Heartbeats as passwords?

They say that the fastest way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, but could the fastest way into his computer be through his heart? I know, you were blinking there for a moment, but it seems that apart from using facial recognition as another layer of security to protect your computer or online account from being accessed by unsavory character, here is yet another interesting method to safeguard your machine. It seems that just like how each of us have unique fingerprints, so too, are our hearts – each of them will beat to their own individual rhythm. Scientists figured out that they can take this unique capability to offer a new level of protection for your data.

A research team with Ching-Kun Chen at the helm, who hail from the National Chung Hsing University in Taiwan, have managed to succeed in the development of an algorithm which will transform an electrocardiograph (ECG) reading from your palm into an encryption key. The final goal would be “to build the system into external hard drives and other devices that can be decrypted and encrypted simply by touching them.” I do not think that this will take off anytime soon, but it is a rather interesting proposition.

Edwin Kee
Categories: Computers
Tags: pc, Security