Slashdot Mirror
The Eyes Have It
Feelgood writes: "Yahoo is carrying a Reuters report that thermal imaging may be used in airports to detect liars. Shouldn't be a problem that 1 out of 4 liars will get away and 1 in 10 innocents will be incorrectly nailed." There's a UPI story about the lie detector possibilities and a blurb in Nature. From the UPI article, the inventor has a good appreciation of the ethical considerations. Will anyone else care?
Can liars really be detected by thermal imaging? I think they're lying.
A solution to the problem with music today
My buddy Ben Frankline summed this up the best: They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
www.lonseidman.com
I get flushed and my heart rate picks up if I'm having my pulse taken in the doctor's office, to say nothing of being subjected to a lie detector knowingly. This is gonna get completely out of hand.
I would like to point out that while Aldritch Ames was in the process of getting a whole lot of US agents in the Soviet Union killed by ratting them out, he continued to pass his polygraph tests.
There's no such thing as a lie detector. Polygraphs are voodoo, and so is this.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
...politicians around the globe should be subjected to lie detector tests at regular intervals :P
On the impact of seemingly acceptable success rates on large-scale systems here
I would think that religeous fanatics would be the types of people that would most likely bring bombs and guns onto the plane, maybe I'm wrong thats just my thought. But religeous fanatics don't strike me as the types of people that lie detector tests would work on, polygraph or heat. Simply because they are wired slightly different in the head if you get my drift. They don't care if they die or if they lie to a nonbeliever. So if this supposition is correct and lie detector tests such as this won't work on such people, then what is the use of hte device in airports? to catch drug smugglers?
OK, 1 in 10 get A false postive. In a plane full of 280, that means that 28 people are going to be detained....I think not.
I guess if this was used as part of comprehensive screening process it might be useful....anyone who fails the test has to walk past a bomb sniffing dog or something.
Of course, the terrorists are going to be training to pass the lie detector test, so it probably won't help catch them.
Open Source Identity Management: FreeIPA.org
I understand all the complaints about privacy, but when was the last time you implmented a security measure on any computer that you expected to be invincible? Does that mean we should give up on computer security just because it occasionally inconveniences us?
They that quote Benjamin Franklin on liberty and safety deserve neither.
I've read that the ordinary polygraph can be manipulated via biofeedback training and other methods.
Knowing how to beat these methods could be invaluable to criminals and terrorists, particularly if the output from these tests are used as a substitute for common sense.
Tech Public Policy stuff
So how is this really different from what happens already. Currently Police or other security personnel look for odd behavior including rapid breathing and other signs of nervousness. An eye in the sky then usually follows that person. If anything this is just another tool of detecting nervous people. This just seems like a new tool for better detection instead of relying on non-empirical data (intuition).
on the other hand, many moons ago i had done a few rather illegal things in airports. interestingly enough, those are some of the rare occasions i have been exceedingly calm in airports. in other words i would likely pass when i should fail, and fail when i should pass. what a stupid system.
likely this wont get implemented, but if it does i would imagine they would use still be wary of anyone who passes it, and take those who fail with a grain of salt.
flesh eating ants records
if there's a 1 in 10 chance some innocent passanger will get nailed, i sure hope they got their apology speeches well prepared
.. who wouldn't be pissed if they got nailed like that? and with a 1 in 10 chance they will, there'll be a whole lot more pissed people in the world
i mean seriously
- mescaline - its the only way to fly -
Look into the lens, now please tell me in single words only the good things that come to mind about your mother...
JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
Considering the absolutley abysimal record of the polygraph in controlled testing (references are extensive) this is just something else we don't need. Relying on an "automatic" system is just asking for more "false faith" in a security system that doesn't work.
The article states that it's proven as effective as the existing polygraph - which is to say its reliability sucks.
Just what the world needs. Another knee-jerk deployment of a technology "to make us feel better." I suspect it'll be as effective as the National Guardsmen standing on the end of the big bridges - only far more intrusive if you happen to be one of those 10% false positives.
Never attribute to malice what can as easily be the result of incompetence...
Jon Katz, where are you?
clear sign of a highly paranoid society.
It's not just a product of a paranoid society... in fact, I would go so far as to assert that your assessment is rather incorrect when speaking in generalities. Reality seems to suggest that the public's paranoia is directly linked to the intensity of the situation as portrayed by the news media. (The people are mostly "Amber Grain" and the media is the wind... and together, we get Amber waves of grain...)
The reality is that we live in an extremely LITIGIOUS society and if it can be shown that "they didn't do enough" to prevent this or that from happening, it makes one or several rich and happy widows/ers... not to mention rich and happy lawyers.
I believe that is where the ridiculous measures are coming from -- legal CYA activities, not paranoia or an interest in protecting public interest. Since WHEN has any corporate entity ever been interested in public good?
Stephenson's got the right idea about how something like this would be used - marketing droids would flip over getting 80% honest responses in their focus groups - it beats anything they see currently. Somebody's probably making plans for the mall kiosk right now.
A technology like that could be usefull for collecting tolls on the airports. It could be used to find the ones that try to cheat the custom.
Jan
I suppose congress will now move quickly to ban thermal imaging systems on the capitol building grounds...
