Demo: user identification and authentication with capacitive touch communication

Today's identification and authentication mechanisms for touchscreen-enabled devices are cumbersome and do not support brief usage and device sharing. To address this challenge, this work explores a novel form of "wireless" communication that exploits the capacitive touchscreens which are now used in laptops, phones, and tablets, as a signal receiver. Using a custom built hardware token, in the form of a wearable ring, we show a proof-of-concept system that transmits a user identification code to the mobile device through the touchscreen. This mechanism works without any modification to the hardware or the firmware of the mobile device.