Despite how complicated we attempt to make our passwords, they still remain extremely vulnerable. That could soon be changing as the concept of “pass-thoughts” becomes a reality thanks to the Berkley School of Information. A team, led by Professor John Chuang, has created a way to make this concept a commercially viable reality using the NeuroSky Mindset.

The NeuroSky MindSet is the big brother to the NeuroSky MindWave that was featured controlling an RC helicopter at this year’s CES. The MindSet is an affordable device that reads brainwaves called electroencephalograms, or better known as EEGs. The problem that researchers of “pass-thoughts” experienced before is how expensive and invasive EEG readers can be. Realistically no one is going to want to install probes into their skull just to log onto Facebook, or check their email. The MindSet solves that problem at an affordable cost of $199, but Professor Chuang and his team had serious doubts about a single-channel EEG signal being strong enough for the computer to learn individual brainwave patterns. Surprisingly to the Berkley research team, it worked quite well. By customizing tasks and user’s authentication thresholds, the team was able to reduce error rates below 1%.

Researchers measured participants’ brainwaves as they attempted several types of mental tasks such as focused breathing, imagining a repetitive motion of a sport (swinging a golf club, or shooting a free throw), or imagining singing a song. It turned out that personalized tasks that were the most enjoyable were also the most effective. This is good news considering that for “pass-thoughts” to become a reality it will have to be an enjoyable exercise for users to want to do it on a daily basis.

Although most people might not need high-security systems in place, this does provide an extremely affordable and effective biometric user authentication option for those that do. If a person or a small business previously wanted this level of security they would need to install fingerprint or retina scanners, and the expensive price tag made that an unrealistic option for most individuals. Thanks to the hard work of this Berkley research team, a high-end security system could be cheap and accessible to anyone.