Forgotten Your Password? Dont Worry, Soon You Will Be Using Passthoughts

Herbalist Dr MziziMkavu · 2013-05-06T03:14:03+00:00

Movie characters never use a mouse, instead opting for the kind of magic holographic devices which have also become a routine part of police procedural TV shows. On the big and little screens, things like retina scans and fingerprint access for locked doors have been in general use for decades. But a password which you can enter with the power of your mind has been deemed too far-fetched even for the most computer-literate TV show. Their writers may have to tear up their scripts, however, because thinking your password to gain access to your personal information could become an everyday occurrence. Traditional passwords are troublesome. Most of us are too lazy to think up anything remotely difficult for online criminals to decipher and we gather so many of them these days that a photographic memory is needed. We tend to either make every password for all our logins the same (extremely naïve) or write them all down (extremely tedious and just as naïve). The solution from Professor John Chuang and his team at the University of California, Berkeley comes in the shape of passthoughts. Not only do you not need to type in any passwords, but you dont make any kind of physical contact at all, beyond wearing a headset which measures brainwave impulses. Thats the easy bit. The team at Berkeleys School of Information simply used an off-the-shelf device called the NeuroSky MindWave, which can be bought on Amazon for less than £70. The headset is connected wirelessly to a computer via Bluetooth and an electroencephalogram (EEG) signal from the brain is provided. Their goal however, was to try to use the technology to distinguish between different peoples brainwaves and use that as a form of identification, instead of a password. Foremost amongst the many technical problems was the fact that scientists are still not certain whether brainwaves are as distinctive as fingerprints and retinas. So rather than using someones generic brainwave, a passthought works with a profile compiled while the user is performing very specific tasks, such as imagining themselves singing their favourite song, moving their finger or counting to ten. All you have to do to record a passthought is, for example, picture yourself singing (it doesnt matter whether you actually make a noise or not) and the headset records your brainwaves while you do so. This is then compared with the previous brainwave samples youve given and, combined with the other samples in your profile, the software algorithms try to judge whether youre the same person. The goal was to achieve reliability but also to ensure that recalling the passthought wouldnt be a hassle or too confusing. We wanted them to say, Yeah, I dont mind doing that, Prof Chuang told Metro. He said passthoughts have a number of advantages over traditional passwords, including resistance to shoulder surfing attacks (where someone looks over your shoulder to watch you type) and smudge attacks (where someone can determine your passcode by observing the smudge patterns on your devices touchscreen). Prof Chuang added that passthoughts would also have a higher success rate. It may be easier to remember your secret song than your alphanumeric password, he said. Theres also the possibility that passthoughts will be able to monitor your emotional state. So, for example, if you are forced by someone else to access your money, the system may be able to inform your bank if you appear to be under duress. That will be the next set of experiments, said Prof Chuang. The idea of anyone wandering around town with a brainwave-analysing device on their head seems absurd, but wearable computing is coming. The much hyped Google Glass spectacles are expected to become the next big trend in consumer electronics and its easy to imagine a variant that would include a brainwave sensor. I believe passthoughts would fit quite naturally with wearable computing, where the lack of a keyboard would make typed passwords awkward and unnatural, said Prof Chuang. Once wearable computing devices become mainstream in the next few years, people will quickly accept, or even demand, usable authentication methods such as brainwave-based authentication. He claims his system has a reliability of 99 per cent, although that might not make it good enough yet for general use. Geoff Anderson is the co-founder of London-based company PixelPin, which has a very different solution to the problem of passwords. Its system allows you to set any photograph you choose as the lock for your password. The key is four or more passpoints on the photograph which only you know and choose in sequence. Once you indicate where they are (someones face, a landmark in the background) via a touchscreen device, access is then granted. The idea is that this method is more resistant to hacking because it becomes impossible to search for known words or sequences and visual memory is a lot more reliable than the part of your brain which keeps forgetting your PIN number. I would say that the general view is that passwords are broken, said Mr Anderson. Theyve just become so easy to hack now because of how people are storing them and also passwords just dont work on mobile screens at all really. At the moment a lot of companies are just trying to bypass the problem by logging you in all the time on your phone and making it really hard to log out. So you dont really realise that youre logged in. So if you lose your phone youre still logged in to everything. Mr Anderson has lectured on different alternatives to passwords but is dubious of biometrics in general, the field which includes fingerprints, retinal scans and passthoughts. Ninety-nine per cent [success rate] is actually pretty bad, he said. Theyve taken out the eye readers at Heathrow Airport because if you think of how many people go through there, one per cent getting stuck is probably hundreds of people a day. And the other problem with biometrics is if you ever get hacked you cant reset it. If someone hacks the database where your data is stored you cant reset your fingerprints or your eyes. Other options are on the horizon. Google has an authentication ring its trying to push and there are people trying things with 3D barcodes and QR codes, said Mr Anderson. Theres one idea that revolves around analysing the shape of your mouth. Pretty much every body part has been suggested by someone at some stage. He added: The problem is youve either got to use unreliable biometric solutions or rely on peoples very unreliable memories. Whoever cracks it with an alternative to passwords is going to change everything. Forgotten Your Password? Dont Worry, Soon You Will Be Using Passthoughts SJ POST

Thread starter Herbalist Dr MziziMkavu
Start date May 6, 2013

Herbalist Dr MziziMkavu

JamiiForums uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.

Accept Learn more…

Back

Top Bottom

Forums

New posts

Forgotten Your Password? Dont Worry, Soon You Will Be Using Passthoughts

Herbalist Dr MziziMkavu

JF-Expert Member

Our Community

Regional Communities

Forgotten Your Password? Dont Worry, Soon You Will Be Using Passthoughts