Securing traffic at QoS-aware residential gateway using biometric signatures

Home networks are becoming ubiquitous. Multimedia is a primary home network application that is challenging bandwidth capabilities with respect to QoS and also creating issues regarding authorized access to the home network and its digital content. To deal with these issues, this study presents an embedded QoS-aware residential gateway (EmQRG) in the home network which classifies forwarded traffic for optimal use of bounded network bandwidth resources and, instead of traditional password methodology, requires bimodal biometric recognition of users. A laboratory EmQRG testbed with bimodal biometric recognition system (BBRS) is implemented via class-based queuing (CBQ) bandwidth management in a 3-PC network including a real DiffServ-capable CBQ-capable router, CCD camera and optical fingerprint reader. Novel computational methods are used for face and fingerprint analysis and recognition. It is confirmed that combining two biometric modalities improves performance, particularly for the false acceptance rate (FAR) that is considered the most serious home security problem. Experimental results demonstrate efficiency and robustness of both the EmQRG and the BBRS.