"Good things don't end with eum, they end with mania or teria." - H. Simpson
Shouldn't be a problem that 1 out of 4 liars will get away and 1 in 10 innocents will be incorrectly nailed.
Most metal detectors probably let 1 out of 10 get away and incorrectly nail 1 out of 4. Hasn't stopped them from using it as one of many screening methods.
how many ridiculous rules DOES it take to reduce any given system to the point of non-function?
because we all know nobody is ever tense/upset at the airport...
"In theory, blood should rush to the eye area of liars, researcher James Levine said, while the innocent remain coolly and calmly unaffected."
uh huh, right!
It's time for a new Continental Congress.
That is a gathering where citizens decide on a new constitution. Sort of a constitutional convention.
The government is, in this case and many others, taking responsibility for things it has no right to control.
Either we must stop the government from violating the SPIRIT of the 1st and 4th amendments, or we make a new Constitution without these freedoms.
We do have the right to abrogate these freedoms, to voluntarily give up our right to free speech and against search and seizure, but we can't give them up and "swear to uphold and defend the Constitution" in the same breath!
Goat sex free since 2001
The 20-25% false negative rate is not bad (for a supplemental security tool) but the 10% false positive rate revealed in the corresponding newscientist.com article is excessive.
Yes, they will... but how?
and...
This comment has been a knee-jerk reaction. We now return you to your normal thread.
"...America's great minds of today, teaching America's great minds of tomorrow. Poor bastards." -- A Beautiful Min
Result: 1,000,000 innocent people incorrectly tagged as "liars". 8 bombers correctly tagged as "liars". Even with an order of magnitude improvement in accuracy, 100,000 innocent (easy blushing) people, 10 bombers. Of course, if they just use it to pick out people to do a detailed x-ray/explosives inspection of the bags, then it might help, supplemented with additional random searches of course. Unfortunately, most airports don't have any bomb-detection equipment installed yet, so only a hand search by incompetent security is available.
Let's face it. To get real aircraft security is going to cost a hell of a lot of money. Current airport security is a joke. Poorly thought out rules being implemented by semi-trained personnel with the cheapest possible equipment. We can't incrementally improve the existing security structures and expect that to work. In the end, we're all going to have to pay for bomb-sniffing machines/dogs properly trained security personnel, and have the whole thing organized and tested (continuously). Then I think it would be possible to make getting a bomb on board a plane at least two orders of magnitude harder than it is now. Of course, I'm among the few that think that flying is still safer than driving to the airport.
There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself
-Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye
There has to be serious compensation when the test fails. That is, when I go to the airport and I fail whatever "test" they give me and I'm "detained" for a few days, I want some serious cash as a result. Let's say $100,000 or more. That'll make Big Brother think twice about testing me.
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This isn't even pre-alpha. That's it. I need to cobble together a ragtag gang of laid-off dotcom friends and start a security software company. Let's see...
Polygraphs? No, that's been completely discredited, except for small-town police and EDS pre-employment screenings.
I know.. Phrenology!
'Excuse me, Mr. Jones, to get on this plane, you will need to insert your head into this grey metal box. No, it won't hurt, it's just a measuring machine.
maybe not, as stated, the system picks out 75% of the liars, and 90% or the truth tellers. So, the rest get a non-positive reading.
This means that depending on the group you get, the amount of people not identifyable will have proportional deviations.
So, if there are the same amount of liars as truth speaking people, (say 100+100) then there will be 35 unidentifyably truthtelling persons in that group, or 17.5%. Of this group, only 10 will speak the truth, roughly 30%, but over 70% of this group will lie!
Although, if you think of yourself as a positive person, and you think 90% of all people don't lie, then take 900 out of 1000, of which 90 will not be identified, but also 75 out of the remaining 100, so then less then 40% will be liars of the unidentified people.
oh well, as long as we have no scientific description of the method, it's just statistics I guess, and those are all lies anyways.
Or gee, the poor man's way of getting around this, buy a soda before you go, right before you go, you unobstrusively rub ice from your drink around your eyes and face, then wipe off the excess moisture.
-- Dan
But there is another more interesting possibility to consider - if you want to catch a liar in this circumstances, there would be a better chance of catching a liar if you look for those that pass the lie-detector's test.
Just think about that.
Folks, let's calm down here before we get too rational. This method is only a "field test." What makes us think we will be prosecuted based on a blush? There would be further interrogation, testing, and harrassment (if it even goes that far) before charges were brought up on anyone using this method.
While I don't think this is very reliable; polygraphs give MUCH more "feedback" based on factors other than a blush, I don't believe this system is going to be used as a sure sign someone is guilty (especially with it's accuracy ratio).
void women (int money, time_t time);
My doc used to joke that I had what was called White Coat High Blodd Presure. I was so nervous standing in the physicians office that when my blood presure was checked by all apearances I was only seconds from stroking out.
.) are bound to trow a device such as this for a loop.
I think it was the caffine . . . but actually people like me who are pretty much afraid of any authority (doctors, lawyers, cops, soldiers, etc . .
I already get searched every time I try to fly I could walk through a metal detector in boxers and set the damed thing off) Now it looks like I could face the prospect of a long interogation just for being afraid that those ungainly looking mosters we call airframs are gonna fall out of the sky?!?!
