Your Thoughts Are Your Password 240
Vitaly Friedman writes "Scientists hope that mind-reading computers will one day replace typed passwords, making fingerprint readers and retina scans obsolete. Skeptics say don't count on it. From the article: 'Researchers at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, are exploring the possibility of a biometric security device that will use a person's thoughts to authenticate her or his identity. Their idea of utilizing brain-wave signatures as pass-thoughts is based on the premise that brain waves are unique to each individual. Some researchers believe the difference might just be enough to create a system that allows you to log in with your thoughts.'"
Great... (Score:5, Funny)
Gonna have to get a standalone CD player and ditch winamp and it's pretty visual plugins
Re:Great... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Great... (Score:5, Funny)
What, the password?
No, that's the tune to funky town!
Re:Great... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Great... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Great... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Great... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Great... (Score:2)
Here ya go (Score:2)
http://www.ee.washington.edu/conselec/Sp96/projec
Re:Great... (Score:3, Funny)
It's like the DMV -- get your driver's license picture taken when you're drunk, so the cop will recognize you.
friends... (Score:4, Funny)
Meditation (Score:2)
boobies (Score:5, Funny)
Wait, did I just say that out loud ?
That lends new meaning... (Score:2)
Seriously though, if you really want your 'passthought' to be secure, you should make it something like b00b135. Nobody would ever guess that.
--
This sig intentionally left blank
Re:boobies (Score:2)
Hey! You stole my password!
Great... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Great... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Great... (Score:3, Funny)
Tech Support: I'm sorry Mr President, your brainwave password is too simple, you will have to think a lot harder.
President: If I think any harder, I'll crap my pants.
Sorry, I've just been browsing the internets for George WWW quotes.
Fight the fish!
First Thought password (Score:5, Funny)
"If you don't let me into this computer right now, I'm going to throw you out of the window."
The Urgent-use chip that typically prevents access to a technology when the user is in desperate need, will be in direct conflict with the new thought reading password-chip. The upcoming internal struggle in computers will be interesting to watch, but a pain to support.
Re:First Thought password (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:First Thought password (Score:3, Informative)
The more frustrated you get, the farther from normal your voice becomes, and the less accurate the speech recognition matches. Which makes you more frustrated...
Re:First Thought password (Score:2)
"Hello. My name is ____. My thoughts are my passport. Verify me."
Hopeful Scientists... (Score:5, Funny)
Scientists also hope that soon breakthroughs in the field of Artificial Intelligence will give rise to a new race of machine intelligences, who will selflessly do all our work for us, freeing us for lives of leisure (and, incidentally, not murder all of us or make us into batteries).
Scientists also hope that soon they will identify the Dishonesty Gene, so that they may excie it from humanity's DNA, creating a race of perfectly honest people who no longer need to safeguard their systems with passwords.
Scientists also hope that soon they will be able to transport our consciousnesses into vast computers, giving each member of humanity a lifespan of eons and a godlike existence.
Me...I just want my goddamned flying car. That's all.
Re:Hopeful Scientists... (Score:3, Interesting)
A more significant use of thought-reading computers could be to have them design a device or program of our wishes/thoughts. Until this point people have had to program or draw what they want and tell the machines what to do to make it. Maybe now besides a computer reading our thoughts so we can never be free [since the computer would hand over our thoughts to a government request for information], we can also have them design wonderful things automatically by thi
Re:Hopeful Scientists... (Score:2)
I don't care if we have one that the computer can read. I'd be happy if I had one that would explain to me what the hell product management are asking for and how they think it's supposed to work.
:-P
So far, I got nothing!
Re:Hopeful Scientists... (Score:2)
Re:Hopeful Scientists... (Score:5, Funny)
This just struck me as funny. A typical machine would interpret this condition as satisfied if either of the following two conditions were met:
1) Not all humans were murdered.
2) Humans were made into batteries (negation has higher precendence than -or- operations).
Re:Hopeful Scientists... (Score:2)
Re:Hopeful Scientists... (Score:2)
We already have flying cars of many kinds and varieties. For example, "helicopters" are a marvellous brand of flying car that has been around for a while. Alas, the bureaucracy hasn't made them street-legal yet.
Re:Hopeful Scientists... (Score:3, Funny)
We have them. They're called airplanes (or a slightly different style which is called a helicopter).
Here's what I think of this approach (Score:2)
Yeah, you heard me right.
Re:Here's what I think of this approach (Score:2, Funny)
.
.
Too good to be true? (Score:2, Insightful)
Karnak joke... (Score:2, Funny)
Dumber than a brick.
*rips open envelope to read what's inside*
What you call a person that can't give their 'mind password.'
-- Bridget
Re:Karnak joke... (Score:2)
It'll never work. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It'll never work. (Score:2)
These users hope that they don't create a program to open applications based on their thoughts or you'd have a lot of people either a) surfing porn "unintentionally" or b) on a Forum whining about how much work they have to do without every doing anything at all.
