I'm looking at possible research ideas for grad school(to help determine which schools to apply too) and some ideas I've had are all giving me trouble. I'm receiving a degree in Computer Science with a Security concentration, alongside a Psychology minor. I'm interested in pursuing advanced (En/De)cryption techniques, Artificial brains, and Computer thought.

I've read up on the different algorithms used, computer ethics, Turing tests, Psychological side effects, etc of most of these topics and need y'alls help putting all of this knowledge into some semblance of code.

Encryption/Decryption is simple to both ways. I'm more interested in a software/hardware combination to code breaking. (This is where the satellites come into play) I want to research how to decrypt satellite transmissions(or encrypt if what little I know about satellites is true and the fact no data is sent encrypted because the latency issues would force the packets to not send).

Neural networks - Plotting all points in the brain and tracking(using any path finding algorithm) what happens when a person feels scared, happy, aroused, etc. How someone with an injury, disease, disability, can have these paths re-routed in a way for them to experience something they wouldn't normally be able too, or to help re-program a 'broken' brain. (What distinguishes a serial killer from a PETA member neurologically, etc)

Computer thought - When does AI pass the point of artificial? How is two people talking in person any different from two people talking virtually? Can computers become self-reliant, self-aware, etc. Something way more advanced than a hard coded decision tree.



Sorry if this comes off a little off-topic but this fora is full of very intelligent people, programmers, and computer scientists and I felt like this would be the best place to ask this in order to receive a wide range of insight.