A Framework for Verifying Paper Based Document Using Multiple QR Codes
No Thumbnail Available
Date
9/30/2019
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Addis Ababa University
Abstract
With the growth in popularity of two dimensional (2D) barcodes such as Quick Response (QR) code, automatic verification of printed documents has become possible. 2D barcodes are types of barcode that can store data in two dimension. They have very large storage capacity compared to their one dimensional (1D) counterparts.
In order to verify paper based document using a digital signature, the digital signature must be stored in 2D barcodes like QR code and printed on a document. This digital signature for paper based documents, which we called paper based digital signature (PBDS) in this thesis, not only holds the digital signature, but also a copy of the message from the document. Although QR code has large storage capacity, its storage capacity has a limit. This creates a problem as the size of the document to be signed increases, even with the help of compression algorithms to reduce the size of data to be stored in QR codes.
In this thesis, a framework is developed to make the signing and verification of printed documents automatically verifiable. In the framework, two PBDS architectures are designed, BBDS-A and PBDS-B. These architectures use multiple QR codes for a single PBDS. PBDS-B is an architecture primarily designed to solve the problem of not being able to sign and verify paper based document with larger number of characters than QR code storage capacity. However, this architecture has one problem. The number of QR codes in a PBDS can be too many to track and challenging to verify documents. PBDS-A is also a multi-QR code PBDS designed to solve the problem observed in PBDS-B. In PBDS-A, the number of QR codes used is much smaller than PBDS-B.
Design science research approach is used to conduct the thesis. An iterative framework development was followed between problem identification, solution design, evaluation and literature review to conduct the thesis.
A test is conducted on 15 documents, five of which have less than 1000 characters, another five documents have number of characters between 1000 and 5000 characters, and the final five document have number of characters between 5000 and 10000. The evaluation confirms that multi-QR code PBDS have better capability of verifying large documents. In addition, the test shows that PBDS-A is more accurate during verification and much more easily verifiable than PBDS-B.
Description
Keywords
Qr Code, 2d Barcode, Digital Signature, Paper Based Document