Friday, July 26, 2013
Abstract
"Money in the 21st century will surely
prove to be as different from the money of the current century as our money is
from that of the previous century. Just as fiat money replaced specie-backed
paper currencies, electronically initiated debits and credits will become the
dominant payment modes, creating the potential for private money to compete
with government-issued currencies."
Just as every thing is getting under the
shadow of “e” today we have paper currency being replaced by electronic money
or e-cash. Hardly a day
goes by without some mention in the
financial press of new developments in "electronic money". In the
emerging field of electronic commerce, novel buzzwords like smartcards,online
banking, digital cash, and electronic checks are being used to discuss money.
But how are these brand-new forms of payment secure? And most importantly,
which of these
emerging secure electronic money
technologies will survive into the next century?
These are some of the tough questions to
answer but here’s a solution, which
provides a form of security to these modes
of currency exchange using the “Biometrics Technology”. The Money Pad
introduced here uses the biometrics technology for Finger Print recognition.
Money Pad is a form of credit card or smartcard, which we name so. Every
time the user wants to access the Money Pad he has to make an impression of his
fingers which will be scanned and matched with the one in the hard disk of data
base
server. If the finger print matches with
the user’s he will be allowed to access and use the Pad other wise the Money
Pad is not accessible.
Thus providing a form of security to the
ever-lasting transaction currency of the future “e-cash”.
Keywords:
1. Money Pad
- A form of credit card or
smart card similar to floppy disk, which is introduced to provide, secure
e-cash transactions.
2. Digital or Electronic Cash or
Digi-cash or E-cash or Ecash or Digital Money -
These terms are also used interchangeably,
and they refer to any of the various methods that allow a person to purchase
goods or services by transmitting a number from one computer to another. The
numbers are issued by a bank and represent sums of real money. Digital cash is
anonymous and reusable.
3. Personal Digital Assistance
- A PDA, sometimes
referred to as a palm-top computer, is smaller than a laptop computer and does
not have as much computing power. Used to send email via a wireless modem,
write documents in a text editor, perform calculations in a spreadsheet, store
names and addresses, and perform other common business and personal tasks.
4. Biometrics Technology
- Technology used to
accurately identify and verify an individual’s identity.
5. Finger Print Reader
– A machine with
read/write head capable of reading the information stored in the Money Pad.
6. Float –
The transaction in terms of
digi-cash, which takes zero-sum gain, is called float.
7. Fiat Money
– Authorized money.
8. Specie-Backed
– Coined money.
9. Legitimate
– Law full.
Introduction:
The 21st century will not be
"cashless", as many now predict. However, it does seem clear that the
currency of the 21st century will be "paperless". Paper currency and
checks are gradually being substituted by smartcards, digital cash and instant
transfers of funds. The large paper bureaucracy of banks is quickly becoming
redundant, burdensome, even out of date .
The
evolution in digital money is happening so fast that banks cannot
adopt quickly enough and will eventually
collapse like top-heavy giants, blown over by the winds of financial change.
Maybe, or may not be, but one trend is already clear.
The wallet of the future will hold less
paper cash, coins and magnetic stripe cards. It will hold instead Money Pad
containing digital cash and other financial information, updated — perhaps
automatically — by a PDA with a satellite communication link.
As the new technologies develop into new
ways of making payment, one concern naturally arises. Will this technology
protect each individual's right to privacy while providing the sound money
needed for the economic health of communities? The answer is simple — it
depends on how the new technology is used. There is nothing inherent in the
technology that makes it less protective of privacy and individual rights.
Advancement’s like
Biometrics
Technology has made
individual privacy even more secure.
As developments in electronic money gather
pace, protection of individual rights must be kept in focus. Because the record
of most governments so far in these early stages of electronic commerce has
been seen by many to be confrontational and not protective of individual
rights, it is likely that the preservation of these rights is one reason that
private currencies are likely to emerge on the Internet and to eventually play
an important role in
global commerce.
