Mementos as Document Retrieval Keys

Dekaner writes "The BBC is running a story that BT has demonstrated a scanner that can be used to retrieve digital documents by associating them with a physical object. When the digital files are stored on the server, they are associated with a scanned image of the object, for example a seashell. Later, when the user wants to retrieve the files, the memento is again placed on the scanner. The resulting image is used as the retrieval key."

Comments

meat space stegonography, next step crypto?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is actually a good stegonography tool.

However, Wouldnt it be cool if the object could deterministically return the same key, to be used as a cryptographic key?
Then, you could use objects as the keys to encrypt and hide your information.

Don't suppose that is very realistic though :)

My Brain Already Does This

[weston]

It's really pretty neat. I can pickup old ticket stubs and remember things about concerts that I'd forgotten for years. An old T-shirt can bring back a memory of going shopping at Target with my sister while an old girlfriend was out of town. I've got a tie another old girlfriend gave me that brings back visiting her in the hospital. I could go on, but the really cool thing, is that I've figured out how to retrieve some of this information using abstract representations of things -- drawings or pictures -- or even sometimes simply writing some words about them. I don't have to keep the mementos around any more.

I'm thinking of maybe implementing a computer system for this, where I type in some small "key" representation, and get back some further "data" associated with it....

Kind of wish I could clean out and delete a few things from the brain system, tho'...

I thought of this 4 years ago

[Rares Marian]

1. Just crumple up a piece of paper.
2. Trace the creases in pen.
3. Scan the piece of paper.
4. The image is the key to the document.