12 Facts About Mark Gasson

Mark N Gasson is a British scientist and visiting research fellow at the Cybernetics Research Group, University of Reading, UK.

Mark Gasson is known for his experiments transmitting a computer virus into a human implant, and is credited with being the first human infected with a computer virus.

Mark Gasson obtained his first degree in Cybernetics and Control Engineering in 1998 from the Department of Cybernetics at Reading.

From 2000 until 2005 Mark Gasson headed research to invasively interface the nervous system of a human to a computer.

From 2004 to 2009 Mark Gasson headed a group of academics and industry professionals drawn from 24 institutions across Europe as part of the European Commission funded FIDIS project targeting various aspects of digital identity and privacy, in particular emerging technologies used for identification and profiling.

In March 2009 Mark Gasson had a glass capsule RFID device surgically implanted into his left hand.

Mark Gasson's smartphone was augmented with a reader so that the phone would only function when he was holding it.

Mark Gasson drew parallels with other implantable devices, such as cardiac pacemakers, which he asserted were vulnerable because of a tendency of manufacturers to adopt a "security through obscurity" methodology rather than robust security methods.

Mark Gasson argues that this development in our traditional notion of what constitutes our body and its boundaries has two notable repercussions: Firstly, it becomes possible to talk in terms of a human, albeit a technologically enhanced human, becoming for instance infected by a computer virus or hacked by a third party.

Mark Gasson is a proponent of human enhancement using technology implanted into the body, and argues that advanced medical device technology will inevitably drift to non-medical augmentation applications in humans.

Mark Gasson strongly argues that with technology implanted in humans, the separation between man and machine can become theoretical because the technology can be perceived by the human as being a part of their body.

Mark Gasson is an advocate of interdisciplinary collaboration and co-authors with social scientists, philosophers, legal researchers and ethicists to consider the wider implications of his field.