John Pescatore

I’ve never really gotten used to seeing headphone-wearing cell phone users wander around waving their arms talking into space. They look identical to the aluminum foil beanie wearing people I see in downtown Washington DC who generally do the same thing when protesting about CIA mind control or alien abductions. Now that more mobile phones are also MP3 players, I guess even more cell phone users will be wearing ear pieces, not just those who feel they are likely to have to make or take a critical phone call any second now.

But, maybe we can put this annoying trend to work for security – Infoniac reports that researchers at Elektra have figured out a way to send a tone to a headphone wearer and measure the acoustic response of that person’s ear canals. They claim each person produces a unique response, though I would have thought that with most headphone-wearing cellphone users the sound would travel in one ear and right out the other.

So, imagine that – if this really works (your mileage may vary, seems like many obstacles to me) your ear canal could be used like a browser cookie and any site you visit from your smartphone browser or any program you execute could beep your ear to find out who is out there, or at least if it has heard you before. Another good reason not to use those headsets!

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