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Hackers backdoor the human brain, successfully extract sensitive data

extremetech.com

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Re: Hackers backdoor the human brain, successfully extract sensitive data

#11

Post by nobodyshere »

ars wrote: post #8
donquichotte wrote: post #6

Neat idea. The debit card pin bit does not seem feasible though, at least in a brute force setting - finding out a 6 digit pin, showing each number for 1 second, takes > 11 days in the worst case.

Don't most people have a 4 digit pin? But in any case showing pins that way wouldn't work anyway - most people have a muscle memory for their pins, but would not recognize them when written down.

You also forgot to mention multiple cards and pins people have / used to have. I'd expect a false trigger in the system in that case.

Re: Hackers backdoor the human brain, successfully extract sensitive data

#12

Post by anigbrowl »

ars wrote: post #8
donquichotte wrote: post #6

Neat idea. The debit card pin bit does not seem feasible though, at least in a brute force setting - finding out a 6 digit pin, showing each number for 1 second, takes > 11 days in the worst case.

Don't most people have a 4 digit pin? But in any case showing pins that way wouldn't work anyway - most people have a muscle memory for their pins, but would not recognize them when written down.

That seems a highly questionable assumption to me.

Re: Hackers backdoor the human brain, successfully extract sensitive data

#13

Post by anigbrowl »

dodo53 wrote: post #9
narfquat wrote: post #4

*cue inception music But really, looks like this experiment could be totally derailed by closing your eyes, or by thinking of irrelevant topics. Still pretty neat though.

Tension, apprehension, and dissension have begun

Ah, a person of taste.

Re: Hackers backdoor the human brain, successfully extract sensitive data

#14

Post by singingfish »

Centigonal wrote: post #5

This is an awfully contrived title for an article that could be summarized as "people can find out whether or not you recognize something shown to you by monitoring electrical activity along the scalp."

missing the point. This is huge. Maybe not in the way presented in the article, but nonetheless...

Re: Hackers backdoor the human brain, successfully extract sensitive data

#15

Post by c-oreills »

ars wrote: post #8
donquichotte wrote: post #6

Neat idea. The debit card pin bit does not seem feasible though, at least in a brute force setting - finding out a 6 digit pin, showing each number for 1 second, takes > 11 days in the worst case.

Don't most people have a 4 digit pin? But in any case showing pins that way wouldn't work anyway - most people have a muscle memory for their pins, but would not recognize them when written down.

I recently got a new card and remembered the PIN spatially. After a few times of typing it in I realised that, though I was typing the digits of the new PIN, I was subvocalising the digits of my old PIN. It was a really odd sensation.

Having said that, I would recognise both PINs as both a string of digits and as a spatial sequence... so that would probably just be another attack vector.

Re: Hackers backdoor the human brain, successfully extract sensitive data

#16

Post by c-oreills »

pronoiac wrote: post #7

I wonder what would happen if they tested them on, say, mathematicians or engineers with a penchant for numbers.

Could work for our against them - what if they've all chosen the start of the Fibonacci sequence as their PIN?

Re: Hackers backdoor the human brain, successfully extract sensitive data

#17

Post by brisance »

This is how it will go down. First, the government is going to own these companies. Then they are going to declare the technology illegal to use in private hands. Third, they will train operatives that can only be certified by government agencies to use these devices.

Re: Hackers backdoor the human brain, successfully extract sensitive data

#19

Post by Centigonal »

singingfish wrote: post #14
Centigonal wrote: post #5

This is an awfully contrived title for an article that could be summarized as "people can find out whether or not you recognize something shown to you by monitoring electrical activity along the scalp."

missing the point. This is huge. Maybe not in the way presented in the article, but nonetheless...

I absolutely agree that the technology has plenty of use cases and that the paper the article's written about presents an interesting new perspective on security. I was, however, annoyed that the article's title and opening paragraphs seem to take something relatively elementary (it's a feasibility study!) and frame it as some sort of Inception-esque mind-hacking situation.

In other words: I agree about the value of the idea. I think, however, that there's a huge disconnect between the information and how it's being presented.

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