Passthoughts, Not Passwords: Authentication Via Brainwaves 104
CowboyRobot writes "A new study by researchers from the U.C. Berkeley School of Information examined the brainwave signals of individuals performing specific actions to see if they can be consistently matched to the right individual. To measure the subjects' brainwaves, the team utilized the NeuroSky Mindset, a Bluetooth headset that records Electroencephalographic (EEG) activity. In the end, the team was able to match the brainwave signals with 99% accuracy (pdf). 'We are not trying to trace back from a brainwave signal to a specific person,' explains Prof. John Chuang, who led the team. 'That would be a much more difficult problem. Rather, our task is to determine if a presented brainwave signal matches the brainwave signals previously submitted by the user when they were setting up their pass-thought.'"
Re:Talk about forgetting your password! (Score:4, Interesting)
And how often do you mistype your password? I doubt many get their password right even 90% of the time unless they have rather bad passwords.
Also, there's false positive vs. false negative. False negatives aren't so bad (especially at 1%, when retries are possible). False positives are what are really of concern.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Escalator to hell (Score:4, Interesting)