Patent Publication Number: US-2007113097-A1

Title: [storage media]

Description:
BACKGROUND OF INVENTION  
      1. Field of the Invention  
      The present invention generally relates to a storage media, and more particularly to a storage media comprising a user&#39;s biological feature matching means and a smart card for encrypting/decrypting data.  
      2. Description of Related Art  
      In the modern rapid development of computer technology, people enjoy using computer many purposes including business as well as pleasure. Now-a-days, computer has become an indispensable tool, which can almost handle everything including saving or processing important data files. Generally, password is used to secure the user&#39;s important information, however hackers may still access such information, and therefore the conventional access security is insufficient to protect important information effectively. There information may be at high risk of being stolen by hackers with the special tool even when users&#39; passwords are not decoded. Besides, if a user forgets the password, the user cannot access the information and thereby causing inconvenience to the user.  
      Nowadays, computers are developed to achieve more powerful calculation capability, faster speed and smaller size, and number and size of the connection ports of the computer for connecting to the peripheral devices, for example, the memory device, the hard disk, the ROM and other devices, are also correspondingly reduced. Therefore, the use of, for example, external hub, memory stick and external hard disk, has become highly popular as this would allow reduction in the number of the connection ports. The user can store the information into a computer or a PDA or a memory card, and use the computer or PDA to read the information stored in the memory card. The current trend of minimizing size of the electronic devices increases the possibility of misplacing the small size electronic devices, and therefore the possibility of loosing important information is increased.  
      Recently, some manufacturers proposed replacing the conventional password identification means with biological identification means, such as identifying users&#39; fingerprint, face and the like. Because biological features are quite unique that can not be imitated, the biological features may be comparatively safer method of protecting the important information. Nevertheless, there still exist several defects in this method as information may still be stolen by using special tools or during the transmission such information.  
      For overcoming the above defects, some manufacturers developed smart card to encode information where only the user&#39;s exclusive key can be used to decode and access to the information. But still, there is a possibility of stealing the key of the smart card to steal the important information.  
      Therefore, how to overcome the above defects of the conventional art is an important issue for the manufacturers in the field.  
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
      According to an aspect of the present invention, a user&#39;s biological feature is used as password to access a storage media and a smart card is used to encrypt/decrypt data stored in the storage media to substantially reduce the possibility of a hacker from accessing the data stored in the storage media. 
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING  
       FIG. 1  is a block diagram of a storage media according to an embodiment of the present invention.  
       FIG. 2  is a block diagram of a storage media according to another embodiment of the present invention.  
       FIG. 3  is a flowchart (I) illustrating the operation of a storage media according to an embodiment of the present invention.  
       FIG. 4  is a flowchart (II) illustrating the operation of a storage media according to another embodiment of the present invention. 
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE EMBODIMENTS  
      Referring to  FIG. 1 , a storage media  1  of the present invention comprises a microcontroller  11 , a smart card chip  12 , a sensor  13  and a storage device  14 .  
      The microcontroller  11  is adopted for controlling the storage media  1 . The microcontroller  11  is electrically connected to a data transmission interface  111 , a smart card transmission interface  112 , a sensor transmission interface  113  and a storage device transmission interface  114 . The data transmission interface  111  is adopted for connecting to a host end  2 . The host end  2  may be comprised of a desktop computer, a notebook computer or a PDA.  
      The smartcard chip  12  is electrically connected to the smart card transmission interface  112  of the microcontroller  11 . The smart card chip  12  is adopted for encrypting and decrypting data stored in the storage device  14  or may also function as a payment tool. The above encrypting/decrypting method may be advanced encryption standard (AES), data encryption standard (DES), rivest shamir adleman encryption (RSA) or triple data encryption algorithm (3DES).  
      The sensor  13  is electrically connected to the sensor transmission interface  113  of the microcontroller  11 . The sensor  13  is adopted for inputting an image of a user&#39;s biological feature. The sensor  13  may be piezoelectric sensor, capacitive sensor, optical sensor or thermal sensor. The biological feature may be a fingerprint or a face outline.  
      The storage device  14  is electrically connected to the storage device transmission interface  114  of the microcontroller  11 , and is adopted for storing data, programs or key. The storage device  14  may be a flash memory or a hard disk.  
