The purpose of this study was to test entropy through the location of minutiae points across the right middle finger. This data is displayed through heat maps, which are separated by force in Newtons. This experiment is a continuation of Matt Young’s Thesis : ‘EQUATING BIOMETRIC ENTROPY, COMPARING FINGERPRINTS TO PASSWORDS’.

1. ENTROPY: MINUTIAE POINTS ACROSS VARYING FORCE LEVELS
Aranya Kishore, Ellen Truty, Quinten Anderson, Brian Masuoka, Neil Skinner, Kyle Kingma, Kevin O’Connor, Stephen Elliott
OVERVIEW
CONCLUSION FUTURE WORK
To further this study, samples can be divided into results based on gender and age. This
will show how minutiae points change over time with respect to these factors. Other future
possibilities would be to create standardized software to calculate entropy points and the
force applied by the user. This will make it easier to determine how secure fingerprint
biometrics are. This study would show how age affects entropy over time, and how it
affects biometric password security.
WHAT IS ENTROPY
EQUATING BIOMETRIC ENTROPY, COMPARING FINGERPRINTS TO PASSWORDS
EQUATING BIOMETRIC ENTROPY, COMPARING FINGERPRINTS TO PASSWORDS
EXPERIMENT DESIGN
HEAT MAPS AND RESULTS - RIGHT MIDDLE
The purpose of this study was to test entropy through the location of minutiae points across the right middle finger. This data is displayed through heat maps,
which are separated by force in Newtons. This experiment is a continuation of Matt Young’s Thesis : ‘EQUATING BIOMETRIC ENTROPY, COMPARING
FINGERPRINTS TO PASSWORDS’.
Entropy is a form of authentication criteria that can be compared to a PIN or
other token. Fingerprint entropy is measured by minutiae points and is impacted
by the finger type and overall quality of the fingerprint. A high quality fingerprint is
a form of identification that makes brute force attacks difficult to perform.
Fingerprint entropy is important to portray the security of a fingerprint and how its
complexity compares to a PIN or password.
The experiment at hand consisted of recording minutia points on a collected sample of
460 fingerprints. We collected this sample in various stages. Each stage required the
individual to use a different force level on the scanner to record the fingerprint. We used
five different force levels. This allowed the process to capture varying results of minutia
points on a basis of how hard the individual pressed on the sensor with the right middle
finger. The results were categorized by each particular finger, and then by force level.
With this information, heat-maps were formed to give visual representations of the data
found. Each heat map shows a count of minutia points and where they are found on
each spot of the finger during different force samples.
5 NEWTONS
11 NEWTONS
7 NEWTONS
13 NEWTONS
9 NEWTONS
The elevated curves show a higher
consistency of minutiae points. The
curves on these maps show the
probability of a minutiae point
occurring in that certain area.
The heat maps show that with little force applied, (5 Newtons) the yield of minutiae
points is considerably less than when a stronger force is applied. The minutiae points
recorded show us that they continue to stay centralized on the fingerprint regardless of
force applied. This information is important in the study of entropy because it portrays
the security of a fingerprint with different force levels applied. This is directly related to
the security of a fingerprint and its complexity compared to a PIN or password.