In order to protect the rights and
properties of each individual we thought of
providing a security system, which every
human being can understand and feel free to use.
Human beings feel secure when they have
their own security arrangements to protect their rights and as well as wealth.
Keeping this point of view in mind the Biometrics Technology is used to develop
an e-cash handling system, which is similar to well known credit cards and
smartcards.
The e-cash handling system is a device that
facilitates secure currency transactions. We call it as Money Pad which
recognises Finger Print’s of the user and decides weather the user is a
authorised person or not. Every time the user wants to access the Money Pad he
has to make an impression of his finger, which will be sensed and matched with
the one in the hard disk. If the finger print matches with the user’s he will
be allowed to access and use the Pad other wise the Money Pad is not
accessible.
Technical Details
Ø Basic Of The Present System:
Presently due to the usage of computers in
almost all the fields the demand for the utilization of Electronic Money have
been increased. Payments made today in nearly all of the deposit currencies in
the world's banking systems are handled electronically through a series of
interbank computer networks. Credit cards and smartcards are widely used to
enter into these interbank computer networks in order to perform transactions.
These are the
popular medium widely existing as a recent
medium of currency in the e-cash scenario. The mode of usage and the security
provided by these currency mediums are as follows.
·
Credit
Card:
Credit cards are payment devices that allow
the consumer to make purchases
within certain guaranteed limits as defined
by the issuer of the card. To use a credit card in most cases it is sufficient
to present the merchant with the card number and the cardholder's name and
expiration date of the card. These data can be conveniently transmitted over
the Internet. Furthermore, credit cards process funds by electronic means. The
user has to swap the card in the card reader machine then the machine asks for
authentication information like secret password etc. Later the user is allowed
to
perform the transaction. These credit cards
have several disadvantages like,
Disadvantages:
ü Instant clearing of fund is not possible.
ü User is always under the pressure of limits
on purchase defined by
the
issuer of the card and also every transaction involves certain charges.
ü Insecure transactions using fixed encryption.
ü The card has to be renewed once it is
expired.
·
Smartcards:
A smartcard resembles a credit card except
that it has a microchip embedded
within it, which allows the smartcard to
store information and sometimes to even perform simple calculations. Common
smartcard chips typically holds about 8,000 bytes (characters) of information,
which enables the smartcard to perform a variety of functions such as
identification, storing bank account information and holding digital cash.
Payment information in the form of currency value is stored on this chip and
can be retrieved with specially designed card readers.
Disadvantages:
ü Insecure transactions using fixed
encryption .
ü Risk of data loss due to chip failure.
v New Approach
As this is an era of internet every thing
is getting online like shopping,
business, banking etc. In the recent trend
even money is available online at any time in the form of digi-cash or
cybercash etc. These are the recent medium of exchange, which are necessary for
the existence of e-banking. As in future the world is going to be paper less
cash the existence of e-cash will lead e-banking. In future internet is going
to capture the whole world and the private currency will become the media of
exchange in e-banks replacing the government currency. Keeping this point of
view in mind and to over come
the above drawbacks of credit cards and
smart cards here we present a medium of exchange to carry digital cash wherever
man wants, which we name as “Money Pad”.
Money Pad:
Money pad is one such medium of exchange,
which aims to provide secure
means of currency exchange. It’s a means
that carries digital cash, as paper cash is going to extinct. “In
order to use this money pad it is necessary to have at least one e-bank in
every city”.
Money pad is a biometric system similar
to a credit card or a smart card just like a floppy disk. It consists of a touch
sensor and magnetic disk as its peripherals . Touch sensor is used
to record the fingerprint of the user. Magnetic disk, which has the read and
write permission is used to hold the authentication details of the user, bank
code as well as digi-cash. The bank code and account number of the owner of
this money pad is present on the label.