Woo for technology!
This thing would get men in deep shit (Score:3, Insightful)
You'd never be able to to get rid of the 'reality overlaid onto memory' and your pass 'thought' would simply stop working.
I'm sure I rather have the computer look at my finger prints or, for more secure applications, look me in the eye.
Re:It'll never work. (Score:2)
You'd be surprised how many different ways there are to think "Duuuuhhhhh...". This potential technology gives a huge improvement over simple password authentication, because there is only one way to spell "12345".
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to change the combination on my luggage.
Re:It'll never work. (Score:2)
Good luck with that (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Good luck with that (Score:2)
Passing thoughts (Score:2, Insightful)
summary of article, not likely to happen (Score:2)
If you don't want to take the time, the article basically says, "this would be a really cool idea, but it's not ready for prime time, and it's too expensive, and it's too unwieldy, and there are already cheaper, better, easier alternatives.
From the article:
There's going to be a lot of people having a bad hair day. For once, being bald holds an
Re:summary of article, not likely to happen (Score:3, Interesting)
From Arthur C Clarke's future history [pathfinder.com]:
Re:summary of article, not likely to happen (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
Re:OH NO THEY WON'T!!!!! (Score:2)
Your rights online?????? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Your rights online?????? (Score:3, Insightful)
But, as this Slashdot discussion proves once again, everyone's overreaction is the same.
what if you're hit by a bus (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:what if you're hit by a bus (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:what if you're hit by a bus (Score:2)
The a
Yeah! (Score:4, Funny)
Sweet!
Not likely (Score:2)
Their idea of utilizing brain-wave signatures as "pass-thoughts" is based on the premise that brain waves are unique to each individual. Even when thinking of the same thing, the brain's measurable electrical impulses vary slightly from person to person. Some researchers believe the difference might just be enough.
One big problem is that while each person's EEG may be slightly different from the next's while "thinking the same thing" (don't even get me started on the problems with tha
Re:Not likely (Score:2)
Anyway, there are researchers engaged in competitions where they try to reconstruct the stimuli based on the EEG pattern and they seem to succeed in distinguishing some 200.A personal signature in that mess is noisy, so to avoid false recognition (while striving for perfect co
Stress Test (Score:2)
Should a traumatic event happen, a users brainwaves generally change... always in the short term and often long term as well. How will a computer be able to tell who we are if our brains are always in a state of flux.
The onyl way they could do this is if they determined a type of 'brainwave DNA' which doesn't change
biometric ID (Score:2)
ok, it appears that if, in the next 40 years, this becomes possible, there should be a way to change the brain pattern if one becomes compromised, but the whole thing seems needlessly complicated.
The biggest problem with biometrics is ... (Score:3, Informative)
that once the digital representation is compromised, it is not possible to generate a new biometric. AIUI, every biometric device translates the chosen bioetric into some digital representation (after all, everything is just 1's and 0's to a computer). If this is compromissed, you are sunk. I suppose that precautions, like salting and other things to prevent a replay attack, could help. But in the end, if my passowrd is compromised, I can set a new one. If my eyeball's digital representation is compromised, then I can't generate a new eyeball.
Re:The biggest problem with biometrics is ... (Score:2)
Johnny Mnemonic (Score:2)
In the case of our hero, the password was the picture of a specific woman. Unfortunately the overload corrupted half of the image. With the help of a dolphin (whose intelligence was better than a genius') in a VR world, Johnny managed to get the missing half by mirroring the good half. After the password was obtained, the data could be released and they saved the world.
I loved this movie (despite th
Re:Johnny Mnemonic (Score:2)
...and despite the lack of attention to an important detail: People are not perfectly symmetrical. If you create an image of someone by mirroring one half of his or her face, it will be noticeably different from a normal picture of that person. (Unless, of course, the movie noted that the person in question was unusually symmetrical... haven't seen the movie.)
I couldn't help it. It just popped IN there. (Score:5, Funny)
Dr. Peter Venkman: Whoa! Ho! Ho! Whoa-oa!
Gozer: The Traveller has come!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Nobody choosed anything!
[turns to Egon]
Dr. Peter Venkman: Did YOU choose anything?
Dr. Egon Spengler: No.
Dr. Peter Venkman: [to Winston] Did YOU?
Winston Zeddemore: My mind is totally blank.
Dr. Peter Venkman: I didn't choose anything.
[long pause, Peter, Egon and Winston all look at Ray]
Dr Ray Stantz: I couldn't help it. It just popped IN there.
Dr. Peter Venkman: [angrily] What? What just popped in there?
Dr Ray Stantz: I... I... I tried to think...
Dr. Egon Spengler: LOOK!
[they all look over one side of the roof]
Dr Ray Stantz: No! It CAN'T be!