And is this going to provide any increase in security? At All?
People learn to lie well (See above Doctors, Lwyers, etc . . . "This won't hurt but a bit.")
Oy.
\Drew National Data Director, John Edwards for President
Eyeglasses with a thermal reflective coating (commonly called a hot mirror). The coating transmits visible light normally, but reflects infrared! I wonder if I can sell them through ThinkGeek...
"Good things don't end with eum, they end with mania or teria." - H. Simpson
1: Line planes with bacon, or, more humanely, put wilber the famous flying pig in the terrorist-class section of the plane. (Which raises an interesting, if tacky, question.. Since they won't be using those frequent flyer miles anywhere else.. do terrorists fly first class?]
2: Strip search everyone from young, suspicous Abu Bin Confused to old lady Theresa Boobsahangin.
3: Stun guns under every seat.
4: Seperate section for screaming, annoying kids and their apathetic parents. (Okay, I admit.. this is more for my sanity).
5: Bomb-sniffing dogs. Mean ones. With the metal-tipped teeth, inlaid with gold, "F" and "U" on each canine.
6: Corrolary to 2, Naked flights, (seperated by age class for sake of sight)
7: Alien-esque automatic weapon. Pilot puts plane on defensive mode, gun shoots anyone not seated and buckled. Not feasable, but a fun idea.
8: Did i mention naked flights?
9: Flood cabin with nitrous oxide, chloroform, ether, or some other anasthetic gas. Only fresh air comes through pilots mask - Pilot breathes or everyone dies. Not being a scientist, i have no idea how those gases would act at that altitude.
Tyrell: Is this to be a capillary dilation test? Involuntary reaction of the iris? The so called Blush Response?
Deckard: We like to call it Voigt-Kampf for short.
If they're smart they will use this the way that do/should other technologies. It should be used to help them spot POTENTIAL liars. It should help them figure out who to watch more closely. It should not be the be-all-end-all test for such a thing. This way that one liar will still (hopefully) get suspected, and most of those wrongly flagged "innocents" will be realized as such. But to use this without thinking would be like giving random people drug tests where everyone ate poppie-seed muffins before hand and then watering down ever sample with a gallon of water. It just wouldn't be usefully accurate. But to use it to aid judgement instead of replace it would be the only correct way to do it.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Polygraphs are considered about 75% accurate, which sounds good until you consider that flipping a coin is 50% accurate.
...)
If they can really catch 3 out of 4 liars, and "avoid" 9 out of 10 innocents,
(which is what the article claims inventors claim) then it's much better than 75%.
If 1 in 100 people are "liars" then this would be nearly 90% effective.
Which again sounds good until consider that identifying everybody as innocent would be 99% accurate.
On the plus side, this might make wearing eye shadow a crime under the DMCA.
Polygraphs can be beat simply by putting a thumb tack in your shoe,
and stepping on it during the "little bad" questions and not during the "big bad" question.
(saying that probably makes this post a violation of the DMCA
I'd bet that this device can be beat by a similar method.
What is the machine really measuring?
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Here's the deal folks:
All passengers must board the plane butt-naked after recieving a body cavity search. This way you wont be able to carry bombs or weapons on the planes. Much safer for everyone. And as a double-plus, there are already barf bags there incease you witness some not so eye-friendly sights while onboard.
Let's assume that one out of a million people is a terrorist and will lie when tested with the device. This means that in a group of a hundered million people, 100 liars exist.
If the device identifies a liar with 75% success rate, 75 out of the 100 liars will be found. On the other hand, if the device misidentifies 10% of the truth-tellers as liar, 9,999,990 out of the 99,999,900 truth-tellers will be misidentified.
Therefore, under these assumptions, if the devices indicates someone as a liar, the probability that he's actually lying is 75/(75+9,999,990), roughly 0.000749995%.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/polygraph/maschke. html
Just have one of those PA systems call out..
"You there, I see you, we know you are a terrorist... we know you have a bomb, we are coming to get you"
Anyone who's body temperature rises must be a terrorist and be getting nervous
Just repeat this before every flight leaves, bam 100% security
What's the point of moderating?!
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If you are interested in this topic, I suggest that you look into malingering. Detection of deception has been well-researched in cognitive psychology. I actually spent a few years working in a laboratory where people we researching this topic.
One of the coolest things I read about was a study where people would be hooked up so that event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were detected for malingering. In effect, your brain gives you away. For example, if you saw a video with some information and then you were asked about it, your brain does a little "hop" which can be detected with ERPs. It didn't matter how well you lied or how convincing you were, you would be detected. Supposedly, the methods works extremely well. However, you can't expect people to accept this. Would you like to have an electrode cap put on your head?
(Ah, you have to love science.)
By the way, you might want to check out these resources:
The Journal of Credibility Assessment and Witness Psychology
Forensic Psychology and Forensic Psychiatry
Polygraph Law Resource Page
How to Download YouTube Videos
Gee, they had a sample group of 20 people.
The technique failed on 2 out of 8 "crooks" and bagged 1 or 2 innocent people out of 12.
These numbers hardly invoke my confidence in their system.
Now imagine 250 people waiting to get on a plane, one of them a lying, evil terrorist.
