You can now be identified by your ‘brainprint’ with 100% accuracy

http://www.kurzweilai.net/you-can-now-be-identified-by-your-brainprint-with-100-accuracy

by jonbaer • 10 years ago

60 37 10 years ago

kurzweilai.net

pythondz• 10 years ago

Well, It's not like we are gonna wear an EEG 24/7 just to unlock our smartphone or pass security at work...

I think that we can build a device that can capture a brainwave et replay it.

amelius• 10 years ago

I think that we can build a device that can capture a brainwave et replay it.

I want such a device that can play back into my own brain.

gpvos• 10 years ago

I see a huge market here for replaying orgasms.

xedarius• 10 years ago

I think this has been mentioned before on HN. Finger prints, retina scans, brain scans are not passwords, they're userid's.

If the scanner could read a password out of my head then it would be a password. But merely knowing it's my brain isn't good enough (for secure transactions at least).

draugadrotten• 10 years ago

The trinity: Something you know, something you have, something you are.

Reading the article, the 'brainprint' seems to be more similar to a challenge/response password than an identity. The brainprint is the brain response to 500 images. It can therefore be changed and replaced by another response to another set of images. It can be seen as a high security biometric challenge/response password mechanism which can not easily be eavesdropped or faked. The brainprint is something you HAVE (the response) which is different from something you ARE (a fingerprint, a retina, a brain)

TeMPOraL• 10 years ago

different from something you ARE (a fingerprint, a retina, a brain)

How is "something you ARE" a useful classification? A fingerprint can be easily changed. And retina patterns could (probably already can) be faked too.

fosco• 10 years ago

what happens when instead of my association of apples to keeping doctors away changes to Isaac Newton and Gravity.

does my identity change?

(assuming one image is an apple)

SEJeff2• 10 years ago

Yup, you just nailed it. Here is the best writing on just that I've found (and have shared before on HN):

http://blog.dustinkirkland.com/2013/10/fingerprints-are-user...

Biometric data makes for great usernames, but not so much for a password. How do you "reset" your brainwaves? The wishy-washy part of TFA on that made me question the entire premise.

794CD012• 10 years ago

That's not a complete complaint. If the password were your brainwaves, why would you still need to reset it? Did someone else steal your brain and you need to make sure they no longer have access?

kevincox• 10 years ago

I don't remember where I heard it but someone said something along the lings of "You shouldn't use something that you leave everywhere and can never change as a secure token"

dannypgh• 10 years ago

Given they are measuring a response to a photo, change the photo? This seems much more like challenge-response than other forms of biometric data.

dewiz• 10 years ago

Right, and password should be voluntarily entered. This system would be able to steal my password, e.g. unlocking my laptop, forcing me to look at some photo

namlem• 10 years ago

Brainprints are not like retina scans and finger prints. They can't be read without you knowing and can be cancelled, as they are tied to a specific stimulus. If you want to change your brainprint password, just change the image it's coded to.

oarsinsync• 10 years ago

Will it still work when I'm drunk?

Not working when drunk a potentially useful feature in some areas.

bobbyadamson• 10 years ago

It would probably be better if it still works, but is able to read your state ie figure out whether you are drunk or not.

gus_massa• 10 years ago

In the experiment, they used only 50 subjects and they were able to distinguish between all of them. For me, it's not clear that the "100%" will be maintained when they use a larger group.

Also, in the previous experiment they used 32 subjects and got a "97%". I'm not sure what that means, but I guess it's 31/32. So perhaps they reduced the error rate or perhaps they were lucky and didn't get the problematic subject / collision.

dsacco• 10 years ago

For the earlier experiment, subjects were presented with words, not images. This is (ostensibly) what lowered the error rate.

I agree it is hard to tell if this result will be consistent with a larger sample pool.

eutectic• 10 years ago

If you use Laplace succession then 50/50 corresponds to an expected success rate of 51/52 = 98%. If you use the KT estimator you get a hair over 99%.

ck2• 10 years ago

I wonder if this is like rfid chips that were only supposed to work up to a couple feet away but special equipment can now read them far away.

TSA doing brainprint scans someday shudder

ovi256• 10 years ago

"Stand still and think of the worst experience of your life. Thank you, next!"

munin• 10 years ago

the cool thing about stuff like this (I am familiar with a few different efforts along this vein) is that you can combine something you are with something you know. the downside of fingerprints and retinas is they can be passively recorded and replayed, but with the brain, you could build an authenticator that only works when the user is cooperating with the authentication scheme, and, recording and replaying the electrical signal from the brain won't spoof the authenticator.

until you really refine the task down to take a few seconds and you have dry cap electrodes, it's still untenable, but progress has been made on the latter.

finishingmove2• 10 years ago

Well, people change over time. Not to mention trauma. Things could happen that change these "brain signatures". This experiment is really lacking seriousness.

rm_-rf_slash2• 10 years ago

What happens when you take LSD and suddenly all of your brainscan passwords fail?

I mean, hell, how can it differentiate between sober and drunk? Or high? Or even sleep deprived?

finishingmove2• 10 years ago

Also mood swings, being sexually aroused, etc.

tehwalrus• 10 years ago

"It’s only a three-point difference, but going from 97 to 100 percent [accuracy] makes possible..."

For some reason, this made me extremely annoyed. In terms of uncertainty, this is the largest chasm in the world.

Joof• 10 years ago

Need to conceal your identity? Take some LSD before going to the airport.

known• 10 years ago

TL;DR

It's NOT 100% accurate

You can now be identified by your ‘brainprint’ with 100% accuracy

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