Optocoupler mechanism for software and data security

6 min readJul 9, 2022

Data are individual facts, statistics, or items of information. Data also can be described as a set of values of qualitative or quantitative variables about one or more persons or objects. The first data records were from cave paintings that indicate information about hunting.

One of the oldest cave paintings was found on Indonesia’s island, Sulawesi. Paintings depict a buffalo called an anoa, facing several smaller human-animal figures on the right. It is believed that paintings are 44,000 years old.

Humans used symbols before Sumerians invented the writing system in 3200 BCE. Data were used to record transactions commercially for the first time by marine merchants in the Mediterranean Sea using slay tablets. These data were used for the number of goods to carry and the buyer’s identification while sailors were sailing to different ports. Data were transported among transported goods. Later, the number of food stocks as agricultural records started to be recorded and used to plan the near future to prevent societies from starving. Merchants using data commercially were also securing data because these data needed to be protected from unauthorized change, disruption, or misleading. This protection work is one of the first kinds of data protection.

Opto-Coupler working diagram. Emitter and detect sections are isolated from each other.

An optocoupler or optoisolator electronic integrated circuit components are widely used to ensure individuals working with huge different voltage sections that are supposed to be isolated in electronic applications. Optocouplers can be used on their own as a switching device or with other electronic devices to provide isolation between low and high-voltage circuits. This isolation is for protecting electronic circuits and devices. Optocouplers also transmit analog or digital information between different working circuits, safely protecting information from surges. Transistors’ chemical and physical materials that have ideal limits restrict transistors’ direct usage in very high voltage applications.

There are three kinds named basic, slotted, and reflective optocoupler.

Basic: Using as a switch on high voltage applications.
A- Slotted: Using as a presence/end-of-tape/liquid detection and limit switching.
B- Reflective: Using as a tape position detection, engine-shaft revolution counting, speed measurement, smoke, or fog detection.

A- Slotted sensor and B- Reflective sensor

Optocouplers are famous for their usage in medical equipment such as electroencephalogram (EEG) that can detect sleep disorders, head injuries, brain infection, brain hemorrhage, Alzheimer’s disease, degeneration of brain tissue, metabolic conditions that affect brain tissue, hormonal conditions that affect brain tissue, certain disorders of the central nervous system, stroke, brain tumor, and brain death.

Software is organized programming code that allows devices, including but not limited to computers, to work in a flow and make them interact with requests by either humans or other machines. Software typically has security mechanisms to protect its usage and data access. Different software types need various security mechanisms. For example, embedded systems, which have limited use and access, need less security than other systems because of their restrictions.

Devices sometimes work with network connectivity. Any software that uses device connectivity needs additional security to restrict unauthorized access and data access while protecting the system’s intended/expected behavior. An intranet is a computer network designed for a specific group of users, while the internet doesn’t have this limitation. Therefore the internet needs more security protections. Many security protocols work over the internet, such as HTTPS. The letter ‘s’ of HTTPS abbreviation stands for ‘secure’. Modems and routers, the device’s gate to the network, also have their security mechanism. Accesses and data changes on these gates are not physically restricted. Multi-layer security is provided for the device’s connections when the machine works under an operating system.

Data applications have an additional layer of security while they are accessing data. The data storage layer also needs its security mechanism provided by the software to check data’s correctness and access log. In some data applications, some functions are not present or controlled by the data management system. Functions’ usage is restricted to certain users of applications. For example, in some banking sector’s data storing applications, database systems don’t allow system users to use the delete or update function. Instead, only the insert (new record) function prevents data loss. This function restriction will enable data to be reversible at any point, open to be investigated later, yet there is a resource cost, both data allocations and processor usage.

Recording every transaction with all their detail, additionally storing more than one copies with geographically distributed, is widely used by the service sector. Geographic distribution of data can help the prebuilt disaster recovery mechanism work well. Transactions records are not designed to work with them efficiently because they might not keep data. Transactions need additional comparison and checking before applying changes to data. Storing every record as a new record, even with the cost of data resources, is sometimes a better option than storing transaction data which is needed to work on reaching original data.

Data are usually sensitive. For example, data in the medical field could cause death, in the military can cause a deadly war, and in commercial can cause bankruptcy with loss of reputation. Checking data’s correctness or corruption needs massive effort and sophisticated security systems.

Stanislav Petrov, a former Soviet military officer, on Sept. 26, 1983, considered signaling the launch of several U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles as a false alarm in an early warning facility outside Moscow and refused to launch an imminent nuclear attack on the U.S.

The lack of information needed to check data correctness could cost huge. Recording the wrong time of record could be very destructive. Analyzing usage data without checking their correctness could lead decision-makers to plan wrong, and they might use their resources false of this incorrect data. For example, electric suppliers in the United Kingdom get weekly TV program schedule lists with their popularities to prevent a massive energy consumption spike. This enormous spike happens because many British people will tap on the power button of their kettle at the same time before their favorite shows start on the TV. In the 1990s, 26 million British people watched England vs. West Germany football match with electrical demand equivalent to 1,120,000 kettles, 2,800 megawatts.

On the 4th of July 1990, the football world cup semi-final between England and West Germany played. The UK’s electricity demand was a historical record at 2,800 megawatts.

Well-designed software uses multiple layers to isolate its mechanism. Using allowances and restrictions to create naturally unexpected behavioral relation traps that raise alarms on each layer is inescapable. Allowing usage of just some functions to users, restricting some functions to prevent overuse, and logging functions records that didn’t achieve their designed absolute success in the process are needed to ensure security mechanisms work uninterrupted.

If users of the system are human, creating an Irrelevant Intention List(IIL) fed by incidents that happened in history, which is updated frequently, can be helpful. For example, The recurrence of “logging in, withdrawing £1, and logging out” could be considered an irrelevant intention and can be saved to IIL to prevent further incidents.

The presence detection mechanism can detect potential unwanted data, while the reflective data mechanism can detect corrupted data using prebuilt requests. For example, every data should have its creation, last modification, and, if applicable, deletion time. Isolation of time from incoming data in requests could help compare the time of data with IIL in some connectivity applications.

Less effort on designing, less comfort in life…

Data conduct people’s days, weeks, months and years. Data should be taken care of well and checked frequently. One traffic signal’s corrupted data can cause your death. Lack of knowledge of the correctness of data could be fatal for societies. Software and data storage mechanisms should have unusual activity indicators for software usage and data changes.

References:

[1]: https://www.jameco.com/Jameco/workshop/Howitworks/what-is-an-optocoupler-and-how-it-works.html

[2]: https://www.nutsvolts.com/magazine/article/optocoupler-circuits

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroencephalography

[4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opto-isolator

[5]: https://www.etechnog.com/2019/04/optocoupler-types-applications.html

[6]: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03826-4

[7]: http://todayscircuits.blogspot.com/2011/06/optocoupler-devices-and-application.html#.YsWN8HbP2Ul

[8]: https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/conditionsandtreatments/eeg-test

[9]: https://www.drax.com/power-generation/7-of-the-biggest-tv-moments-in-uk-electricity-history/

[10]: https://thefsa.org.uk/news/the-carbon-bootprint-can-we-make-football-greener/

[11]: https://apnews.com/article/b9de4e3c9a5949e4a27e8ea601059f25