You get 25 false positives and a 75% chance of catching the (one) terrorist. What technique are you going to use to get that 0.75 person out of the 25.75 pissed off people that you acused?
-D
Metal detectors are based on sound, foolproof objective science.
If they "incorrectly" nail you, that's because their sensitivity was set too high and they WON'T let anyone get away.
If they let someone get away, they won't incorrectly nail you.
Metal detectors don't incorrectly nail and let people get away at the same time.
How the fuck do you come up with your statistics?
"First we brought you stories about how we smuggled weapons through airport security. Then we gave you detailed attack plans speculating how terrorists might attack next. Now we're going to tell you how to fool the lie detector test. Tune into [insert primetime news show here] tonight."
Just in case it's not unreliable enough.
Terrorist: Yes
Security guy: Well, the machine says you're right, but it would say that for 25% of liars, so i'd better double-check. Are you a terrorist
Terrorist: Yes
Security guard: Thanks sir, move along.
Free Java games for your phone: Tontie, Sokoban
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This sounds like it works the same way as a polygraph test -- if you have a physical response to lying, basically caused by a panic response then the machine can detect it. If you're a sociopath that doesn't have that response...nada. Polygraphs don't detect your guilt or innocence, they detect your reaction to the question. I'm reasonably sure that if I shot someone, but felt good about having done it, that I'd be able to sail through a polygraph (or this test) with flying colors.
If the paranoia continues we'll all be flying naked without carry-ons in a few months. (Perhaps the airlines would issue something similar to hospital gowns...) On the plus side, being surrounded by naked people might help me with my phobia of flying. I've flown since 9/11 and I'm still more worried about a wing falling off than I am about terrorists...
Wouldn't it be great for a candidate to show up at a press conference to find one of these things, perhaps along with a breathalyzer, sitting on the podium?
-- I have monkeys in my pants.
As this CNN Article states "High School diploma not necessary for Airport Screeners".
Show up at the Airport with a fever and leave the Airport with a body cavity search.
http://www.kubuntu.org/
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I haven't had a chance to read the article yet, but it's really really disturbing.
Part of the problem is that the controls typically used in these studies don't aren't much stress. This stress tends to set off machines uneccessarily. Thus, in realistic scenarios, when innocent individuals are under a great deal of stress, the false positive rates tend to increase dramatically, from poor to abysmal.
I suspect a similar phenomenon occurs with this technique. For instance, in the Nature blurb, the final paragraph comments that startle responses elicit the same heat response around the eyes. Startle responses are typically used as a measure of fear in many studies, and so the final paragraph is essentially saying people who are afraid in the autonomically aroused sense also have this heat reponse.
I'd be interested to read the article and know how if stress--especially fear-stress--was engendered in the controls. Just asking controls questions in the lab is very different from being asked questions by intimidating armed security personnel in a foreign country.
You ask somebody if they are going to hijack the plane. If their face lights up on the monitor, you give them a full search. If their face doesn't light up on the monitor, you base your decision on other factors. Would you prefer that we racially profile everyone? I know I would, since all the perps are young Middle Eastern males, but that will never happen because there are too many PC wackos in this country who think that searching people who fit the profile is the moral equivalent of lynching people on a hot Summer night in Mississippi.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
to the camera, as in, "I'm so FREAKING annoyed that I'm being subjected to this nonsense."
Why do I think it's nonsense? Have they tested this on any Al-Qaeda members? Remember - these people have gone through extensive training, and there's no reason tha such training in the future can't include something that addresses this kind of interrogation. Another possibility- what if there was a drug whose effect could render this test completely useless?
Sure it can be beat easily. Just have everyone who goes thru it think of having wild sex with someone else waiting in line. That should bring a blush to most people's cheeks, just because that's one thing that happens when your brain starts to get ready for sex. When 80% of the people test positive, they will realize how useless the device is.
No, I don't know exactly how well some of these would work, but I figure if I can come up with more than 5 ideas off the top of my head in a few minutes, then how hard would it be for anyone seriously bent on beating this system to find and perfect a way of doing so?
Here goes:
1. Buy a thermal imaging camera of sufficient sensitivity so that you can see your own reactions, and learn how to modify them (feedback, negative or positive, does allow one to learn).
2. Know the questions being asked in advance. Practice giving rote answers to them so you're no longer thinking about the meaning of the question when it's actually asked, much like we no longer think about how exactly we tie our shoes.
3. Practice lying and learn not to give a damn about the fact that you're lying. In essence, practice becoming somewhat sociopathic. (Gee, shouldn't be too much of a stretch for a terrorist!)
4. If the expected answer is "no" (are you a known or suspected terrorist?), before answering, think of a question in your own mind to which the correct answer is no, and ask it of yourself before audibly answering "no".
5. Throw the baseline off before you even get close to the camera - get drunk enough to bring a flush to your entire skin but not so drunk that you are obviously impaired.
6. Like 5, get drunk, but don't stop at 'non-obvious'. Make it very obvious that flying scares the b'jeez out of you, and the only way you (especially after 9/11/2001!) and the only way you're getting on one now is if you're suitably numbed/happy.
7. Inhale a little powdered black pepper up the nose just before walking up to answer questions. The sneezing fit should throw off your reactions nicely. Blame it on allergies or a cold.
