Cortical steganography

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11557227-B2
Application number	US-202016775581-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jan 29, 2020
Priority date	Feb 27, 2019
Publication date	Jan 17, 2023
Grant date	Jan 17, 2023

Abstract

A machine and its modules assist in steganography for an animal. A steganography module applies behavioral sequencing to create a cover message and a hidden message to covertly pass information from one animal to another animal, with the information embedded in an individual's brain. A visual module references the steganography module to cause a sequence of visual images on a display screen to guide a motor sequence of an individual as the cover message as well as detect and communicate a timing of the individual's motor sequence, relative in timing, to visual images in the sequence of visual images being displayed on the display screen, in order to train in the cover message and hidden message. The hidden message is then extracted at a destination from a sensor monitoring the individual's sequence of motor actions.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A machine to assist in steganography for an animal, comprising:
a steganography module configured to use behavioral sequencing to create a cover message and a hidden message to covertly pass information from one animal to another animal, with the information embedded in an individual's brain,
a visual module configured to cooperate with the steganography module, where the visual module is configured to cause a sequence of visual images on a display screen to guide a motor sequence of an individual as the cover message and communicate with a feedback module to detect and communicate a timing of the individual's motor sequence, relative in timing, to visual images in the sequence of visual images being displayed on the display screen, in order to train in the cover message and hidden message, and
where an offset in the individual's motor sequence, guided by a training module configured to cooperate with the steganography module, conveys the hidden message of the steganography, which is not accomplished by passing digital information in a memory circuit or via a wireless signal, but rather the hidden message is stored inside the individual's brain and then extracted at a destination from a sensor monitoring the individual's sequence of motor actions, where the training module and the visual module cooperate to provide any of i) visual images, ii) audio cues, iii) haptic feedback and iv) any combination of these, to guide the sequence of motor actions and its timing for the individual to learn the cover message and the hidden message.

2. The machine to assist in steganography for the animal of claim 1 , further comprising:
where the training module is further configured to cooperate with the steganography module and a timing module, to cause the sequence of the visual images on the display screen to guide the motor sequence of the individual to learn the cover message and the hidden message, where the training module and the visual module cooperate to utilize a device selected from a group consisting of i) a joystick, ii) a moving image projected on a display screen, iii) an application on a smart mobile device, iv) an application on a desktop computing device, v) a guitar, and vi) any combination of these, to visually train the motor sequence of the individual.

3. The machine to assist in steganography for the animal of claim 1 , where an audio module communicating with the training module is configured to make the audio cues to cue and communicate to the individual the offset in the timing of the individual's motor sequence, relative in timing, to the visual images in the sequence of visual images being displayed on the display screen in accordance with instructions from the training module.

4. The machine to assist in steganography for the animal of claim 1 , further comprising:
a timing module,
an audio module, and
where the steganography module is configured to cooperate with the timing module, the visual module, and the audio module to cause a biasing of a timing of the motor sequence of the individual with the audio module making the audio cues, where the audio module is configured to make the audio cues relative to an appearance of visual images from the visual module being displayed on the display screen, and then using the motor sequence as the cover message, with the relative timing errors in the actions of the motor sequence relative to displayed images as the hidden message.

5. The machine to assist in steganography for the animal of claim 1 , where an audio module, the visual module, the feedback module, and a timing module are configured to cooperate to train such that the hidden message is stored inside the individual's brain; and then, to be interpreted from the individual's sequence of motor actions as captured by the sensor at the destination.

6. The machine to assist in steganography for the animal of claim 1 , where the visual module, the feedback module, an interface device that can detect motor interactions as the sensor, and a timing module are configured to cooperate to decode and decipher the hidden message in the sequence of images and the relative timing errors in the individual's sequence of motor actions as captured by the sensor in response to the sequences of images.

7. The machine to assist in steganography for the animal of claim 1 , where the machine is configured to use a moving image on a display screen to visually display the sequence of visual images to the individual's brain and then an audio module is configured to make sounds to induce the relative timing differences for the sequence of images, and then also use haptic feedback to reinforce an offset in the timing to assist in getting the correct offset in their motor sequence in relation to the displayed visual images.

8. The machine to assist in steganography for the animal of claim 1 , where a feedback module is configured to use any combination of i) a camera, ii) the individual's interaction with a touch screen, iii) a keyboard, iv) a device with an accelerometer, and v) any combination of both, as the sensor, to capture an actual sequence the individual's relative timing errors across their motor sequence relative to the displayed images in order to detect and decipher relevant bits of the hidden message.

9. The machine to assist in steganography for the animal of claim 1 , further comprising:
where the feedback module is configured to use both a camera and a touch screen, as the sensor, monitoring the individual's sequence of motor actions, in order to monitor the individual's interaction with a touch screen to capture their actual sequence and then communicate this feedback to the steganography module to compare a recorded offset to a desired offset and i) a matrix or ii) a vector to decipher what is the hidden message within the cover message.

10. A method to assist in steganography for an animal, comprising;
configuring a steganography module to apply behavioral sequencing to create a cover message and a hidden message to covertly pass information from one animal to another animal, with the information embedded in an individual's brain,
configuring a visual module to reference the steganography module to cause a sequence of visual images on a display screen to guide a motor sequence of an individual as the cover message and communicate with a feedback module to detect and communicate a timing of the individual's motor sequence, relative in timing, to visual images in the sequence of visual images being displayed on the display screen, in order to train in the cover message and hidden message, and
where an offset in the individual's motor sequence conveys the hidden message of the steganography, which is not accomplished by passing digital information in a memory circuit or via a wireless signal, but rather the hidden message is stored inside the individual's brain and then extracted at a destination from a sensor monitoring the individual's sequence of motor actions, where the training module and the visual module cooperate to provide any of i) visual images, ii) audio cues, iii) haptic feedback and iv) any combination of these, to guide the sequence of motor actions and its timing for the individual to learn the cover message and the hidden message.

11. The method to assist in steganography for the animal of claim 10 , further comprising:
configuring a training module to cause the sequence of visual images on the display screen to guide the motor sequence of the individual to learn the cover message and the hidden message, where the training module and the visual module cooperate to utilize a device selected from a group consisting of i) a joystick, ii) a moving image project

Assignees

• Stanford Res Inst Int

Inventors

• Sanchez Daniel
• Connolly Christopher

Classifications

• G09C5/00 Primary

  Ciphering apparatus or methods not provided for in the preceding groups, e.g. involving the concealment or deformation of graphic data such as designs, written or printed messages · CPC title

• G06N20/00

  Machine learning · CPC title