      The storage media  1  may further comprise an auto-execution program so that when the storage media  1  is electrically connected to the host end  2 , a password verification program can be automatically executed.  
      When a user wishes to retrieve data or programs stored in the storage media  1 , the data transmission interface  111  of the storage media  1  is electrically connected to the host end  2 , and the microcontroller  11  requests the user to input an exclusive key and a biological feature via the sensor  13 . After the user inputs the exclusive key and the biological feature via the sensor  13 , the microcontroller  11  transmits the biological feature received by the sensor  13  to the host end  2  for reconstruction of a image and then match the reconstructed image with a biological feature stored in the storage media  1 ; and the exclusive key inputted by the user is also compared with a key stored in the storage media  1 . If the key and the biological feature inputted by the user match with the key and the biological feature stored in the storage media  1 , the host end  2  allowed to access the data or programs stored in storage device  14 . When the host  2  retrieves the data from the storage device  14 , the smart card chip  12  will decrypt the data, and the decrypted data is transmitted by the microcontroller  11  to the host end  2 . When the host end  2  writes data into the storage device  14 , the smart card chip  12  will encrypt the data and then transmits the encrypted data to the storage device  14  for storage. Besides, the smart card chip  12  is also adopted for adding/deducting values or points enabling the user to purchase, add values and verify identity through the Internet.  
      Further, when the user inputs the exclusive key and the biological feature via the sensor  13 , the storage media  1  can also use the microcontroller  11  to reconstruct the image of the biological feature received by the sensor  13 , and then compares the reconstructed image with the biological feature stored in the storage device  14 ; and the key inputted by the user is also compared with the key stored in the storage device  14 . If the key and the biological feature match with the key and the biological feature stored in the storage media  1 , the host end  2  is allowed to access the data stored in the storage media  1 .  
      Accordingly, when the inputted biological feature does not match with the biological feature stored in the storage media  1 , access to the data stored in the storage media  1  is denied. Furthermore, even if an unauthorized user tries to use a special tool to steal the data stored in the storage device  14 , the unauthorized user would not be able to decrypt the data because he doesn&#39;t input the user&#39;s exclusive key. Thus, the data stored in storage media  1  can be effectively protected. The user&#39; biological feature or key may be stored in the host end  2  or the storage device  14  of the storage media  1 . The storage media  1  may be a portable memory stick, a memory card or a hard disk.  
      Furthermore, the data transmission interface  111  may be USB transmission interface or SATA transmission interface. The smart card transmission interface  112  may be an ISO 7816-3 transmission protocol or a serial peripheral interface (SPI).  
      Furthermore, the sensor transmission interface  113  may be parallel or serial transmission interface. The storage device transmission interface  114  may be a flash memory transmission interface or a hard disk transmission interface.  
      Referring to  FIG. 2 , a storage media  3  comprises a microcontroller  31 , a sensor  32  and a storage device  33 .  
      The microcontroller  31  is adopted for controlling the storage media  3 . The microcontroller  31  comprises a smart card engine  311  and a biological feature matching engine  312 . The microcontroller  31  is electrically connected to a data transmission interface  313 , a sensor transmission interface  314  and a storage device transmission interface  315 . The data transmission interface  313  is adopted for electrically connecting to a host end  4 . The host end  4  may be a desktop computer, a notebook computer or a PDA.  
      The sensor  32  is electrically connected to the sensor transmission interface  314  of the microcontroller  31 . The sensor  32  is adopted for inputting an image of the user&#39;s biological feature. The sensor  32  may be a piezoelectric sensor, a capacitive sensor, an optical sensor or a thermal sensor. The biological feature may be a fingerprint or a face outline.  
      The storage device  33  is electrically connected to the storage device transmission interface  315  of the microcontroller  31  and is adopted for storing data, programs or keys. The storage device  33  may be a flash memory or a hard disk.  
