Entry 3 - Technology on the Brain... and in it

     "True integration with the human body".  That's what Jonathan Leblanc, the head of developer evangelism at PayPal has started calling the next phase of technology.  A company like PayPal is a  perfect example of one that would be of prime hacking potential.  Millions of consumers use the website every day to make purchases, and trust that their credit card information is safe, saved behind a password that most likely has been used on every other web account they hold.  Because of this, the continual grow in trust of technology must be met with a continual grow in confidentiality measures taken.
     Already, bodily passwords like fingerprint identification have hit the scene and have received high praise as they become more and more conventional.  But would you believe that these methods are already being considered antiquated?
     The move now, is to allow for internal functions to unlock devices, creating "passwords" much more difficult to hack.  Leblanc mentions methods like heartbeat, vein recognition, ingestible devices, and even brain implants in article 1.
     Another reason to move away from typed, one word protection passwords is because of the rising cost of cryptography.  And even as encryption advances, hackers learn at an accelerated rate, making it a constant struggle to stay ahead in password protection.
     Zhanpeng Jin, the assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Thomas J. Watson School of Engineering and Applied Science at Binghamton University, has been using these methods for some time now. "Essentially, the patient's heartbeat is the password to access their electronic health records," (2) he says, speaking about his patients and the intense data encryption his their files are locked behind.  The electrocardiograph (ECG) of a patient is taken as a part of their file to check on their condition, but at the same time their signals are used as an encryption device.

Relation to Computing: 
    This form of password protection is very much so still on the rise, and as the technology gets more and more complicated, the computing behind it does as well, even more so.  In examples such as the ECG unlocking method, patients may have a shift in ECG due to factors such as sickness or age, and it is up to computers to work around this.  Coding an ingestible object to take power from stomach acid is also a challenge that has yet to be tackled.  There are many advancements to be made in this field, but none will be possible without the programs to back them up.

References:

1. "Heartbeat Could Be Used as Password to Access Electronic Health Records." ScienceDaily.      ScienceDaily, n.d. Web. 03 Feb. 2017.

2. Mizroch, Amir. "PayPal Wants You to Inject Your Username and Eat Your Password." The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones & Company, 17 Apr. 2015. Web. 03 Feb. 2017.