Removable storage medium with biometric access

1. A storage device with biometric access, comprising:

a biometric scanner adapted to scan a biological feature of a user to provide a corresponding extracted biometric template; and

a storage engine including a pseudo-random number generator, the storage engine adapted to decrypt encrypted content stored on a removable storage medium, wherein the encrypted content is encrypted according to at least one content key; the storage engine being adapted to perform the acts of: retrieve an encrypted biometric template from the removable storage medium and retrieve an encrypted content key from the removable storage medium; retrieve a media identifier from the storage medium; generate a first key using the pseudo-random number generator; generate a combination key by combining the first key with the retrieved media identifier; decrypt the encrypted content key using the combination key to recover the content key; decrypt the retrieved encrypted biometric template using the content key to recover a retrieved biometric template; and decrypt the encrypted content stored on the removable storage medium using the content key to allow a host device access the resulting decrypted content on the removable storage medium if the extracted biometric template matches the retrieved biometric template.

2. The storage device of claim 1 , wherein the pseudo-random number generator is a linear feedback shift register.

3. The storage device of claim 2 , further comprising a non-volatile memory to store a first seed for the linear feedback shift register, the linear feedback shift register being configured to use the seed to generate the first key such that the first key is a pseudo-random number.

4. The storage device of claim 1 , wherein the biometric scanner is a fingerprint scanner.

5. The storage device of claim 1 , wherein the biometric scanner is an iris scanner.

6. The storage device of claim 1 , wherein the storage engine is an optical disk drive, the storage medium being a removable optical disk.

7. The storage device of claim 6 , wherein the removable optical disk is a first-surface optical disk.

8. The storage device of claim 1 , wherein the storage engine is a flash memory driver, the storage medium being a removable flash memory.

9. The storage device of claim 1 , wherein the storage engine is a magnetic disk drive, the storage medium being a magnetic hard disk.

10. A method of biometric access, comprising:

generating a first key using a pseudo-random number generator;

combining the first key with a media identifier from a storage medium to create a combination key within a storage engine;

encrypting a first biometric template with a content key;

encrypting the content key with the combination key to generated an encrypted content key;

writing the encrypted first biometric template and the encrypted content key to the storage medium using the storage engine;

scanning a biometric feature with a biometric scanner to provide an extracted biometric template;

retrieving the encrypted biometric template and the encrypted content key from the storage medium;

decrypting the encrypted content key with the combination key to recover the content key;

decrypting the encrypted biometric template with the recovered content key to recover the first biometric template; decrypting encrypted content stored on the storage medium using the recovered content key; and

allowing a user access to the decrypted content on the storage medium if the extracted biometric template matches the first biometric template.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein generating the first key using the pseudo-random number generator comprises:

retrieving a seed from a memory; and

processing the seed through a linear feedback shift register to generate the first key.

12. The method of claim 10 , further comprising:

authenticating a first host device; and

at the storage engine, receiving the first biometric template from the authenticated first host device.

13. The method of claim 12 , wherein authenticating the first host device comprises determining whether the first host device possesses a private key.

14. The method of claim 13 , wherein the private key is shared with the storage engine such that the private key is a shared private key.

15. The method of claim 14 , wherein determining whether the first host device possesses the shared private key comprises encrypting a message with the shared private key and determining whether the first host device can recover the message.

16. The method of claim 12 , further comprising:

at a second host device, one-way hashing the first biometric template to provide a first one-way hash result;

transmitting the first biometric template and the first one-way hash result from the second host device to the first host device;

repeating the one-way hashing of the first biometric template at the first host device to provide a second one-way hash result; and

comparing the first and second one-way hash results to determine whether the first biometric template is authentic.

17. The method of claim 16 , wherein the second host device is a server.

18. The method of claim 16 , wherein the second host device is a peer device.