VeriNet Web-speaker verification for the World Wide Web

VeriNet Web is a software system that allows Web site resources to be protected using speaker verification. Speaker verification is the most practical biometric technology available for Internet security since the required collection hardware is readily available on most personal computers (PCs) being distributed today. VeriNet Web employs a three-tier client server architecture that distributes verification processing across multiple components. It integrates into a Web application by supplying standard extensions to a commercial Web server and browser. These components work together to manage the authentication process, maintain a user's authentication status, and ensure that protected resources are only accessed by authenticated users. When developing this multimedia Internet application, there were numerous implementation issues regarding the user interface, secure data transmissions, and user PC configuration that affected the success of the system. The paper discusses these issues. In addition, the paper examines the verification performance of VeriNet Web for a trial conducted with company employees. For experiments in this environment, the system yielded very good performance, and the equal error rate was always less than 5%.