Abstract:
A system and apparatus for using speech recognition and verification to provide secure and authorized data transmissions between networked computer systems is provided. The system includes first and second network computer systems wherein a request for a transaction by user of the first computer system causes the user to be prompted to enter a spoken identifier such as a credit card number, PIN number or password. This spoken identifier is converted from speech data into speech feature data using either a resident software application or a downloaded application from the second computer system. The speech feature data is transmitted to the second computer system wherein speech recognition and verification engines identify the spoken identifier and determine whether or not the user who spoke the identifier is properly associated with the spoken identifier. Upon successful completion of this recognition and verification process, the requested transaction is completed.

Description:
TECHNICAL FIELD 
     The present invention relates to secure data transmission, and more particularly to a method and apparatus authorizing data transmission over a computer network environment utilizing a client/server architecture. 
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     The current expansion of computer network systems and linked architectures, such as the Internet, have greatly increased the opportunity for carrying out transactions through networked computers. Unfortunately, the performance of transactions via networked computers requires the transmission of sensitive data (credit card numbers, PIN numbers, passwords, etc.) over the communications network interconnecting the computers. A communications network is for the most part a nonsecure transmission environment that is subject to access by unauthorized third parties. An unauthorized party is able to get a hold of sensitive information by unlawfully monitoring computer communications over the communications network. This of course can be greatly damaging to an individual or business. Also, transfer of data over a communications network does not provide an easy way to ensure a party is authorized to transmit or receive sensitive data. 
     One current method for providing secure transmission of sensitive data in a computer network environment relies on encryption of the data prior to transmission. Unfortunately, newly devised decryption methods and faster computer systems continually make it easier for unauthorized third parties to crack any encryption code, thus rendering sensitive data vulnerable to unauthorized attack. Once the sensitive data has been decrypted by an unauthorized individual, this party may now use this sensitive data without authorization to make purchases or carry out any number of unauthorized transactions. Since many current encryption methods have no mechanism for verifying the identity of the person submitting the sensitive information, the unauthorized individual may continue their unlawful activities for a substantial period of time. 
     Other current systems providing authentication require that additional hardware be purchased by the user and an authentication card. The user must insert the authentication card into an associated card reader to access sensitive data. If the card is illegally obtained by an unauthorized individual, this person may still access the sensitive data. Thus, a system enabling secure transmission of sensitive data and verification of a sender&#39;s identity would greatly benefit the expanded use of transactions occurring over networked computer systems. 
     BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     The present invention overcomes the foregoing and other problems with a system and method using speech recognition and verification engines to enable secure data transmissions between networked computer systems. The preferred embodiment of this invention utilizes a client/server architecture wherein a request for a particular transaction by a user at the client unit causes the server unit to prompt the user for a spoken identifier, such as a credit card number, PIN number, password, etc. The user speaks an identifier into a microphone connected to the client unit and the spoken data comprising the identifier is converted into speech feature data. This conversion is carried out by a locally resident software application or may be done by an application or plug-in applet that has been downloaded from the server unit in response to the requested transaction. 
     The speech feature data is transmitted over a computer communications link from the client unit to the server unit for further processing. Optionally, the speech feature data may be secured by additional state of the art processes, such as encryption, before transmission of the speech feature data to the server unit. A speech recognition engine located at the server unit uses the speech feature data to identify and confirm the spoken identifier entered by the user. The speech feature data is then further processed by a speech verification engine to confirm that the user who entered the spoken identifier is in fact the user associated with the spoken identifier and is authorized to perform a requested transaction. 
     Additionally, the speech feature data for the identifier may be compared to previously transmitted versions of the speech feature data for the identifier to determine if it matches any of the previously transmitted versions. When an exact match exists, the transmitted speech feature data is marked as suspect so that further approval steps may be taken. If the spoken identifier is recognized and verified as being associated with the user entering the identifier and no questions arise due to an exact match with previously transmitted data, the transaction request is completed. 