8. Take an emotion levelling drug before you get anywhere near the airport - the type that leave you not really caring about much. Surely you know a friend or two who has some psych-based drugs in their regimen of prescriptions...
9. Make like you have a toothache. Dig something sharp into your side through a pocket (a sliver of sharpened wood? A pencil?) to cause pain while being asked the questions such that your body's reactions are different.
10. Make like a person with a mild (or severe) disability, either mental or physical. Our social training has engrained that these people are "invisible", and that they CERTAINLY should not be unduly hassled, as that's cruel. An interesting physical choice might be "deaf mute", where you hand over a card asking the person to write what they want to say or ask on the small pad of paper you conveniently have with you. You write your answer as a response. So much for the instantaneous flush of heat from the eyes... You'll be looking down at a piece of paper, and will have time to "cool down".
Okay, not only five points, but ten. Much like physical locks only keep non-determined innocent people out of where you don't want them, this method will only catch nervous, embarassed, unprepared people, and thus is nothing more than the illusion of security. *sigh* It doesn't stop the really determined people, and those are the ones you wanted to catch, darn the luck.
I've never been on a plane before. In 24 years of existance, the only time I've ever been inside any aircraft was when they were on the ground at air shows or something similar. So what does the new lie detector thing mean to me?
Since I've never been on a plane, I'm going to be hella nervous. I mean, with all the airline disasters I've seen on TV, compounded by the events of September 11th 2K1 and subsequent threats by radical Muslims, I'm goinig to be shaking in my boots. Literally.
Yeah, they might let me slide since (a)I'm an American, (b)I'm whiter than the whitest white man, and (c)I'm agnostic, so I don't have any religious ties. But will the initial hassle be there? Will it cause an incident? And if it does, can I sue the hell out of the security firm that operates these things?
I'm willing to bet that around 60% of people who fly post-9/11 are nervous anyway, whether they've flown before or not. Granted, the fear of a hijacking or worse shouldn't slow us down, but the fear is still there, even in small doses. And those eye scanning cameras are going to detect that. 1 in 10 innocents? I say more like 6 in 10.You'ld think that with all the millions they're going to spend on airport security they could come up with something that would weed out the bad sheep from the flock of passangers without risking the hassle and wasted time they'll end up with by pinpointing the wrong people...
Blog Prophyts - Right On, Man
Not to mention the form layout and typography, which appear to be straight out of Noah's ark, and, more to the point, impede the comprehension and speedy completion of the form when compared to more modern document layouts.
Whomever designed that form needs to be taken out and beaten over the head with a design guide.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
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First, we have a Terrorist. They do something terrible. The people are scared, they scream 'save us from this terror' to their leaders the politicians. The politicians must do something because the people demand something be done. Whatever the politicians do, must satisfy at least 51% of people who are responsible for them continuing their employment (the voters).
So, you tell the 51% that the only way for them to be safe is to oppress the other 49%, for it is amongst them that Terrorists lurk.
Now we have a thermal imaging system that detects fluctuations in blood flow around the eyes. If the blood around your eyes drifts to far from the centre of the bell curve that is perceived as 'normal', you must be a Terrorists or other danger to society.
The people are happy (well 51% of them) because their leaders have made the world safe again. The politicians are happy because the people (well 51% of them) have employed them for another term.
But how do we label the 49%. That's easy. They are part of what is now called 'Acceptable Collateral Damage'. So, we can call them 'Collaterals'.
Aahhhh democracy, what a great system to live under.
I wish I could think of a witty Sig. Sigh!
The success rate of 75% and the false positives at a level of 10% need not represent the actual success (or failure) rate that can be observered.
Since this experiment deals with the psychological behavior of an individual, the prior knowledge of being subject to test may change the statistics completely.
A person, even if he/she is innocent may start feeling uncomfortable just by knowing that he/she is under scrutiny and may trigger a false positive. On the other hand, I don't think it would be too tough for a hardened criminal to control his/her feelings.
The sample set for the experiments is improper. It is improper because it contains only simple people who are lying about a mannequin. It does not contain people who are trained to control their feelings. A system like this should be tested under the presence of adversaries who are trying to fool the system.
Before deploying such a system, before spending may be billions of dollars on it, I think it should go through some careful analysis, like: *How easy, it might be to defeat the system?
*What would be the success rate when a person is aware of being subjected to such a test?
*Are there any chemicals available, that can be applied on your face to fool the thermal cameras?
*Is the behavioral makeup of fanatics and hardened criminals (we are trying to catch them, right?) same as that of people who were subject to this experiment?
-- Srikant
Here are real stats.
In summary, accidents -- fatal and non-fatal -- are on the decline in the airline industry. There were six accidents for every 100,000 hours of flight time... and that includes all those piddling little one- and two-seater private craft.
Take a look at real aircraft, those that operate on schedule and carry more than a handful of people, and the rates are very impressive: 0.4 accidents for every 100,000 departures. (It is a little unnerving that the rates are on the increase, though!)
Finally, at the bottom of the last table, we see that there were only five suicide/bomb crashes during the eighteen years between 1982 and 2000. There were 147,577,440 departures. That's an attack rate of sweet fuck-all (0.00000339% for those that really need the number).
