Skull Sounds Can Replace Your Online Passwords

What may appear to be eerie, may soon become a normal way to log into your online accounts. Researchers are working around the clock to be able to show users how to utilize the sounds of their skull in order to replace passwords.

As of now, users have the ability to log into their computers, web sites, and applications based on facial recognition, fingerprint sensors, and even iris scanning methods, optimizing our security access to limited viewers. After several attempts of creating the most secured password possible, researchers are still progressing forward. Now, we can see these researchers optimizing the sounds emitting from our skull.

In fact, the researchers at the University of Stuttgart, the University of Saarland, and the Max Planck Institute for Informatics located in Germany, are currently conducting work on a new system, which they label as the “SkullConduct.” This is a new form of authentication system that can utilize a bone conduction microphone and speaker that is located inside your head, in order to properly identify you.

In fact, this new system can identify the exact way in which your skull vibrates in reaction to the ultrasonic signal. This is due to it being as unique as your very own fingerprint. This simply states that it has the ability to be utilized as a type of form of biometric identification; ultimately to prove that you are you, whenever you log into email clients, or gaining full access to the Pentagon.

While only a very small team of 10 people have been tested for the device, the researchers has learnt that their system can correctly identify their test subjects 97 percent of the time. This is based on the test subject’s skull sounds alone.

The same researchers are also onboard with Google’s glass-style headset, in order to completely measure the skull vibrations. This then allows the respective user to log onto their favorite online services without the age-long failed attempts of remembering passwords. During the early stages of the development process, the signs are extremely promising, as it is able to capture the vibrations that bounce back, to be able to work, depending on who is wearing the device.

The researchers are also aiming to provide the technology to smartphone manufactures, which will allow you to place your phone to your head as adequate enough identification unlock and answer calls.

This new SkullConduct has joined other various strange, but wonderful biometric security solutions, which are in current development. Other services include vein patterns, as well as brain waves. The concept behind this is to create these biological markers in order to raise the difficulty level of providing false attempts. This is in comparison to our traditional passwords so easily stolen or cracked/hacked.

“If recorded with a microphone, the changes in the audio signal reflect the specific characteristics of the user’s head,” stated the researchers in a report onto the Journal of the ACM.

Just like all great concepts, there are a few problems at hand for the SkullConduct to overcome, before it is able to provide a positive viable proposition.

The first obstacle is the prototype. While the first prototype was in fact tested without a single background noise, they need to design it to work flawlessly in the system while the respective user goes about their everyday life.

The sound waves themselves, are also a problem. There are some ‘white noises’ that can be extremely annoying to the respective users, and the team will be working on replacing the noise with a small section of music.

While the teams from these universities are working hard to overcome their obstacles, they are hoping to present their invention at the next Conference for Human-Computer Interaction, which will be held in California sometime in May.

I can see this new technology becoming a standard for large important corporations – as their employees can walk into a door without the use of cards or pin codes. Such companies may include Google, Facebook, Twitter, Netflix, Government Sectors, and so on. But only the future of unraveling technology will tell a tale for us, in recent years to come.

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Resources: TechWorm, Perceptual, Conference for Human-Computer Interaction.

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