From: GrahamS@i2.co.uk
Date: Tue Sep 26 2000 - 04:37:45 PDT
Interesting? I almost bought a $5.99 'book of secrets' in Toy-R-Us for my 8
year old daughters birthday. She writes her secrets in the little pink book
then closes a tacky plastic lock and utters a magic word. Thereafter it uses
some primitive speech recognition to ensure Mom, Dad and brothers can't
access the secrets. Fine I thought until it goes wrong.
Bad enough for my daughter to lose access to her secrets but think of the
chaos if my wife were to lose access to her credit cards........
H'mm perhaps this is a smart idea after all!!!
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mark Hughes
> Sent: 26 September 2000 12:26
> To: 'FoRK (FoRK@XeNT.CoM)'
> Cc: Graham Snudden
> Subject: Speech recognition on a smart card (in 3.6k)
>
> BBC NEWS: Speaking for security
> Date: Monday, 25 September, 2000, 17:26 GMT 18:26 UK
> Article:
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_941000/941663.stm
> Domain Dynamics: http://www.ddl.ision.co.uk/
>
> Speaking for security
> ------------------------------
>
> Your word is not your bond, it's your credit limit
>
> By BBC News Online internet reporter Mark Ward
> Soon, before you can spend or shop, you might have to speak into your
> smartcard.
>
> A small UK company has created a speech recognition system that can fit
> comfortably on a smartcard and do its job using nothing more than the
> humble processing power of the chip on the card.
>
> By putting the speech recognition on a smartcard, the company hopes to
> make it safer to use the cards online and off.
>
> The technology might also be used in mobile phones, making pressing
> buttons a relic of the past.
>
> It has been developed by Swindon-based Domain Dynamics and takes a novel
> approach to speech recognition.
>
> Chip chops
>
> Many PC-based speech recognition systems rely on the processing power of a
> computer to analyse a long data stream generated as a user speaks.
>
> The computer samples the speech stream thousands of times a second and
> then analyses the data to reveal where words begin and end, and the
> variations within them, to extract the sense of what is being said.
>
> By contrast, the Domain Dynamics technology only takes note when the parts
> of speech such as phonemes and syllables start and stop.
>
> By cutting spoken language into its elements and noticing how these
> elements change as they are spoken, Domain Dynamics has found that speech
> breaks down into 29 distinctive components.
>
> The record of each component takes up far less storage space than the
> speech sound it represents.
>
> By combining these components, Domain Dynamics can deconstruct and
> recreate any spoken word or phrase. This is turned into a speech
> recognition system using a chip called a digital signal processor that
> chops the sounds into their distinctive components.
>
> Security device
>
> Now Domain Dynamics has squeezed this recognition system on to a smartcard
> with only 8 kilobytes of memory. The speech system takes up a tiny 3.6
> kilobytes of space, leaving room for other programs.
>
> This cut-down system can recognise a few words or phrases and is intended
> to be used as an extra security measure for credit cards wherever they are
> used.
>
> "You can check if a card is valid and that an owner is not in trouble with
> their bank," said Martin George, sales manager at Domain Dynamics, "But
> that does nothing to verify that the person with that card is the rightful
> owner."
>
> Because the smartcard stores only the components spoken by the owner,
> Domain Dynamics claims it is far harder for criminals to extract them and
> pose as the bearer of the card.
>
> Mr George said Domain Dynamics was talking to mobile phone handset makers
> on ways to install the system into the SIM cards that told a phone who
> owned it and stored phone numbers and text messages.
>
> Eventually, he said, phones might become little more than lapel badges
> that people speak in to without the need to press any buttons.
>
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