BIOMETRICS in SECURE e-transactions

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INTRODUCTION:

This paper provides a broad overview of the subject of biometrics, their usage, how performance is measured, the typical construction of systems and practical implementation issues. A basic understanding of computer networks is requisite in order to understand the principles of network security. A NETWORK has been defined as any set of interlinking lines resembling a net, a network of roads an interconnected system, a network of alliances. This definition suits our purpose well. A computer network is simply a system of interconnected computers.

Moving on to the definition of biometrics, it is a means of identifying a person by measuring a particular physical or behavioral characteristic and later comparing it to those of many people that are stored in the data base. Biometrics was identified as one amongst 10 emerging technologies which would change the world in the twenty-first century.




KEYWORDS:

Gene sequencing, Genomics, Databases, Data Management, Proteomics, Geom., Proteome, Transcriptomics, Metabalomics, Glycomics, Nucleotide, Data gatherers, Dataprocessers, Molecular Phylogenies.

1. INTRODUCTION

1. a) DEFINITION

Bioinformatics is the application of quantitative and analytical computational techniques to model biological systems. It is the buzzword of the current times. If biotechnology is hot, bioinformatics is its hottest arm, shrouded in a lot of hype, with conveniently concealed ground realities. It is necessary that bioinformatics is viewed in the proper perspective in order to reap the rich benefits that accrue out of it.

The term bioinformatics is the short form of biological informatics, just as biotechnology is the short form of biological technology.

Bioinformatics can be defined as any application of computation to the field of biology, including data management, algorithm development, and data mining.

A database is meant to store voluminous information in an orderly fashion, to facilitate addition and/or deletion of information and to provide for its retrieval in any one or more of several different permutations and combinations as desired by the user used it in different contexts.

1.b)A BRIEF HISTORY OF BIOINFORMATICS:

Bioinformatics has emerged out of the inputs of specialists from several different areas such as biology, biochemistry, biophysics, molecular biology, and biostatistics and computer science. Specially designed algorithms and organized computer databases are at the core of all bioinformatics operations. Algorithms, that are necessarily complex, make voluminous data easy to handle for defined purposes, in an amazingly short time, a process that is humanly impossible. The requirements of such an activity make heavy and high level demands on both the hardware and the software capabilities of computers.



1.c)BIOINFORMATICS COMPRISES OF:

Bioinformatics encompasses the use of tools and techniques from three separate disciplines; molecular biology (the source of the data to be analyzed), computer science (supplies the hardware for running analysis and the networks to communicate the results), and the data analysis algorithms which strictly define Bioinformatics.