Brainwave Authentication



    It's no secret that the concept of conventional passwords is no longer able to provide an adequate level of security. Some organizations like Google are already looking for a replacement . One such alternative is authentication based on biometric data.
    A group of students from the UC Berkeley School of Information, led by Professor John Chuang, based on the Neurosky Mindset worth about $ 200, created a system that allows you to uniquely identify the user based on EEG readings .
    "We found that brain activity data, even collected using inexpensive, household EEG sensors, can be used to authenticate users with high accuracy."


    Scientists have conducted a series of experiments. Volunteers were asked to complete 7 tasks: three identical for each subject (for example, focus on breathing, imagine movement with the finger up and down, etc.) and four associated with a personal secret: present movement from any sport to the choice of the subject, silently count objects belonging to a certain group, play any song in your head and, finally, just focus on your thoughts. During the experiments, scientists took EEG data.
    It turned out that performing any of these tasks is enough to uniquely identify the user by his brain activity. Moreover, the tasks “with a secret” did not show any significant effectiveness, compared with the usual ones. Subjects willingly performed simple tasks, but not too boring. Favorite tasks were to count objects of a hidden color, mentally humming a favorite song and just concentrating on breathing.

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