[clug] Biometrics and Linux

[Antti.Roppola at brs.gov.au]

We had a finger-print reader at our old offices, there
was a finger-scanner/keypad connected by what appears to
be a parallel port to a 68k based embedded PC of some
description, and that was networked to an NT server that
kept logs.

>From this description, it seems like the scanner sends a
whole image, and the PC looks for where ridge lines end &
split (i.e. looks for relative positions of intersections):
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/fingerprint-scanner5.htm

So unless they provided software that ran on Linux, you'd
have to find or write your own.

Antti

-----Original Message-----
From: Andrew Pollock [mailto:andrew-clug at andrew.net.au]
Sent: Sunday, 22 February 2004 9:45 PM
To: linux at lists.samba.org
Subject: [clug] Biometrics and Linux


Hi,

I'm looking at developing an application, and I'd like use fingerprints for
authenticating users of the application.

A while ago, I did a lot of research into fingerprint readers, but didn't
find any that openly claimed Linux support.

The other thing is, does anyone know how they work? Are the identifying
features of the fingerprints stored in the reader itself, or does it just
spit out the equivalent of a checksum to the application for
comparison/verification?

Thanks for any advice.

Andrew