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Keystroke Recognition

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Encyclopedia of Biometrics

Synonyms

Behavioral biometrics; Keystroke dynamics; Keystroke pattern classification

Definition

Keystroke recognition is a behavioral biometric which authenticates (verifies the claimed identity) or identifies an individual (recognizes a valid user) based on their unique typing rhythm. Unlike physiological biometrics, such as fingerprint or iris, where specialized sensors are necessary to collect data, keystroke biometrics utilizes off-the-shelf physical keyboards or virtual keyboards in smartphones or PDAs. Thus, keystroke recognition offers a low-cost authentication and is easily deployed in a variety of scenarios.

Two events constitute a keystroke event: key down and key up. The key down occurs when the typist presses a key. The key up is associated with the event that occurs when the pressed key is released. Using these two events, a set of intra-key and inter-key features commonly called hold times, delay times and key down-key down times can be extracted. Hold times constitute...

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References

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Lane Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, USA

    Sean Banerjee, Zahid Syed & Bojan Cukic

  2. Noblis, Inc., Falls Church, VA, USA

    Nick Bartlow

Authors
  1. Sean Banerjee
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  2. Zahid Syed
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  3. Nick Bartlow
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  4. Bojan Cukic
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Biometrics and Security, Research & National Laboratory of Pattern Recognition, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Stan Z. Li

  2. Departments of Computer Science and Engineering, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

    Anil K. Jain

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© 2015 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Banerjee, S., Syed, Z., Bartlow, N., Cukic, B. (2015). Keystroke Recognition. In: Li, S.Z., Jain, A.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Biometrics. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-7488-4_205

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