In short, there appears to be no real good excuse for spending a pile of money on increased security measures. The risk-cost factor just doesn't justify it. Yes, there should be better security measures; but, no, they shouldn't be costly.
IMO, YMMV, IDFM (I don't fly much).
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
But combine it with microexpression detection and voice stress analysis (Which your financial institution may already use) and you might just have a winner.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Remember, stress is a matter of the body, but a lie is a matter of the mind. They're correlated in many people, but by no means identical. Just think, do you know any smooth-talking liars (i.e. ones displaying minimal stress)?
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
This will require everyone in the airport to be on their best behavior. Thermal imaging will be able to 'see' when you pass gas. No more blaming it on that poor sedated dog in the travel-kennel.
Very interesting!
--Rob
Any paranoid slashdotter will turn into a flaming torch.
:P
After all, big brother is coming for them and all.
*snicker* Polygraphs. Oh yeah. Really accurate there.
YOU cant board the plane with anything on your person. Period. if you cant live without your laptop or gameboy then tough cookies. You are flying to get there in the fastest possible manner not for a pleasure cruise. Have everyone completely frisked on the way in... no belts,etc... if you have special needs notify the airport a week ahead of time or at the time you purchase the ticket and they wil deal with it. Finally require everyone be seated and buckled in and if someone unbuckles they get assulted (Yes you have to ask to go to the bathroom... sorry but a bunch of buttheads ruined it for everyone else)
Very simple rules. if you want to make it any safer, require everyone to disrobe and wear medical gowns on the flight (wont stop the random iraqui with an uzi up his bunghole) and/or require everyon to ride in straight jackets and tied to the seats.
or better yet, obvious armed sky marshalls. wearing bettle gear and kevlar, and holding a fully automatic 12 gague shotgun. something that will either hollow out or rip the head off of the attacker and splatter it very messily over everyone. Basically make the guy look like an unstable navy seal that is itching to blow someones head off and eat their liver.
Everytime I shake my head about someone flying, they keep telling me that the terrorists aren't going to attack by the same method with all the security additions.
:P
First off, the security additions absolutely suck. There's a story on the news every other night about someone bypassing them.
Secondly, right on. Most airline companies are using dated technology, and archaic planes. Equipment is constantly ill maintained, and FAA regulations regarding this are either nonexistant or unenforced.
I think that the only airline I'd fly on would be Jet Blue, solely because they're all new. Their planes aren't going to crash suddenly because the kneffler pin is ten years over its lifespan.
(Of course, I much prefer cars. I have a think about, in life and death situations, having some measure of control over what's happening.)
Don't fly; the moment they institute this measure.
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> Yahoo is carrying a Reuters report that thermal imaging may be used in airports to detect liars.
Screw that! Put these cameras where they are really needed!
Imagine how much fun it will be watching Court TV the next time OJ strikes.
I know this wouldn't be admissable in court, but it sure would make for some good watchin'
I'm no bio kid but I bet there are plenty of drugs that could be used to regulate body temperature and hence defeat thermal imaging.
From the UPI article, the inventor has a good appreciation of the ethical considerations.
Ask him about his appreciation of the ethical considerations with the machine switched on...
"erm..."
:)
If, for whatever reason, (and I can think of a half dozen or so right off the bat), the authorities want to detain you without legal cause, then this easily allows them that power.
"He made the machine go beep. Drag him off. Search his ass!"
Sure, it's just another little black box in the airport; just little tiny tear in the umbrella of social freedom, --people will hardly notice it! --But, I say! That brolly has got an awful lot of little holes torn in it these days. . .
And somebody already made the point: Polygraphs don't work very well, but that doesn't matter either. People believe. "Ooh. Did you hear? The machine went 'beep' for that young man. I never would have thought him to be a terrorist! Just goes to show how little you can trust people these days. . !"
-Fantastic Lad
...to add a little humor to our lives. think of the countless anecdotes that might be generated by a plan like this. it would have to be that the detector results won't be taken as gospel, and if you check out after a short double check, you can fly. rare is the anecdotal aspect factored into the use of new technology in inappropriate ways.
There is much better technology out there.
The two items we are searching for:
Guns, knives, cased explosives are all metal. A metal detector when used properly should be sufficient for these items.
Non cased explosives, plastiques, etc... these are easily detectable using hyper spectral analysis. This is being done now from sattelites. Information gathered from these devices are so accurate that they can determine what type of crop is growing by examining the properties of vapors being given off. There is absolutely no reason that this cannot be employed on a smaller scale. It could easily be adapted, and I can't understand why it is not. For one quick example of what you can do with this technology look here: click me!
However, I believe there is plenty of cost justification on a large increase in airport security.
First, a fully loaded 747-400 can do many orders of magnitude more damage than your average SUV or greyhound bus (as was well demonstrated last year). It makes a pipebomb look like a shaken beer can. Airport security is neccessary the way that airforce airbase and nat'l guard armory security is neccessary. And yes, terrorists could build a chem. bomb or something but that takes money, time and expertise. With a plane, Airbus/Boeing and your airline have built, serviced, fueled and prepared your missile for you. The 9/11 attacks probably had the highest damage to cost ratio of any modern attack. Especially when you consider the secondary economic effects on the U.S. and the world as a whole. Which leads to my second point.
