As the world became more connected and a closer place, it also became a more vulnerable place. Today a very large portion of population have access to the internet and the small percentage of people who don’t have any access to the internet, chances are their data is somehow present on the internet, via their bank information, SAT scores, their social security number, the sim card details and various other things. So exactly how safe is our personal data? If tomorrow someone creates an algorithm with some specific motive how will we be able to secure our data? Yes, I am referring to the Zola’s algorithm from Captain America: the winter soldier, but most of the MCU movies are realistically futuristic, so chances are something of that sort could happen!
So how are we supposed to save our personal data in the face of adversity? Unfortunately we don’t have Tony Stark, but we do have various smart and futuristic genius brains living among us. Stella Banou, a Ph.D. candidate at Northeastern University, Kaushik Chaowdhury, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Northeastern University worked with a team of researchers from Draper Laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Federal University of Parana in Brazil created a safe, hacker-proof method to transmit sensitive data. The idea is to send data through body, so yes the body is treated like a wire. Their method uses a technique called galvanic coupling to pack information into weak electrical currents and then inject those currents into the body. So if you are using a fitness watch or a pacemaker for example, the signal will travel from your device through your arm, then your wrist and hand, and then only through a direct contact with a specialised receiver that information can be sent to another device.
The human body already contains electricity, its how the nervous system sends signals; the neurons carry messages in the form of electrical signals, called nerve impulses. Chowdhury, Tomlison, and their colleagues have proposed to take advantage of the body’s electrical communication system to send new information as well, their technique is still in the early stage of development. The method could revolutionise communication in a way that’s so far been only relegated to science fiction: “ At some point, we could even exchange information through a handshake”.
Mayuri Talgaonkar