"Neural dust" opens brain-computer pathway to "spy on your brain"

One of the more unsettling tidbits that has come across my desk in recent days was waiting for me this morning, like a slap in the face with a wet loaf of salami:

...The system is officially called “neural dust” and works to “monitor the brain from the inside.” Inventors are attempting to overcome the hurdle of how to best implant sensors that can remain over the course of one’s life. Researchers at Berkeley Engineering believe they have found a novel way to achieve this:  

This paper explores the fundamental system design trade-offs and ultimate size, power, and bandwidth scaling limits of neural recording systems.

A network of tiny implantable sensors could function like an MRI inside the brain, recording data on nearby neurons and transmitting it back out. The smart dust particles would all contain an extremely small CMOS sensor capable of measuring electrical activity in nearby neurons. The researchers envision a piezoelectric material backing the CMOS capable of generating electrical signals from ultrasound waves. The process would also work in reverse, allowing the dust to beam data back via high-frequency sound waves. The neural dust would also be coated with polymer...

More at Source



Well, how do you like them apples? Here we are worrying about PRISM and Bonesaw and other hijinks from three-letter agencies, and now they are gearing up to read our minds straight from the source!

Of course, all this is still in the research phase (so they tell us, anyway), so perhaps I'm jumping the gun by getting worked up about this. We still have a little while before this newest insult to the rapidly-dying art of privacy makes its sordid debut.

But don't think they aren't trying. They've got the brain-trusts at MIT and Berkeley Engineering working away to make this nasty little nightmare a reality. And it looks like they are throwing everything but the kitchen sink at the project, among others working towards similar ends:

The investment in neuroscience has received a $100 million dollar commitment via Obama’s BRAIN project, while Europe has committed $1.3 billion to build a supercomputer replica of the brain in a similarly comprehensive and detailed fashion as the Human Genome Project mapped DNA.

Concurrently, there is massive long-term investment in nanotech applications via the National Nanotechnology Initiative 2011 Strategic Plan. This 60-page document lays out a projected future “to understand and control matter” for the management of every facet of human life within the surveillance matrix of environment, health and safety. Twenty-five U.S. Federal agencies are participating.

More at Source

Twennny-five Federal agencies? A hundred million bucks in the US and 1.3 billion in Europe for another nasty neuro-gig? Obama's "BRAIN" project?

Hold onto you hats, kids. And watch out for strange dust floating around....

Freaky stuff.

I think this, along with the news that Google has partnered with Nasa, to purchase the 2nd 512qubit quantum computer, is enough for me to realize that humanities days are likely already numbered (and not in the millions or hundreds of thousands), and that I was correct to think that this whole PRISM thing was more of a misdirection from the true advancements that breaking through these days.

Tick, tock, tick, tock... the transhumanists are the only players on the field, while the audience is drunk, and dozing off.

Now imagine some 16 year olds with a hand held ultrasound device hacking into your brain

We're getting too smart too soon.

reply to post by silent thunder

I had to click through a good many links to find a PDF of the original paper.

A major hurdle in brain-machine interfaces (BMI) is the lack of an implantable neural interface system that remains viable for a lifetime. This paper explores the fundamental system design trade-offs and ultimate size, power, and bandwidth scaling limits of neural recording systems built from low-power CMOS circuitry coupled with ultrasonic power delivery and backscatter communication.

As you can see, it is a purely theoretical exercise, and the purpose of the dust is not to spy on people's brains (we don't even have the beginnings of the technology we would to need to accomplish that) but to enable people to operate various gadgets using purely neural commands.

And no, it hasn't received $100m of funding under the BRAIN project, which is something completely different. The EU supercomputer project is also completely unrelated.

As one web site picked up the story from another, it got more sensational and paranoid. Finally some bright spark on a another conspiracy web site came up with the 'spy on your brain' headline.

Nothing to see here except the usual media whores trying to turn science into science fiction.

reply to post by silent thunder


If it works like an MRI, it is hardly going to be reading 'thought' just the neural responses to thoughts. Personally I can't quite see how this would have any invasion of privacy ramifications, the expansion of medical and scientific understanding though, definately.

