In 2017, the French neuroscientist Yves Frégnac focused on the current fashion of collecting massive amounts of data in expensive, large-scale projects and argued that the tsunami of data they are producing is leading to major bottlenecks in progress, partly because, as he put it pithily, “big data is not knowledge”. “Only 20 to 30 years ago, neuroanatomical and neurophysiological information was relatively scarce, while understanding mind-related processes seemed within reach,” Frégnac wrote. “Nowadays, we are drowning in a flood of information. Paradoxically, all sense of global understanding is in acute danger of getting washed away. There are indeed theoretical approaches to brain function, including to the most mysterious thing the human brain can do - produce consciousness. But none of these frameworks are widely accepted, for none has yet passed the decisive test of experimental investigation. It is possible that repeated calls for more theory may be a pious hope.
In environments where networks or devices are rated to handle different levels of classified information, the two disconnected devices or networks are referred to as low side and high side, low being unclassified and high referring to classified, or classified at a higher level. This is also occasionally referred to as red (classified) and black (unclassified). Access policies are often based on the Bell-LaPadula confidentiality model, where data can be moved low-to-high with minimal security measures, while high-to-low requires much more stringent procedures to ensure protection of the data at a higher level of classification. In some cases (for instance industrial critical systems), the policy is different: data can be moved from high-to-low with minimal security measures, but low-to-high requires a high level of procedures to ensure integrity of the industrial safety system. The concept represents nearly the maximum protection one network can have from another (save turning the device off). One way to transfer data between the outside world and the air-gapped system is to copy data on a removable storage medium such as a removable disk or USB flash drive and physically carry the storage to the other system.
Efforts are made inside the BCI community to create consensus on ethical guidelines for BCI research, development and dissemination. As innovation continues, ensuring equitable access to BCIs will be crucial, failing which generational inequalities can arise which can adversely affect the right to human flourishing. The ethical considerations of BCIs are essential to the development of future implanted devices. End-users, ethicists, researchers, funding agencies, physicians, corporations, and all others involved in BCI use should consider the anticipated, and unanticipated, changes that BCIs will have on human autonomy, identity, privacy, and more. Recently a number of companies have scaled back medical grade EEG technology to create inexpensive BCIs for research as well as entertainment purposes. For example, toys such as the NeuroSky and Mattel MindFlex have seen some commercial success. In 2006 Sony patented a neural interface system allowing radio waves to affect signals in the neural cortex. In 2007 NeuroSky released the first affordable consumer based EEG along with the game NeuroBoy.
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