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Researchers Can Identify You By Your Brain Waves With 100% Accuracy (business-standard.com)

Posted by msmash on from the fingerprint-is-yesterday's-technology dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Scientists have developed a new system that can identify people using their brain waves or 'brainprint' with 100% accuracy, an advance that may be useful in high-security applications. Researchers at Binghamton University in U.S. recorded the brain activity of 50 people wearing an electroencephalogram (EEG) headset while they looked at a series of 500 images designed specifically to elicit unique responses from person to person -- e.g., a slice of pizza, a boat, or the word "conundrum." They found that participants' brains reacted differently to each image, enough that a computer system was able to identify each volunteer's 'brainprint' with 100% accuracy. "When you take hundreds of these images, where every person is going to feel differently about each individual one, then you can be really accurate in identifying which person it was who looked at them just by their brain activity," said Assistant Professor Sarah Laszlo. One thing the paper doesn't talk about is the effect of time on the accuracy of the system. People may perceive different things when looking at the same picture a year later, for instance.

12 of 89 comments (clear)

  1. Buying Reynolds Stock by zenlessyank · · Score: 4, Funny

    As the tinfoil sales are going to be through the roof.

  2. 100% accuracy...with 50 people by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Like fingerprints and other biometrics, will this fall off a bit at scale?

    1. Re:100% accuracy...with 50 people by Immerman · · Score: 3, Informative

      Indeed. My statistics are rusty, but with only 50 participants it seems unlikely you could legitimately claim a general accuracy above maybe a mid-to-high 90 percentile. Even then you'd be talking about the general accuracy within a 50-person group. Take a 500 person group and the average difference between two sets of brainwaves would naively be expected to be about 1/10th the size, and the minimum difference would likely fall far faster than that. Take a more generally useful set size, like say the population of a major city, and I seriously doubt they could uniquely identify anyone but the most abnormal.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    2. Re:100% accuracy...with 50 people by GameboyRMH · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'm wondering if it suffers from some of the other problems that plague biometrics - is the "brainprint" unhashable, and will it change with age?

      --
      "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
    3. Re:100% accuracy...with 50 people by Khashishi · · Score: 2

      More like sqrt(1/10) the size.

    4. Re:100% accuracy...with 50 people by Quirkz · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Or mood. Or sobriety.

      --
      The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
    5. Re:100% accuracy...with 50 people by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Or drugs, both illegal and "prescribed". Both voluntary and forced.

      --sf

  3. False negatives and false positives by gurps_npc · · Score: 5, Interesting

    100% accuracy can be misleading. Are they talking 0% false negatives, 0% false positives, or both?

    I could easily see a situation where it has 0% false positives, but a high false negative rate.

    That is, I could claim that my "Presidential Identification" is 100% right if I said no one I met was the President of the US. No false positives because I never said anyone was President.

    Similarly, someone could do it the other way around, claiming everyone was the President and have 100% accuracy because I identified every single President in the sample.

    --
    excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
    1. Re:False negatives and false positives by jfengel · · Score: 2

      I don't have the journal article itself, but the way I read the abstract, they mean 0% false negatives and 0% false positives.

      They did not, however, appear to test people from outside the group. That is, if I were to show up, it's unclear if it would identify me as not one of the sample. That still leaves a pretty substantial room for error, but it's a very good starting point.

  4. If it's use for authentication by ddtmm · · Score: 2

    It will take about a 1/2 hour to log in

  5. Yay by ThatsNotPudding · · Score: 2

    FREEDOM WAVES

  6. Stress & Biometric Issues by cyriustek · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Some rightly noted that it may be possible for brain waves to change over time. However, I wonder if stress can significantly change the identification? For example, merely looking at images may provide a different brain wave result if the person being examined has a gun being held to their head whilst looking at the images. In kind, what if the person just learned his/her significant other is cheating on them. (By a mattress with an app, surely)

    A common biometric issue is that if the information that represents who you are is stolen (a fingerprint, iris pattern, etc...), you cannot easily change it. However, I wonder if appropriately controlled stress or mind exercises can change one's brain pattern?