Did you all know that a group of engineers find a way to use the devices in daily use that can transfer small amounts of data through the body. Like this the information will travel through the body to serve as a “wireless electronic key”, however, we don’t have to use the air to propagate.
Now You Can Send Passwords Securely Through Your Body
A group of engineers has found a way to use the devices in daily use that can transfer small amounts of data through the body. In brief, the information will travel through the body to serve as a “wireless electronic key”, however, we don’t have to use the air to propagate.
Suppose you visit your home, approach the door, which is locked, then you put your hand on the metal handle and with the other hand in your pocket will unlock the lock and simply now you can enter.
A thief alleged that observes the dynamics of your home, see that after all there is no key, just throw a hand to handle and go. You go out normally, closes the door and apparently opens the way for the thief. This approaches, turn the door handle but nothing happens because it is locked.
What is the concept of “Signal travels through the body” ?
We are not talking about a smart closing device via WiFi or Bluetooth, which was driven by the smartphone or the smartwatch. Then what it is ?
The work, developed at the University of Washington’s Networks and Mobile Systems, is based on research technologies that can send a password through the human body. The technology uses touchpads and fingerprint readers to create signals that travel through the skin and, unlike wireless transmissions, as the transmissions “on-body” can not be intercepted in the air.
However, this same approach could also be used to pair safely wearable devices, we are talking about any device, from calorie counters to insulin pumps and pass this information either to their owners as well as for others.
The technique takes advantage of the fact that most devices emit electromagnetic signals weak when they are used typically. Some gadgets, such as digital and trackpads print readers produce particularly reliable signals, according to Vikram Iyer, one of the two main authors of the document that presented the results.
The Investigators interconnected electronic devices with transmitters. In fingerprint readers, quickly managed to enable and disable the sending of standard signals. As for the touchpads, they created cyclical repetition of patterns, that is, on and off repeatedly.
Improvised transmitters have proven to work, but are not efficient. The maximum transfer rate, the researchers were able to achieve was 50 bits per second. At this rate, it would take about two days to download a photo of three megabytes – but 50 bits is enough bandwidth to send a four digit code in less than one second.
The trackpad on an IBM Thinkpad allowed faster transfer rate, according to Mehrdad Hessar, another co-author of the project, but the fingerprint reader of an iPhone 6s sent the most powerful signal.
However, this is clearly a very safe technology, the “on-body” is based on the same safety to the user, because there is no sign in required in the air which will prevent any malicious tings that can intercept.
But, there is a way to “attack” the signal that travels through our body. We may have multiple devices to play simultaneously in our body and they may intercept the signal. If one of them is with malware, for example, smartwatch, this may compromise the security, but the existence of a smartwatch with certain malware capable of intercepting this type of signal, there are many favorable variables so that this could be compromised. However, there is not much to worry in this field, said Iyer.
