Brain Activity Provides Novel Biometric Key
15:17 16 January 2007
NewScientist.com news service
Will Knight
An electronic security system that identifies people by monitoring the unique pattern of electrical activity within their brain is being tested by European scientists.
This novel biometric system should be difficult to forge, making it suitable for high-security applications, claim the researchers behind it. The system was developed by two companies - Starlab in Spain and Forenap in France - in cooperation with researchers at the Centre for Research and Technology Hellas, in Greece. It uses an established method for measuring activity in the brain, called electroencephalography (EEG).
EEG measurements identify the location and intensity of millisecond-long fluctuations in electrical activity in the brain via electrodes positioned around a person's scalp. This can help neuroscientists understand the function of different brain areas and may also be used to diagnose and monitor neurological conditions such as epilepsy and dementia.
Neural Pathways
Since an individual's brain activity is determined by the unique pattern of neural pathway in their brain, the same technique can be used for identification, says Dimitrios Tzovaras, who is the coordinator at the Centre for Research and Technology Hellas. "It could be a very good security control," he told New Scientist.
The authentication system requires a user to have EEG measurements taken beforehand with further measurements for each authentication test. This is done via a removable cap, which communicates wirelessly with a computer that analyses the data gathered. The cap has fewer electrodes than are normally used for EEG measurements, but can still provide enough information for authentication, according to Tzovaras.
Currently users must sit quietly with their eyes shut during each test. "We ask them to close their eyes and not speak"," Tzovaras says, which provides "a much clearer picture".
The result of each authentication test is compared with the user's pre-recorded measurements, using signal-processing algorithms. These algorithms can be tuned to different security levels.
But users could eventually be required to perform specific tasks during each test, he suggests, as this should also produce a unique EEG "signature". The researchers envisage the set-up being used as part of a building or computer security system and plan to test it as the security control system for a laboratory in Germany in 2007.
Multiple Biometrics
The biometric system is part of a wider European project called Human Monitoring and Authentication using Biodynamic Indicators and Behavioural Analysis (HUMABIO). The aim of this project is to combine several different biometrics to create a more efficient and secure overall system. The EEG system will eventually be linked to a seat designed to identify a person by the way they sit, which is being developed at the University of Pisa, Italy.
A separate group, led by Rafal Wardziński at Warsaw University of Technology in Poland, is also working on EEG biometrics. In testing, this group found that the method could identify subjects with 88% accuracy.
However, John Daugman, a biometrics researcher at the University of Cambridge, UK, questions the practicality of the approach. He says an EEG cap could prove too cumbersome and invasive. "Wearing a wired helmet with sensors on one's scalp might change the ambiance of the workplace somewhat," he says.
Similarly, neuroimaging expert Olaf Hauk, also at the UK's Medical Research Council, believes using the system in a wide variety of situations, particularly stressful ones, could complicate the results significantly. "EEG varies greatly depending on a person's alertness, or mental operations," Hauk told New Scientist. "You might not want to be taken for someone else at the airport just because you had a bad night before."
OOC: use a photographic sensor to snap a picture of the neuroactivity of the occipital lobe, something similiar in the movie Seven days, except it measures information, miliseconds after to the initial flash.
D20 Future/Gamma World
Type: Personal
Progression Level 8/9: Gravity Age
Size: Variable
Weight: Variable to 1 Kg.
Hardness: 05
Purchase DC: 20 [Urban Centers Only]
Restriction: Bureaucratic [+02], Corporate [+03], Judical [+03], Military [+04]
Dungeons and Dragons Third Edition Revised
Biometric Psi-Key
This simple devise enables a psion or a wilder to imprint his psionic energies upon it and use it as a personal security key. With this devise, he can lock and unlock [via psionic lock and knock-psionic disciplines] physical objects as a mean of personal identification. First, personas unknown attempt to use the key with succeeding against a successful concentration check [DC = 10 + ½ ECL + charisma modifier], the key refuses to activate. Secondly, a psion or wilder can store up to up an additional 21 power points and unlock them when they are needed the most. Activating the key requires but one power point and that power point may not come from any points stored in the key.
Faint psychoportation: ML 4th
Craft Universal Item; Knock - Psionic, Psionic Lock
Market Price: 8,000 Gp
Cost: 4,000 Gp + 320 XP
For Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Ed Revised / d20 OGL
NewScientist.com news service
Will Knight
An electronic security system that identifies people by monitoring the unique pattern of electrical activity within their brain is being tested by European scientists.
