Technology: hacking your thoughts

Are your thoughts your own? You would think so. But perhaps they are not that safe anymore as we used to think. Technology is getting smarter. The day that it will be used to actually hack human thoughts is not that peculiar as we would think. The rise of ethical concerns and the harm of our privacy seems to become an ever growing issue. Will technology be able to dominate our human brain?

Recently, a researcher and lecturer at the University of Washington, Tamara Bonaci, revealed a technology that could hack into our brains at the Enigma Security Conference 2017. Bonaci used a game, Flappy Whale, to cover her technology for hacking into other’s underlying feelings and thoughts. The technology was able to convert and extract neural responses to unconscious imagery in the game like restaurants, cars, logo’s and so on. It gave her an understanding of neural responses from a person’s electro-physical signals and how they can be influenced.

Technology as sixth sense

There are a lot of positive possibilities that evolve around this technology. It is an interesting and incredible useful way to understand people’s subliminal thoughts. Most people recognise the word subliminal from the term subliminal advertising. So the idea is not new. But technological progress shows us that there is a rise in technologies evolving round subliminal stimuli. Technologies which affect our decision making process. Which are even able to create new human habits. It has been proven that it takes 21 days for any new thought pattern to become a "habit of thought." So if you see subliminal messages for 21 days straight, you will have a new habit of thought.

There are a lot of technologies that evolve around subliminal stimuli. Think of subliminal video messages, embeddable sensors, smart algorithms, speech technology etc. The trend humanware shows the merge of technology and human bodies. We also see the trend biohacking becoming more popular. The implantation of artificial magnets in our bodies is an example of this trend. But it goes beyond that. Biohacking seeks for extending our physical boundaries. For example embedded magnets gather information about our senses and how they can be influenced. It gives magnetically augmented humans a new way to sense and interact with the world around them.

Technology develops in such a way that it will influence our way of communicating. Nowadays we are able to share even vital body functions. In the future of fluid communication we will be able to share our emotions with the use of technology. North Sense implements sensors in the human body to create a deeper connection to space, geography, orientation.

Hacking your imagination

BBC experiments with a project called Visual Perceptive Media. A concept that focuses on personalising the user experience. Profiled data from phone applications are used to build a profile of the user and their interests. Everything is shaped in real time to suit a person’s personality. Think of narrative matters, colour grade, background music, the feel of drama and so on. Even though these developments do not seem harmful, there is another side that is extremely dangerous.

Reading people’s mind, as this technology does, could mean that it has the potential to gather other information. This could contain sensitive and intimate information about a person’s fears, health, prejudices, religion. This can be a threat for our privacy, because all our movements and thoughts are analysed and stored online. Nowadays hackers are getting smarter, faster and better. Consider data of your intimate thoughts that gets virally exposed. It is a frightening idea that all of your imaginary thoughts could be used against you. It offers a new dimension in security violations.

Tamara Bonaci states the following about this:

“Electrical signals produced by our body might contain sensitive information about us that we might not be willing to share with the world. On top of that, we may be giving that information away without even being aware of it”.

Technology is not yet capable to completely read our minds. However more technologies are getting available to get a better understanding of our thoughts. It is a futuristic idea, but not unrealistic. Man and technology are merging. Securing our thoughts is a real concern. The introduction of brain-computer interfaces to control brain signals (mostly used in medical scenarios) are increasingly used for non-medical applications. For example gaming. Hackers can insert images to your games or social media accounts and record your brain’s subliminal response to them. They try to discover the images you have a strong reaction to. It has the potential to manipulate and embarrass people. Brain-computer interfaces do not only register conscious electric signals that are used to control the game. The problem is that brain-computer interfaces are also picking up the subliminal signals. It gets access to all your thoughts. Also the ones we prefer not to share.

One day it will be possible to steal thoughts, manipulate them, and use them against us. Will it? Will technology completely dominate our thoughts? Probably not. Yet algorithms are already dominating our thoughts. They decide what we see. It is frightening how it can manipulate and persuade already how we see the world. We have to raise public awareness about the (future) effects of new technologies on our lives. How to use them and how to protect our personal information. Be aware of the dangers and the negative side effects. Besides this we have to start thinking about the near future ethical questions and privacy dilemma’s. It is already there, and if we do not implement a security framework to prevent our brain signals, it will be too late.

The video below shows you how it is possible to control someone else’ arm with your own human brain