     The foregoing has outlined some of the more pertinent aspects of the present invention. These aspects should be construed to be merely illustrative of some of the more prominent features and applications of the invention. Many other beneficial results can be attained by applying the disclosed invention in a modified manner as will be described. Accordingly, other aspects and a fuller understanding of the invention may be had by referring to the following Detailed Description of the preferred embodiment. 
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
     For a more complete understanding of the present invention and the advantages thereof, reference should be made to the following Detailed Description taken in connection with the accompanying drawings in which: 
     FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating the environment of operation of the present invention; 
     FIGS. 2 a  and  2   b  are flow diagrams illustrating the method for providing secure communications; 
     FIG. 3 is a flow diagram of the speech recognition and verification algorithms; and 
     FIGS. 4 a  and  4   b  illustrate manners of use for the system of the present invention. 
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
     Referring now to the drawings and more particularly to FIG. 1, there is illustrated the general operating environment of the present invention. The preferred embodiment is described with respect to a client/server architecture. A client unit  10  requests a particular transaction or service from the server unit  12  via a networked computer connection  14 , such as the Internet. The server unit  12  includes speech recognition and verification engines  22  which will be more fully discussed in a moment. The client and server units may comprise standalone computers or computer systems. 
     The client unit  10  includes a network browser  16 , in the case of an Internet connection a web browser, and microphone  18 . The network browser  16  enables a user to navigate between computers of the interlinked computer network while the microphone  18  enables entry of spoken identifiers at the client unit  10 . A speech feature application  20  enables the conversion of speech data to speech feature data for transmission over the computer network to the speech recognition and verification engines  22  of the server unit  12 . The speech feature application  20  may be a plug-in applet, application or helper application that may be downloaded over the computer network to enable the conversion of speech data to speech feature data or may be a software application resident within the client unit  10 . While FIG. 1 illustrates the speech feature application as operating within the network browser  16 , it should be appreciated that a helper application operating externally of the browser may be used. 
     Referring now also to FIGS. 2 a  and  2   b , there are illustrated two flow charts describing the general method of operation of the present invention. FIG. 2 a  illustrates a method wherein recognition of the identifier is confirmed before transmission to the local server while FIG. 2 b  illustrates a method wherein confirmation of the recognition is performed at the remote server. The FIGS. 2 a  and  2   b  will be described together with similar steps having the same reference numerals. Initially, a user at the client unit  10  makes a transaction request at step  24  to initiate the procedure. The transactions may include a purchase, request for restricted data, etc. The request for a transaction initiates access at step  26  to the speech feature application  20 . This access may entail merely opening a resident application on the client unit  10  or automatically downloading an application, helper application or plug-in applet over the Internet connection  14 . 
     Once the speech feature application  20  is ready, the user is prompted to speak a key phrase or identifier at step  28 . This phrase may be a credit card number, expiration date, account number, personal identification number or a password. The speech feature application  20  transforms at step  30  the speech data representing the phrase from the microphone  18  into speech feature data used for recognition and verification by the speech recognition and verification engines  22 . Conversion of the speech data to speech feature data prior to transmission over the networked computer connection  14  is desirable due to the fact that the number of bits necessary to represent speech features are smaller than the number of bits necessary to represent the speech itself. However, it should be noted that the speech data may be transmitted to the server unit  12  suck that transformation, recognition and verification all occur at the server unit. 
     In the embodiment of FIG. 2 a , the transformed speech data may be initially recognized at optional step  31  to confirm that the identifier can be correctly identified by the speech recognizer prior to transmission of the data. This step would use a speech recognition algorithm as will be more fully described in a moment. If the data is properly recognized at step  31 , control passes off to optional step  32  for further processing of the speech feature data. Otherwise, the user is prompted to reenter the phase or identifier at step  28 . 
     Referring back to both FIGS. 2 a  and  2   b , in an optional step, the speech feature data may be encrypted at step  32  to provide an additional level of security during the transmission process. More security may be obtained by layering additional levels of security on top of the encryption. The order of the transmitted data may also be scrambled to provide an additional layer of encryption. The encrypted data is then transferred at step  34  to the server unit  12  wherein the speech recognition and verification engines  22  are used to recognize the transmitted information and verify the user transmitting the information at step  38  has the authority to request a transaction using the spoken identifier. 