This novel biometric system should be difficult to forge, making it suitable for high-security applications, claim the researchers behind it. The system was developed by two companies - Starlab in Spain and Forenap in France - in cooperation with researchers at the Centre for Research and Technology Hellas, in Greece. It uses an established method for measuring activity in the brain, called electroencephalography (EEG).
EEG measurements identify the location and intensity of millisecond-long fluctuations in electrical activity in the brain via electrodes positioned around a person's scalp. This can help neuroscientists understand the function of different brain areas and may also be used to diagnose and monitor neurological conditions such as epilepsy and dementia.
Neural Pathways
Since an individual's brain activity is determined by the unique pattern of neural pathway in their brain, the same technique can be used for identification, says Dimitrios Tzovaras, who is the coordinator at the Centre for Research and Technology Hellas. "It could be a very good security control," he told New Scientist.
The authentication system requires a user to have EEG measurements taken beforehand with further measurements for each authentication test. This is done via a removable cap, which communicates wirelessly with a computer that analyses the data gathered. The cap has fewer electrodes than are normally used for EEG measurements, but can still provide enough information for authentication, according to Tzovaras.
Currently users must sit quietly with their eyes shut during each test. "We ask them to close their eyes and not speak"," Tzovaras says, which provides "a much clearer picture".
The result of each authentication test is compared with the user's pre-recorded measurements, using signal-processing algorithms. These algorithms can be tuned to different security levels.
But users could eventually be required to perform specific tasks during each test, he suggests, as this should also produce a unique EEG "signature". The researchers envisage the set-up being used as part of a building or computer security system and plan to test it as the security control system for a laboratory in Germany in 2007.
Multiple Biometrics
The biometric system is part of a wider European project called Human Monitoring and Authentication using Biodynamic Indicators and Behavioural Analysis (HUMABIO). The aim of this project is to combine several different biometrics to create a more efficient and secure overall system. The EEG system will eventually be linked to a seat designed to identify a person by the way they sit, which is being developed at the University of Pisa, Italy.
A separate group, led by Rafal Wardziński at Warsaw University of Technology in Poland, is also working on EEG biometrics. In testing, this group found that the method could identify subjects with 88% accuracy.
However, John Daugman, a biometrics researcher at the University of Cambridge, UK, questions the practicality of the approach. He says an EEG cap could prove too cumbersome and invasive. "Wearing a wired helmet with sensors on one's scalp might change the ambiance of the workplace somewhat," he says.
Similarly, neuroimaging expert Olaf Hauk, also at the UK's Medical Research Council, believes using the system in a wide variety of situations, particularly stressful ones, could complicate the results significantly. "EEG varies greatly depending on a person's alertness, or mental operations," Hauk told New Scientist. "You might not want to be taken for someone else at the airport just because you had a bad night before."
OOC: use a photographic sensor to snap a picture of the neuroactivity of the occipital lobe, something similiar in the movie Seven days, except it measures information, miliseconds after to the initial flash.
D20 Future/Gamma World
Type: Personal
Progression Level 8/9: Gravity Age
Size: Variable
Weight: Variable to 1 Kg.
Hardness: 05
Purchase DC: 20 [Urban Centers Only]
Restriction: Bureaucratic [+02], Corporate [+03], Judical [+03], Military [+04]
Dungeons and Dragons Third Edition Revised
Biometric Psi-Key
This simple devise enables a psion or a wilder to imprint his psionic energies upon it and use it as a personal security key. With this devise, he can lock and unlock [via psionic lock and knock-psionic disciplines] physical objects as a mean of personal identification. First, personas unknown attempt to use the key with succeeding against a successful concentration check [DC = 10 + ½ ECL + charisma modifier], the key refuses to activate. Secondly, a psion or wilder can store up to up an additional 21 power points and unlock them when they are needed the most. Activating the key requires but one power point and that power point may not come from any points stored in the key.
Faint psychoportation: ML 4th
Craft Universal Item; Knock - Psionic, Psionic Lock
Market Price: 8,000 Gp
Cost: 4,000 Gp + 320 XP
For Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Ed Revised / d20 OGL
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