I think that you can untwist your knickers

reply to post by silent thunder


I think we are fairly close to the new world odor permeating our brain.
And to those who have responded above with doubt about the desire or
the ability of a brain implant to read our mind, or know our thoughts,
your really not using your brain, pun intended.

If a brain implant is there to follow our command, it is reading our thoughts.

Google has similar visions for the grey matter.
www.independent.co.uk... lude-implanting-a-chip-in-our-brains-8714487.html

I oppose transhumanism.

Youtube "smart dust". it is nothing new. Multiple post on here also.
Nice of them to finally come out and admit what I thought they were really intending it's use for. Had to get the Wi Fi and smart meter up and running first...

reply to post by burntheships

If a brain implant is there to follow our command, it is reading our thoughts.

It is not. It is – or rather, it is visualised to be – transmitting a simple motor impulse. Not the same thing at all.

With brain mapping Shared data like below

Japanese researchers create images from thoughts using thoughts about images
www.engadget.com...



1 can only imagine what is really out there working now related to mind reading and imaging data...

Originally posted by Astyanax

As you can see, it is a purely theoretical exercise

You can correct me if I am wrong but most inventions start out as a theory.

and the purpose of the dust is not to spy on people's brains (we don't even have the beginnings of the technology we would to need to accomplish that) but to enable people to operate various gadgets using purely neural commands.

And planes were not invented to fly into buildings. I would like to remind you that some people referred to 9/11 as "a failure of imagination".

My gosh humans are pathetic spy freaks, what you want to know what i feel when im gettin it on, or peeing, or pooing, i think im going to resort to sending out wierd and unreliable braiwaves just to mess with these spy freaks. What you dont know yourselves enough so you need to collect unreliable information on others, come on science geeks, get a life, do something fun or cool or rebellious. Can someone please get some eggs to throw?

Originally posted by Ophiuchus 13
With brain mapping Shared data like below

Japanese researchers create images from thoughts using thoughts about images
www.engadget.com...

1 can only imagine what is really out there working now related to mind reading and imaging data...

I actually was really impressed by that, and the possible applications for people who may have difficulty communicating for one reason or another, but when I clicked on the link, it is from 2008. Where's the promised follow up publication of the full study?

Also, the wording of the article, seems to suggest that it is only any good as a process, if you know what images the subject has been exposed to, and, also, what does 'reconstruction' actually mean? Either way, the implication of the article that this could be used to 'hack people's dreams' is rather far fetched.

Ahh...found a better article...

In this kind of image reproduction, brain activity is regarded as a kind of code, and interpreting this code is known as "brain activity decoding." A previously developed method for decoding involves showing the subject a large number of images, then measuring the patterns in the bloodstream surrounding neurons in the visual cortex that result when each picture is viewed and entering these results into a computer program. When subjects are shown a new image, the resulting bloodstream patterns are compared with the prerecorded patterns to determine its shape. The drawback to this method is that images cannot be distinguished unless a similar one has been recorded for comparison. Discerning complex images through this method would necessitate prerecording an infinite number of patterns.

web-japan.org...

So, yes, it uses images processed through the visual cortex...so the first article was being a tad sensational, playing on peoples fears...just like the article in the OP

You know all those people warehoused in mental institutions for telling the doctors that they have a chip in their head that sends and receives messages? And, they might be saying they're from the future?

Yeah, well this project could get those sorts of results. Just add time travel and the people of the past before this stuff was a reality. Plus, now I don't like the psych establishment even more for not giving these implant victims a headscan to find a possible truth. And it goes into government cover-up conspiracies.

The governments and mega corporations would probably be using this already, to transport data, in espionage. I've read time travel reports about the future fifty years from now where implants are commonplace.

It has its purposes until the implantee goes into an MRI and the magnetics might wipe the data or turn that object into a magnetic blender for the brain. So is the MRI the future torture device for a dystopian nation? Then the mandates that regulate placement of these things, do you really want to invest in this?

Personally I think it's the same technology that the satanic aliens use to mobilize their engineered flesh suits, in a subspace world. Not nice to perceive. So the makers of this are just promoting it to the humans now, and these middlemen engineers are trying to consumerize it into profit. No thank you.