Operation of Money Pad:
v New User
When a user wishes to have a Money Pad, he
is supposed to visit a near by bank which has a e-bank facility. It is necessary
for the new user to create a account with some minimum balance. The
authentication details along with his fingerprint is recorded and stored in the
data base server. The user is provided with a account number and bank code
along with his Money Pad. The Money Pad consists of stored information like
account number, bank code (from where he has purchased this money pad) and his
fingerprint.
· Design of the system
· Process in request of money pad
v Transaction using Money Pad:
Whenever a user wants to use the Money Pad
he has to place his finger on the touch sensor and then place it in a finger
print reader. The reader will ask for bank code so that he can enter into his
e-bank, then his account number so that he can enter into his account. After
this the reader will access the fingerprint and matches with that present on
the Money Pad as well as present in the data base server. If a match occurs the
reader knows that he is a authorised user and allows for further transactions.
If not then the reader
comes to know that the user is unauthorised
and a provision can be made so that the digicash present in the Money Pad is
e-mailed back to the authorised account holder using the user details present
in the Money Pad. As the Money Pad has read and write facility it is used to
down load digi-cash, carry on transaction and store the balance.
v Technical Implementation
The Money Pad uses the Biometric Technology
as the technique with which the security is provided. Biometric Technology are
used to accurately identify and verify an individuals identity. This involves
identifying his physiological and behavioural characteristics. Biometrics in
general refers to the study of biological characteristics. With reference to
computer security, it refers to authentication techniques using biological
characteristics that are measurable or identifiable and unique to an
individual.
The accuracy of any biometric system is
measured in two ways:
Ø False
Acceptance Rate – Where an impostor is accepted as a match.
Ø False
Rejection Rate – where a legitimate match is denied access.
Fingerprint verification is one such
biometric system, which authenticates
weather the user is a authorised person or
not. It involves the user placing his finger over a glass plate, which resides
over a high-resolution change coupled cameras. The image captured is compared
to that in the systems database and decides the user authentication. A finger
print reader can be used for this purpose (fig-4).
Fields Of Application :
ü Applicable in e-banks and in any kind of
e-transactions
The money pad device is capable of carrying
digi-cash and hence it is useful to perform any kind of e-banking or any kind
of e-transaction.
ü Can be used to carry out remote transactions
As digi-cash can be carried in Money Pad it
is useful to perform remote
transaction like e-payments, dig-cash
transfer etc.
ü
Useful
to carry Digital cash
Since in future paper cash is going to
extinct, man needs a secure means to
carry digi-cash. As Money Pad provides a
secure means to carry digi-cash it will be very needful in future.
ü
Utilization
of personal data in filling order forms
The personal data stored in the Money Pad
can be used to fill order forms
thus saving users time.
ü
Applicable
in m-commerce transactions
Since digi-cash is carried everywhere it is
applicable to any kind of mcommerce transactions.
ü
Applicable
in daily life
As
it is useful in shopping, identification, telephone services and licenses it is
applicable
in daily life also.
Conclusion:
For a digital currency system to attain
widespread recognition and use the
following three requirements are necessary:
1. Instant clearing of funds
2. Elimination of payment risk
3. Secure transactions using strong
encryption
Since the Money Pad aims to satisfy the
above conditions there is no doubt that in near future it will be widely
recommended for use.
Once the Money Pad is implemented it has a
wide scope. Though at present we may use finger print reader to access the digi-cash
in the near future the device can be automated into Mobile phone, Watches, Hand
held devises, as well as WAP devices.
In future when internet is going to capture
the world there is no requirement of any card or pad just a small device which
can recognise the finger print can be attached at any place throughout the
world. Thus requiring no device to carry money, just a man is required to
access digi-cash and proving “Man As Money”. At last since Thumb Impression is
going to provide a strong base for security in the future we can predict
that “History Repeats”.
References:
Computers
Today Magazine- October 2001 issue.
PC
Quest Magazine– October 2001 issue.
Websites
www.goldmoney.com/futuremoney.html
www.nightcats.com/sales/free.html