     In the alternative embodiment of FIG. 2 b , a determination is made at step  39  whether or not the spoken identifier has been correctly recognized by the recognition algorithm. This may be done in a variety of ways including asking the user to repeat the spoken identifier if a predetermined certainty level of recognition is not achieved or by preparing speech feature data for the transmission back to the client unit and then having this speech feature data processed by the client unit to generate a message indicating the recognized spoken identifier. 
     Referring again to FIGS. 2 a  and  2   b , once a positive speaker recognition and verification is achieved, the additional procedure of comparing at step  40  the speech feature data for the current transmission against previous transmissions of speech feature data for the same identifier enables a determination of whether or not an exact match exists with a previous transmission. Any exact matches are marked as suspect and routed to the server unit  12  for appropriate action. This process relies on the fact that speech features from one utterance to the next will be slightly different each time the utterance is spoken by the user. Comparison of the utterance to previous transmissions prevents an unauthorized user from intercepting a previous transmission and merely recording and replaying the information to achieve unauthorized access. If the transmitted information and the identity of the user are verified, the transaction is confirmed at step  42  and the transaction is completed. 
     Referring now to FIG. 3, a block diagram is shown of an embodiment of the voice recognition and verification algorithms  48  and  50 . The functional blocks set forth in the upper portion of the block diagram comprise those steps which are performed by the speech feature application  20  located at the client unit  10 . These blocks comprise speech processing means for carrying out a first tier of a multistage data reduction process. In particular, a speech is input to the speech feature application  20 , a feature extractor  60  extracts a set of primary features that are computed in real time every 10 milliseconds. The primary features include heuristically-developed time domain features (e.g. zero crossing rates) and frequency domain information such as fast fourier transform (FFT) coefficients. The output of the feature extractor  60  is a reduced set (approximately 40,000 data points/utterance instead of the original approximately 80,000 data points/utterance) and is applied to a trigger routine  62  that captures spoken words using the primary features. The trigger routine  62  is connected to a secondary feature routine  63  for computing “secondary features” from the primary features. The secondary features preferably result from non-linear transformations of the primary features. The output of the routine  63  is connected to phonetic segmentation routine  64 . After an utterance is captured and the secondary features are computed, the routine  64  provides automatic phonetic segmentation. To achieve segmentation, the phonetic segmentation routine  64  preferably locates voicing boundaries by determining an optimum state sequence of a two-state Markov process based on a sequence of scalar discriminate function values. The discriminate function values are generated by a two-class Fisher linear transformation of secondary feature vectors. The voicing boundaries are then used as anchor points for subsequent phonetic segmentation. 
     After the phonetic boundaries are located by the phonetic segmentation routine, the individual phonetic units of the utterance are analyzed and so called “tertiary features” are computed by a tertiary feature calculation routine  65 . These tertiary features preferably comprise information (e.g., means or variances) derived from the secondary features within the phonetic boundaries. The tertiary features are used by both the voice recognition algorithm  48  and the voice verification algorithm  50  as will be described. The output of the routine  65  is a tertiary feature vector of approximately 300 data point/utterance. As can be seen then, the upper portion of FIG. 3 represents the first tier of the multistage data reduction process which significantly reduces the amount of data to be analyzed and transferred over the Internet connection  14  that still preserves the necessary class of separability, whether it is digit-relative or speaker-relative, necessary to achieve recognition or verification, respectively. The middle portion of FIG. 3 represents a second tier of the data reduction process, and as will be described, comprises the transformation routines  49   a  and  49   b  occurring at the voice verification and recognition engines  22  of the server unit  12  (FIG.  1 ). 
     To effect speaker independent voice recognition, the tertiary features are first supplied to the voice recognition linear transformation routine  49   a . This routine multiplies the tertiary feature vector by the voice recognition feature transformation data (which is a matrix)  52   a  to generate a voice recognition parameter data factor for each digit. The output of the transformation routine  49   a  is then applied to a voice recognition statistical decision routine  66   a  for comparison with the voice recognition class of reference data  54 . The output of the decision routine  66   a  is a yes/no decision identifying whether the digit is recognized and, if so, which digit was spoken. 
