BRAINSCANLAND—Scientists have reportedly found a way to hack into people's brains and figure out pin numbers and other information to private stuff like bank accounts. It seems that in the near future, instead of forcing you at gun point to drive down to the ATM to get money out, would-be thieves—or at least the smart ones—will be able to just pluck the info directly from your head.
Mail Online has the story. "Researchers from the University of California, University of Oxford and University of Geneva figured out a way to pluck sensitive information from a person’s head, such as PIN numbers and bank information," it reported, adding ominously, "They used a freely available games controller costing just £190 ($299)."
For the moment, there is still a level of participation required of the target brain. In a recent experiment, an off-the-shelf Emotiv brain-computer interface that "allows users to interact with their computers by thought, and is often used to control games" was used by the scientists, who "then sat their subjects in front of a computer screen and showed them images of banks, people, and PIN numbers.
"They then tracked the readings coming off of the brain, specifically a signal known as P300. The P300 signal is used by the brain when a person recognizes something meaningful, such as someone or something they interact with on a regular basis."
The results were rather startling. "The team found they could find a person's home 60 percent of the time with a one in ten chance, and had a 40 percent chance of recognizing the first number of a PIN number," reported the Mail.
Forget about bank accounts. Once this gets around, it won't be long before a secure members area is a thing of the past. Or are we there already? Has someone already been inside our heads, mucking around?
Image: Doctor isolates area in brain that contains the user name and password to a porn site members area.
