News

Students get cardless cash via Google Glass

March 19, 2014

German university students have seen the future of cardless cash withdrawal at the ATM. And they've seen it through Google Glass, according to a news release from Saarland University in west-central Germany.

Saarland student Mark Simkin makes a cardless ATM withdrawal via Google Glass.

For those unfamiliar with the concept, Google Glass consists of a camera and mini computer installed on a glasses frame. The system displays information in the user's field of vision using a glass prism.

According to the German computer magazine c't, this creates an effect "as if the user were looking at a 24-inch screen from a distance of two-and-a-half meters [about 8 feet]."

Under the leadership of Dominique Schröder, an assistant professor of cryptographic algorithms at Saarland, a group of computer science students combined Google Glass, cryptographic methods, and techniques from automated image analysis to create a software system they named Ubic.

Here's how a cardless cash transaction works with Ubic and Google Glass:

• the software identifies the customer to the cash machine with a public key;
• Google Glass uses the key to encrypt a one-way PIN sealed with a digital signature;
• the result shows up on the screen as a QR code containing a PIN visible only to the identified wearer of the glasses;
• Google Glass decrypts the information and shows the PIN in the wearer's field of vision; and
• the customer enters the PIN and proceeds with the transaction.

Although the process occurs in public, no one can spy on the PIN in the user’s Google Glass, Schröder said. And to spy on the entry of a one-time PIN would be pointless.

Even a fraudster wearing Google Glass would be confounded by the digital signature, which makes it impossible for him to impersonate the customer, the release said.

Only the customer is able to decrypt the encryption by the public key with his secret key. As long as this is safely stored on the Google Glass, his money is also safe.

photo: oliver dietze, saarland university