Dr. Peter Venkman: What is it?
Dr Ray Stantz: It CAN'T be!
Dr. Peter Venkman: What did you do, Ray?
Winston Zeddemore: Oh, shit!
[they all see a giant cubic white head topped with a sailor hat, Peter looks at Ray]
Dr Ray Stantz: [somberly] It's the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.
--From the IMDB.
Re:I couldn't help it. It just popped IN there. (Score:2)
saying what men think about... (Score:2)
well, the law of averages.. sort of like how the timed salts worked with old crack program (people were most likely to create a new password in the morning so it limited the number of salts to a couple hour window which made cracking much faster)...
sounds insecure to me
but then, what I am thinking about?
another thought (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:another thought (Score:2)
Just wear a lead hat and nobody will notice.
Home Simpson's password exposed (Score:2)
Tin-foil hat (Score:2)
Average story posts drop from hundreds to dozens.
Firefox Missile Control System (Score:2)
Re:Firefox Missile Control System (Score:2)
OK it's hollywood, but even for them...
Impractical (Score:2)
All other technical arguments for why it can't work aside, this is the biggest bugaboo. You're going to age; your faculties will age as well. Recall is iffy at best even when you're in a "normal" state, let's leave out being stoned, drunk, angry, depressed, etc. Just the simple aging of your brain is going to make t
Taking RFID to new levels... (Score:2)
A few bad examples:
- good afternoon MR S. B. ODSWORTH, your wifes birthday is coming up next week: we've just delivered some flowers and charged your account, along with a note reminding her to phone the doctor regarding your incontenance.
- A new 'thought-crime' bill now means you are safe from injury/burgulary etc. with the criminal
I remember the time.... (Score:2)
Kids: "BAWDriving"
Grandfather: "huh, what is that, some new type of BMW?"
Kids: "(old people) No, it's beta/alpha wave driving. We go around getting peoples' passwords as they think them."
Grandfather: "In my day, we went a wardriving looking for people stupid enough, or maybe even nice enough til the laws kicked in that is, to give us wide open access to their WiFi. Free surfing on someone else's net connection. Boy those were the days. I got a lot of tail doing t
GET... OUT!!! (Score:2)
[This message brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department.]
Mindreading (Score:2)
Question: If a device can be made to differentiate thoughts, and if a computer interface is eventually connected to one of these such that a user thinks certain commands which the computer detects, and if such an interface becomes widespread, then could it happen that while walking down the street someone in the habit of thinking in terms of the computer would be opening his thoughts to anyone listening? If you "think to type", what happens if you accidentally think your bank password, insults, luggage comb
I anticipate a conflict... (Score:2, Funny)
not sure but who knows (Score:2, Funny)
If someone said its possible its because they saw the beginning of a way to do this.
Sure it looks funky but heh... I can still read that famous phrase :
"256k of RAM outta be enough for everyone...."
Your thoughts betray you.... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Your thoughts betray you.... (Score:2)
Perfect for parents! (Score:2)
"The password is a dewy meadow..." *imagines* "...with trees swaying in the wind... and the sun coming up over the hori.. OOOH SHINY BALL!!!"
Re:Perfect for parents! (Score:2)
If they give their kids Ritalin to keep them calm so they don't have to watch them, they'd be able to log on to the computer and see stuff. But if they don't give their kids Ritalin, the kids can't log on to the computer so they won't see bad things but the parents would have to pay attention to them.
So a password sniffer would be... (Score:3, Funny)
Pardon ma'am, whatever you do dont look at this red light and think of your password.
Just like other biometrics... (Score:2)
Re:Just like other biometrics... (Score:2)
Re:Just like other biometrics... (Score:2)
I suppose you're in the "Dead people don't think" camp. Well just try and explain ghosts then Mr. Smartypants.
Great, but... (Score:2)
(The scary thing is that this joke might actually turn out to be a valid point!)
Lie detection as an alternative (Score:2)
What ever happened to... (Score:2)
Tech Support (Score:3, Funny)
Password Guessing (Score:2)
Quiet! (Score:2)
"I want a Peanut"
That's better!
-M
There's a catch, of course... (Score:2, Funny)
why would we need this? (Score:2)
Book about this (Score:2)
Access Denied (Score:2)
Maybe that's a good thing.
Oblig. Futurama, of course (Score:2)
Fry: Yeah, well, I did open the account over a thousand years ago.
Flawed (Score:2)
Would it be an improvement over existing ways? (Score:2)
FTA:
A successful login would only occur when you are able to identify your password by thinking "yes" to the letters or pictures that form it in sequence -- like a mental game of 20 questions.
Or like, I don't know, thinking of the letters and typing them on a keypad? That method sure sounds like a mental equivalent to hunt-and-peck on a keyboard without a backspace key.
And, like ot
Re:If your thoughts are your password... (Score:2)