WITHDRAWING MONEY WITH GOOGLE GLASS

Google Glass not only just alarm privacy activists. Rather, they also enable applications increasing data protection. Computer scientists demonstrate this by combining Google Glass with cryptography methods and novel techniques of image processing to withdraw money at cash machines or to read encrypted documents.

          IT experts celebrate as a new milestone is that it makes privacy groups skeptical. So far, few people have access to the prototype to test how it can be used in daily life.

WHAT MAKES IT POSSIBLE?

The futuristic-looking device consists of a glasses frame on which a camera and a mini computer are installed. It depicts information in the user's field of vision via a glass prism that is installed at the front end of the right temple.

Step 1: The customer identifies himself to the cash machine.

Step 2: It uses the key to encrypt the one-way personal identification number (PIN) and seals it additionally with a "digital signature," the digital counterpart of the conventional signature.

Step 3: The result shows up on the screen as a black-and-white pattern, a so-called QR code.

Step 4: The PIN that is hidden below is only visible for the identified wearer of the glasses.

Step 5: Google Glass decrypts it and shows it in the wearer's field of vision.

Although the process occurs in public, nobody is able to spy on the PIN.

CANNOT INTRUDE:

To spy on the PIN while it is being entered would also be useless, since the PIN is re-generated each time the customer uses the cash machine. An attacker also wearing a Google Glass is not able to spy on the process, either. The digital signature guarantees that no assailant is able to intrude between the customer and the cash machine as during the so-called "skimming."

SEVERAL PERSONS WITH GOOGL GLASS:

Only the customer is able to decrypt the encryption by the public key with his secret key. As long as this is safely stored on the Google Glass, his money is also safe.

 Several persons all wearing Google Glass can read the same document with encrypted text at the same time, but in their fields of vision they can only see the text passages that are intended for them.

OTHER USAGE:

This could be interesting to use in large companies or agencies that are collecting information in one document, but do not want to show all parts to everybody. Google Glass is expected to enter the American market this year.