Second, if these fanatics are allowed to further erode confidence in air travel and security in general, the economy as a whole will suffer. For some of us, this may simply mean fewer games for our Playstations, but for alot of the world, a world-wide reduction in economic activity means political unrest, hunger, disease, increased poverty etc. Which will probably lead to more fanatics everywhere.
There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself
-Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye
If you're not familar with his plan of putting in "brainscan" devices in every airport, here.
Scary, isn't it? The Taliban have won their real war: turning this world closer to a 1984-esque planet.
Zodiac Survey
What about menopause?
vorgriff
Shouldn't be a problem that 1 out of 4 liars will get away and 1 in 10 innocents will be incorrectly nailed.
So you don't like the S/N ratio implied. What numbers would make you happy ? 1 out 100 liars get away; 1 in 1000 innocents incorrectly accused ? Higher ? Because if you're looking for something with no Type I and II errors, you will be looking forever - ANY system you can imagine will ALWAYS falsely accuse innocents and miss the guilty.
First, a fully loaded 747-400 can do many orders of magnitude more damage than your average SUV or greyhound bus (as was well demonstrated last year). Okahoma City did a nice job of disproving that. In fact, I would wonder what would happen if McVeigh's bomb had gone off at the WTC (or better yet, one for each). I suspect that you'd see exactly the same amount of damage...probably with a higher death toll.
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A terrorist may be more likely to lie. Then again, probably not.
If you can spend one day without lying to yourself or others, you get a cookie. There's my plan for world peace.
Here's another plan: Give the fuck up. Everybody lives, You've lied twice today. You should lie more often.
When the airport bitch asks you the purpose of your visit tell him you're off to fuck a penguin and he's welcome to join you.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
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Oh joy. I guess nobody remembered that it's well documented that many people have an exaggerated startle response. It's not a matter of fear, or drug use, or fatigue, or anything else other than some messed up wiring in our brains.
Note the word "our" - I know about this because I have it. If somebody knocks on my door, and I'm expected them, I'm fine. If someone knocks on my door and I'm not expecting anyone, my heart is pounding (elevated pulse and blood pressure) for an hour.
I, and others, can often compensate for this by becoming hyperaware of our environment. If you catch movement out of the corner of your eye, you aren't as startled when they suddenly make a loud noise. But in a busy environment like an airport, we're always stressed out.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
It doesn't really change things for a single male Arab like myself. Everytime I go through airport security (even before Sept. 11) I'd get harassed. This is especially true when travelling through the US (again even before Sept. 11).
I found generally that lying helps you get through quicker. Instead of saying, "I'm here to visit a friend," saying things like "I'm here to see the statue of liberty," seems to get you by faster with less problems.
I guess I'll have to practice my lying.
The slider contains much metal,
aswell as the barrel.
--mikeeusa--
I'm sure the current airport security staff, the one where 25% didn't graduate from high school, will have no trouble mastering the subtleties of psychological interrogation.
Those stats look bearable until you realise that it probably catches the same people as false positives every time. If implemented, it would probably make 5-10% of the travelling population's lives hell.
Yes, I've heard of a Glock, in fact I've owned one (A model 19), Unlike you... .
Because if you had owned one, or even handled one, you would know that the barrel, and many other parts are made of metal.
But lets just assume for an instant that the Glock was undetectable.
Don't you think that the brass cartriges and LEAD bullets would show up oon a metal detector?
Oh? Forgot about that, huh?
An AOPA member...might've known! Weren't you guys the bastards that railed against installing mode-C transponders because despite the obvious safety enhancement (preventing mid-air collisions between large jets and some fuckwad that wandered into restricted airspace) for no good reason other than you figured that it might prevent you from exercising what you felt was your god-given right to fly whenever and wherever the hell you felt like?
Leave your plane alone? I'm staying the hell away from all of you...idiot kamakazes and clueless techno-spook wannabees and taking the train!
You're using her as bait, Master!
Shouldn't be a problem that 1 out of 4 liars will get away and 1 in 10 innocents will be incorrectly nailed.
:-) However, we're talking about lies here, not pee pee. There ain't a more accurate test.
1 in 20 wee wee tests are either false positives or false negatives. So, if it's a false positive, they retest the sample with the more expensive gas chromotagraphy mass spectrometry to validate it. At least, they are supposed to.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
Screw the airlines, I want one of these: http://www.moller.com
Seriously, does anyone else think the solution to this mess is to forget about the airline industry altogether? Soon after the Hindenberg disaster, that form of transportation went away. Seems that nobody really likes to fly on airlines anyway, they are cramped, expensive and waste so much time on the ground.
This past century, Cars supplanted the railroad as the best way to go medium to long distances, So wouldn't it make sense that personal air travel would largely replace large airliners as the preferred way to travel. The rich already take their own planes wherever they want without having to go through searches or long waits in security checks. And small craft don't carry enough fuel to be a threat like Sept 11. They would still need to stay out of restricted airspace, but they do that now.
We really just need the FAA to get out of the way of travelling freedom and let more people take to the skies.