     Specifically, a decision routine  66   a  evaluates a measure of word similarity for each of the eleven digits (zero through 9 and “OH”) in the vocabulary. The voice recognition class reference data  54  includes various elements (e.g., acceptance thresholds for each digit class, inverse covariances and mean vectors for each class) used by the decision strategy. For a digit to be declared (as opposed to being rejected), certain acceptance criteria must be met. The acceptance criteria may include, but need not be limited to the following: The voice recognition algorithm determines the closest match between the class reference data and the voice recognition parameter vector for the digit; this closest match is a so-called “first choice.” The next closest match is a “second choice.” Each choice has its own matching score. The digit is declared if (1) the matching score of the first choice is below a predetermined threshold, and (2) the difference between the matching scores of the first choice and the second choice digits is greater than another predetermined threshold. When all words of the spoken identifier have been recognized, the voice recognition portion of the method is complete. 
     To effect voice verification, the tertiary features are also supplied to a linear transformation routine  49   b  that multiplies each tertiary feature vector (output from routine  65 ) by the voice verification feature transformation data (which is a matrix)  52   b . The output of the routine  49   b  is an N element vector of voice verification parameter data for each digit of the password, with N preferably approximately equal to  25 . The voice verification parameter data vector is then input to a verifier routine  66   b  which also receives the voice verification class reference data for the caller. Specifically, the voice verification class reference data is provided from the voice verification reference database  55 . As noted above, the address in the database  55  of the user&#39;s voice verification class reference data is defined by the user&#39;s password derived by the voice recognition algorithm  48 . 
     Verifier routine  66   b  generates one of three different outputs: ACCEPT, REJECT and TEST. An ACCEPT output may authorize the user to from the transaction database. The REJECT output is provided if the verifier disputes the purported identify of the user. The TEST output initiates the prompting step wherein additional follow-up questions are asked to verify the user&#39;s identity. 
     Referring now to FIGS. 4 a  and  4   b , there are illustrated alternative embodiments of the present invention wherein the speech recognition and speech verification engine software is distributed. In FIG. 4 a , a customer  90  speaks an identifier which is transformed into speech feature data and transmitted to the merchant server  94 . The merchant server  94  runs the speech features through the recognition engine software  96  to recognize the identifier provided by the customer  90 . The customer is queried once the spoken identifier is recognized to confirm it has been correctly identified. Once confirmed, the recognized identifier, the features for speech verification and the transaction data are sent to the payment gateway processor server  98  for verification, using speech verification engine software  100 , of the authorization of the customer providing the spoken identifier to carry out a requested transaction. Once the identifier is verified, the payment gateway processor server  98  transmits authorization to complete the transaction to the merchant server. Transmissions preferably occur over a secure channel such as a dedicated phone line or dedicated computer network between the payment gateway processor server  98  and the merchant server  94 . Once the merchant server  94  obtains a successful authorization, the merchant completes the transaction with the customer and delivers the product or services. 
     FIG. 4 b  illustrates another method wherein the merchant server  94  simply passes the speech feature data and transaction data to the payment gateway processor server  98  so that recognition and verification are both accomplished by software engines  102  at the payment gateway processor server  98 . This method may be used to limit the possibility of merchant fraud. The payment gateway processor server  98  confirms recognition with the customer and determines the required response to the credit authorization requests and notifies the merchant of the results. Upon recognition and verification of authority to perform the transaction, transaction approval is transmitted to the merchant server  94 . 
     Use of the embodiments illustrated in FIGS. 4 a  and  4   b  may occur in the manner of a user speaking their credit card authorization number into a terminal or unit located at a merchant location. Alternatively, the user may enter their credit card number via a magnetic card reader terminal or key pad entry and speak an identifier such as their name that does not reveal any secret to an eavesdropper. 
     It should be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the specific embodiments disclosed above may be readily utilized at a basis for modifying or designing other structures for carrying out the purpose of the present invention. It should also be realized by those skilled in the art that such equivalent constructions do not depart from the spirit and scope of the invention as set forth in the appended claims.