access control systems. Such systems may include a lock, permitting or denying access. A lock may be physical, when used on a gate, or logical, as might be used in software access control.
There are many situations where it is desirable or necessary to control the access of personnel to certain objectives, which may be physical locations (such as large sites, specific buildings, or specific areas within buildings) or may be computer systems or parts thereof. Access to such objectives may need to be controlled for various reasons, such as to prevent malicious damage to or theft of either material equipment or data and information, to prevent fraud, or to preserve security of all kinds.
Access control systems are generally linked to personal identification devices, and many such systems and devices are known. Personal identification devices may be physical, such as key devices (e.g. encoded cards) or identity cards, or abstract, such as memorised passwords or personal identification numbers (PINs). Any system that relies on the possession of a physical device is at risk of being compromised by transfer of the device to unauthorised users, deliberately or by loss or theft, or damage to the device. These factors impose considerable burdens on system administrators to ensure that passwords and PINs are frequently changed and that operating standards are kept high enough to ensure that the integrity of the system is not broken.
One possible solution lies in the use of biometric devices which attempt to measure or recognise electronically personal characteristics such as fingerprints, palm prints, retina patterns, voices or facial characteristics, but most of these are as yet unreliable, complex, expensive and slow in operation.
The general object of the present invention is to provide a personal identification device and an access control system of high potential security that is relatively simple and reliable, difficult to transfer to another user either deliberately or accidentally, and (in certain embodiments) difficult to lose.
The principle underlying the invention is that people can recognise very complex images known to them (typically faces) but that the basis of that recognition, being mental and conceptual, cannot easily be transferred to others, In terms of the present invention, a complex image is considered to be an image that is recognisable if already known but not readily capable of unique description to a person to whom it is not known.
When a complex image is included in a set of similar but not identical images, as described hereinafter, that complex image should be distinguishable from the other images in the set, by the human senses of a person familiar with the image, within a certain time interval when the whole set is displayed. However, it should not be readily possible to describe the first image in terms which are sufficiently precise that another human being unfamiliar with that image can subsequently identify it among the others of the set. For this purpose it is assumed that normal unaided human senses are used to discern the image, and a similar time interval, and that reference to or comparison with the other images of the displayed set is not permitted as part of the description.
The use of measuring instruments and no time limitation to the display, or a recording facility, would make the unique description of any image, and its subsequent recognition, much easier, and it is to be understood that the terms used in this description of the invention assume the absence of such aids. Further, the duration of an image display may be a factor in determining whether or not an image meets the complexity requirement.
A preferred example of a complex image in a set of similar images is an image of one human face in a
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patent: 3924105 (1975-12-01), Gassin et al.
patent: 4554591 (1985-11-01), Kee
patent: 4581634 (1986-04-01), Williams
Patent Abstracts of Japan vol. 6 No. 32 Feb. 26, 1982--JP 56 149 880 Kenichi Nov. 19, 1981.
Usher Robert W. J.
Zimmerman Brian
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