Abstract
This article describes a passive, economical strategy towards enhancing the security feature of conventional plastic cards by embedding a set of electromagnetic (EM) material that emulates an invisible “watermarking”. This is an overlay strategy to prevailing security measures and consists of incorporating (invisibly embedding, say by ink-jet printing or otherwise) a set of foil/film-like grids of electromagnetic (EM) material (such as high-μ material or high-conductivity metal) within the cross-section of the card. The test-card when exposed to a suitable excitation of microwave (ISM band) excitation, the embedment of EM material in the card is rendered to yield distinct path-loss to the traversing EM energy. That is, by making each element of embedment a grid-frame made of vertical or set of horizontal strips, (relative to the plane of polarization of EM excitation), each grid-frame will offer high (logic 1) or low (logic 0) transmissions when the card is swiped across the EM field. By sensing appropriately, this differentiable EM attenuation across the card would depict an output signal annunciating the presence of a binary-logic encoding in the embedded “watermarking”. The proposed effort augments the existing security features of a plastic card design and robustly reduces the chances of malpractices, such as plastic card counterfeiting and misuse. The concept-design as proposed is positively verified through experimental test cards and also justified with theoretical considerations.
Highlights
As well known, the plastic card is mostly used as a secured entity by individuals as personal identity (ID) cards/driver’s license as well as in business transactions
A Microwave-Based Invisible “Watermarking” Emulated by an Embedded Set of Electromagnetic Material in a Plastic Card high or low); and, it is accomplished with the grid design/structure having horizontal or vertical strips relative to the linear polarization of the EM excitation
The generic versions of plastic cards in vogue can be listed as follows: 1) Magnetic stripe cards (ISO 7810 and ISO 7811) where data is stored in the magnetic stripe by modifying the magnetism of tiny iron-based magnetic particles placed/smeared as a band; 2) smart cards (ISO 7816) is a critically secured card intended for financial, information technology, government, healthcare, ID on Internet applications etc.; 3) bar-coded cards bearing bar coded information are used for simple ID as in library cards; and 4) proximity cards containing an embedded antenna transmits encoded information as a radio frequency (RF) signal towards identification (RFID)
Summary
The plastic card is mostly used as a secured entity by individuals as personal identity (ID) cards/driver’s license as well as in business transactions. Security enhancement is proposed here (as an overlay technique to the prevailing security features) that offers a value-added two levels of authenticity to the customers It is based on a simple, cost-effective technology using microwave principles. A Microwave-Based Invisible “Watermarking” Emulated by an Embedded Set of Electromagnetic Material in a Plastic Card high or low); and, it is accomplished with the grid design/structure having horizontal or vertical strips relative to the linear polarization of the EM excitation. The array of such vertical or horizontal grids would cause high or low attenuations to the EM wave. The proposed strategy of card authentication can be included as a part of existing/traditional card-swiping unit
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