      When a user wishes to retrieve data stored in the storage media  3 , the data transmission interface  313  of the storage media  3  is electrically connecting to the host end  4 , and the microcontroller  31  requests the user to input an exclusive key and a biological feature via the sensor  32 . After the user inputs the exclusive key and the biological feature via the sensor  32 , the microcontroller  31  transmits the biological feature to the biological feature matching engine  312  for reconstructing of a image and then comparing the reconstructed image with a biological feature stored in the storage media  3 . After the biological feature inputted by the user matches with the biological feature stored in the storage media  3 , the microcontroller  31  will operate the smart card engine  311  to match the exclusive key inputted by the user with a key stored in the storage media  3 . If the key and the biological feature inputted by the user match with the key and the biological feature stored in the storage media  3 , the user is allowed to access the information stored in the storage media  3  via host end  4 . When the host end  4  retrieves the data from the storage device  33 , the smart card engine  311  will decrypt the data, and the decrypted data is then transmitted by the microcontroller  31  to the host end  4 . When the host end  4  writes data into the storage device  33 , the smart card engine  311  will encrypt the data and then transmits the encrypted data to the storage device  33  for storage. Furthermore, the smart card engine  311  is also adopted for adding/deducting value or points to enable the user to purchase, add value and verify identity through the Internet.  
      The above encrypting/decrypting method of the smart card engine  311  may be advanced encryption standard (AES), data encryption standard (DES), rivest shamir adleman encryption (RSA) or triple data encryption algorithm (3DES).  
      Furthermore, the storage media  3  may be a portable memory stick, a memory card or a hard disk. The data transmission interface  313  may be a USB transmission interface or a SATA transmission interface.  
      Furthermore, the sensor transmission interface  314  may be a parallel or a serial transmission interface. The storage device transmission interface  315  may be a flash memory transmission interface or a hard disk transmission interface.  
      Hereinafter, the operation of the storage media  3  is described with reference to  FIGS. 2 and 3  as follows.  
      At step  100 , the sensor  32  is activated and the user is asked to input the biological feature.  
      At step  110 , the sensor  32  receives the user&#39;s biological feature and then transmitted to the microcontroller  31  via the sensor transmission interface  314 .  
      At step  120 , the biological feature matching engine  312  of the microcontroller  31  compares the received biological feature with the biological feature stored in the storage device  33 , if the two biological features match, the procedure proceeds to step  130 , otherwise the procedure returns to step  110 .  
      At step  130 , the smartcard engine  311  of the microcontroller  31  is activated, and the user is asked to input the exclusive key.  
      At step  140 , the smart card engine  311  compares the received exclusive key with the key stored in the storage device  33 , if the two keys match, the procedure proceeds to step  150 , otherwise procedure continues to ask the user to input the key (step  140 ).  
      At step  150 , the host end  4  starts processing data retrieving/saving in the storage device  33 , and the smart card engine  311  starts to encrypt/decrypt the data.  
      Hereinafter, the operation of the storage media  3  is described with reference to  FIGS. 2 and 4  as follows.  
      At step  200 , the smart card engine  311  of the microcontroller  31  is activated, and the user is asked to input the exclusive key.  
      At step  210 , the smart card engine  311  of the microcontroller  31  compares the received exclusive key with the key stored in the storage device  33 , if the two keys match, the procedure proceeds to step  220 , otherwise the procedure returns to step  200 .  
      At step  220 , the sensor  32  is activated and the user is asked to input the biological feature.  
      At step  230 , the sensor  32  receives the user&#39;s biological feature and then transmits to the microcontroller  31  via the sensor transmission interface  314 .  
      At step  240 , the biological feature matching engine  312  of the microcontroller  31  compares the received biological feature with the biological feature stored in the storage device  33 , if the two biological features match, the procedure proceeds to step  250 , otherwise procedure returns to step  230 .  
      At step  250 , the host end  4  starts processing data retrieving/saving in the storage device  33 , and the smartcard engine  311  starts encrypting/decrypting the data.  
      Thus, as described above, the storage media of the present invention is more advantageous compared to conventional art by way of using user&#39;s unique biological feature as the password to access to the storage media to prevent the unauthorized user to access and process the important data stored in the storage media, in addition, a smart card is used to encrypt/decrypt the data to avoid the unauthorized user to steal the data from the storage device of the storage media. Thus, the data stored in the storage media can be effectively protected.  
      While the invention has been described in conjunction with a specific best mode, it is to be understood that many alternatives, modifications, and variations will be apparent to those skilled in the art in light of the foregoing description. Accordingly, it is intended to embrace all such alternatives, modifications, and variations in which fall within the spirit and scope of the included claims. All matters set forth herein or shown in the accompanying drawings are to be interpreted in an illustrative and non-limiting sense.