Human Neuro-Activity for Securing Body Area Networks: Application of Brain-Computer Interfaces to People-Centric Internet of Things

A former definition states that a brain-computer Interface provides a direct communication channel to the brain without the need for muscles and nerves. With the emergence of wearable and wireless brain-computer interfaces, these systems have evolved to become part of wireless body area networks, offering people-centric applications such as cognitive workload assessment and detection of selective attention. Currently, wireless body area networks are mostly integrated by low-cost devices that, because of their limited hardware resources, cannot generate secure random numbers for encryption. This is a critical issue in the context of new Internet of Things device communication and its security. Such devices require securing their communication, mostly by means of the automatic renewal of the cryptographic keys. In the domain of the people-centric Internet of Things, we propose to use wireless brain-computer interfaces as a secure source of entropy, based on neuro- activity, capable to generate secure keys that outperforms other generation methods. In our approach, current wireless brain-computer interface technology is an attractive option to offer novel services emerged from novel necessities in the context of the people-centric Internet of Things. Our proposal is an implementation of the human-in-the-loop paradigm, in which devices and humans indistinctly request and offer services to each other for mutual benefit.