Secure Data Storage... On Your Fingernails

opticsorg writes "Secure optical data storage could soon literally be at your fingertips thanks to work being carried out in Japan. Yoshio Hayasaki and his colleagues have discovered that data can be written into a human fingernail by irradiating it with femtosecond laser pulses. Capacities are said to be up to 5 mega bits and the stored data lasts for 6 months - the length of time it takes a fingernail to be completely replaced."

Fingernails

Ironic that this comes up at the same time as a poll about "least favourite finger" - now they can all be useful again.

Re:Fingernails

Boss: "Johnson, do you have that report yet?"
Johnson: "Sure do boss, it's right here!" *waves middle finger*

Re:Fingernails

Also gives a whole new meaning to 'ThumbDrive'

But what if

You bite your fingernails?

article text, you know it might go down!

Japanese researchers are using femtosecond laser pulses to write data into human fingernails.

Secure optical data storage could soon literally be at your fingertips thanks to work being carried out in Japan. Yoshio Hayasaki and his colleagues have discovered that data can be written into a human fingernail by irradiating it with femtosecond laser pulses. Capacities are said to be up to 5 mega bits and the stored data lasts for 6 months - the length of time it takes a fingernail to be completely replaced. (Optics Express 13 4560)

Fingernail storage

"I don't like carrying around a large number of cards, money and papers," Hayasaki from Tokushima University told Optics.org. "I think that a key application will be personal authentication. Data stored in a fingernail can be used with biometrics, such as fingerprint authentication and intravenous authentication of the finger."

The team's approach is simple: use a femtosecond laser system to write the data into the nail and a fluorescence microscope to read it out. The key to reading the data out is that the nail's fluorescence increases at the point irradiated by the femtosecond pulses.

Initial experiments were carried out on a small piece of human fingernail measuring 2 x 2 x 0.4 mm3. The writing system comprises a Ti:Sapphire oscillator and Ti: Sapphire amplifier. Pulses of less than 100 fs at 800 nm are then passed through a microscope and focused to three set depths (40, 60 and 80 microns) using an objective lens.

Each "bit" of information has a diameter of 3.1 microns and is written by a single femtosecond pulse. A motorised stage moves the nail to create a bit spacing of 5 microns across the nail and a depth of 20 microns between recording layers.

An optical microscope containing a filtered xenon arc lamp excites the fluorescence and reads out the data stored at the various depths. "We regulate the focus with the movement of the microscope objective," explained Hayasaki. "The distance between the planes is set to prevent cross-talk between data stored at different depths."

Hayasaki adds that the same fluorescence signal is seen 172 days after recording.

Although the initial experiments have concentrated on small pieces of nail, the team is now developing a system that can write data to a fingernail which is still attached to a finger. "We will develop a femtosecond laser processing system that can record the data at the desired points with compensation for the movement of a finger," said Hayasaki.

Author Jacqueline Hewett is technology editor on Optics.org and Opto & Laser Europe magazine.

Already got lah

I've already got optical data storage on my fingernails.

It generally tells me I've been rolling around in the dirt, scratching myself, and have had an inability to touch anyone of the opposite sex.

would be a good idea except

Talk about thumb drives.

Imagine losing your data when you hit your thumb with a hammer.

One way to be sure it's secure

...don't chew your fingernails.

Re:One way to be sure it's secure

That's not all. Now, in addition to having to worry about computer viruses, you're going to have to worry about nail fungus eating your data.

"completely replaced"

Capacities are said to be up to 5 mega bits and the stored data lasts for 6 months - the length of time it takes a fingernail to be completely replaced.

i admit i didn't read the article, but what about when the nail is partially being replaced?

Identity Theft

The article goes on: "Criminals are said to be stocking up on pliers and practicing their nail-pulling skills."

Breaking a nail

Damn it! I broke a nail. There went my passwords!

I love how they reported the results in megabits. So is that 5000000 bits? Whee! I usually do my data in bytes.... Divide by 8, no?

Re:Breaking a nail

Whee! I usually do my data in bytes....

I'm going to do mine in nibbles [wikipedia.org] if it's stored on my fingernails.

Question is:

Will it support raid-5-fingers ?

Bill Gates

Now we finally understand the full meaning of Bill Gates' quote "640K ought to be enough for everyone".

Long Nails

I'll bet we start seeing guys with all of their nails at 7 inches long. How else are you going to fit all of your porn onto them?

Re:Long Nails

Wouldn't that kinda defeat the whole point of owning porn?

Interesting Consequences

Things to think about:
Girls break a nail, loose last month's vacation pictures!
Would you back up some of your nails on others? Perhaps you could use your toenails as "offline storage"
Sounds like fingernail polish would "erase" the storage. So then could you write to them again? Are nails only WORMs?
What would the readers look like? Would you stick your hand inside your computer? Gee. Hope there isn't any moisture in there.

Long Distance Tax Overturned. You May Be Due a Refund. But Good Luck Getting It. [whattofix.com]

broke a nail?

Now we'll see men crying when they break a nail

"Why are you biting your nails?"

"Just defragmenting my disk"

Great, my data lasts until I work on my car

Great, so my data lasts until I work on something that chews up my hands.

Will this survive being GoJo'ed after I change my oil? Or being scraped up working in the yard?

What will the bit error rate be after I've painted the fence and scrubbed the paint off my hands?

So now I'll have to wear gloves anytime I do anything remotely physical? Better hope I don't break down and don't have my gloves with me.

Someone please pass me the nail file...

No, the other one...

has to be said

You can have my data when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.

Because if you took it while I was alive, damn, that would just be torture.

Re:6 months?

There should be continuous data loss as the nail grows. I would assume that the 5mb that they mention would be the entire nail, but part of that data would be lost as soon as you cut or bit your nails, or if they broke off.... Not really sure what you would use this for other than biometric identification, but you would have to be sure that the person did not allow the nail to grow out completely and then cut it off and use the nail as an overlay later.

Re:6 months?

Ay, but a 2d-bar code like this [staticfree.info] could easily be printed in the center of the nail, as to be less susceptible to damage. Keep a copy on the other hand, for backup! This could easily be used as an access key for doors, computers, etc; a person's password could be the barcode itself, or some combination (right index, followed by left pinky, or some crap like that) of them. You don't WANT those keys to stay around forever anyway, so nail growth would enforce password changes!