Invasion of the bodyhackers

As we discover new ways to plug into our brains and bodies, we’re going to have to come to terms with a new kind of criminal. In an article in Wired, computer security expert Tadayoshi Kohno, claims that if we don’t start thinking about the dangers, our increasingly complex neural devices will be vulnerable for attack by mindjackers, bodyhackers and all kinds of neuropirates (the neologisms are my doing). You wouldn’t want to lose control over that prosthetic arm, would you?

Think this is far fetched, some organisms already pull off this villainous trick in nature. The parasite Toxoplasma gondii tricks its host, an infected rodent, to be strongly attracted to cat urine. Why? So the parasite can complete its lifecycle in the feline's stomach.

Hey, maybe those voices in your head are real after all.

The Cyborg

A Brainy Matter

The last bastion of human superiority, the biological brain, is quickly being encircled by technology and science. Its workings no longer baffle us and as Steven Pinker put it in his must-read book ‘How the Mind Works’, what was once a mystery is now a research problem.

Here are two articles that announce the end of an era:

The first offers a profound insight into the intricate workings of our synapses.

The second paves the way for subtle and precise communications between machines and the human brain.

For millions of years, the contents of our skulls represented the most sophisticated intellectual device around. Time to prepare a farewell party.

The Cyborg

Give us a hand

The ways in which we can interface with machines and computers is rapidly expanding. Case in hand (no pun intended): AnthroTronix just released its first commercial version of the AcceleGlove, an affordable, programmable glove that records hand and finger movements. The outgoing data can be manipulated (open source) for any imaginable use: gaming, rehabilitation, training, 3d virtual environments, you name it.

Our most defining body part just went virtual.

The Cyborg