Or maybe America is too afraid to lead in this area anymore, so maybe other countries should take the lead on this. Underdeveloped countries could probably improve their economies by orders of magnitude by developing their economies around fast, cheap, reliable, point to point, small air transport.
Most terrorists don't act independently. This might not be entirely ineffective if used as a suppliment.
This isnt going to be used as a courtroom evidence this technology is supposed to help decide which people get closer scrutiny when going through security checks
If you stutter and look down when you go through customs youre not going to be shot on the spot but since youre doing things which make it statisticaly more probable that youre lieing then youre going to be looked at closer.
Likewise with this device the group which sets off a positive result will contain more liars than the group which goes through undetected, so it makes sense to pay more attention to them.
--aiee
Out the other side, and with both hands, they have been busily chinking away at this and that, getting wee the peepul (sic) to agree that giving up our liberties is a Good Thing (tm), since it will protect us from Those Evil Terrorists (tm).
Bull!
Another poster already quoted Ben Franklin, and he's right. If the sheeple want to give up their freedom for that mythical promise of safety, fine. They deserve their forthcoming enslavement. I guess I'll have to emigrate, though, because I bloody well won't raise my son in a police state!
Now that I've vented a bit - and before the Feebies come crashing my door in - here's what I really want to say about airport/airline security:
We already have it.
The best security you can have began on 9/11 in the skies over Pennsylvania, when a handful of passengers stood up, and a plane went down---way short of its target. In every incident I'm aware of since that day, any attempt at violence on board an American airliner has been met with the same response: The passengers and crew have taken the scuz out.
Listen up, folks, the terrorists changed the hijacking rules on 9/11, but not in the way they expected. It used to be accepted that a hijacker would not hurt anyone (in US hijackings, that is), and once he got where he was going, everyone else could fly off unharmed. Not anymore. Now you expect to die, so hey! might as well take Bubba with. I applaud the change.
The point should be obvious; you can't prevent an attack by someone who is willing and even determined to die. But you can do something about one happening in your presence. All it takes is for Americans (I can't speak about folks from other countries) to get off their arses and take some personal responsibility for things. Get over this decades-long idea that "it's someone else's responsibility." What dreck.
To sum it up: don't demand I surrender my freedom because you lack the balls or eggs to defend yours, and want give up your rights to Big Gummint. So grow up, get over it, and quit asking Big Brother to make it all safe and warm. It never was, and never will be, so just deal with it!
In freedom,
Chuck the Righteously Pissed
P.S. Before you mod this down, or decide it's offtopic, you might consider that the conflict between our freedoms and some alleged security is really the issue underlying all debate about the so-called security measures we've seen proposed this Fall.
-------------- /bin/laden
rm -fR
They already exist: Corso Enterprises. Combine these with the chemical freeze-packs (bend them, chemicals mix and they get cold), and you wouldn't need to worry about keeping them cold ahead of time.
Of course, with all the post-9/11 hysteria I guess I wouldn't be too surprised to see them try to implement something this ridiculous, but lets just keep in mind that they haven't decided to do that yet (of course, I do not advocate that we stop arguing).
The first ever Ultimate Frisbee video game: here (now
I know why they're doing it, though. Any cop with three years on the street (or two in a corrections setting-jail deputies and corrections officers learn to read people FAST) will be more accurate at reading people and detecting deception or aggression than any machine. But we didn't become cops in order to hand out boarding passes.
Counselors and Pdocs also deal in the same thing-they need to interpret their patients' body language.
But a polygraph isn't all that accurate. It measures any number of variables and has a skilled technician operating it, and it's not that accurate. One camera, measuring one variable, and read by someone untrained, just isn't going to pick out the "agrarian reformers" with death wishes.
When I came through Heathrow the other week, my girlfriends handbag was openned by security and a dry cloth was wipped over everything in her bag. The cloth was then placed on what I think was a sniffing machine, that I guess sniffed the cloth for explosives.
Hopefully Americans will one day live with and understand security? I mean, when those terrorists came into the United States and filled in those visa's, why didn't they tick the "yes, I am a terrorist" box?
"Shouldn't be a problem that 1 out of 4 liars will get away and 1 in 10 innocents will be incorrectly nailed."
/Dread
Irony too suble for non-techies, so just imagine:
In Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, a medium sized european airport, there are 450.000 annual flights in and out. Say each plain carries about 250 passengers. An even 1m passengers in/out a year.
In Amsterdam alone we are going to point to 300 misidentified Lyars per DAY.
What do we do with them? Slap em on the wrist? Make em write "I shall not lie" 1000 times?
Gr
It's all about increasing your chances of coming to a correct conclusion and any tool that furthers that should be included as part of your repertoire.
And yes, how you with false positives is important. But it's actually better have have a high rate in this case. My worst nightmare would to be come up as a false positive in a test that had an extremely low rate of false positives. You'd never be able to convince anyone of your innocence. Actually, I think you should deliberately introduce false positives if the false positive rate is too low just to keep people from making an automatic assumption just on the basis of that one test.
Unless that person is you! Just think about it: With a plane with a 100 people on board, 10 will be incorrectly flagged as "liars", and what's worse, the person behind the desk who is going to decide whether or not to let you on board or have you put in front of a military tribunal and shot, will have no clue as to where to start. The only thing they have is that you blushed when asked a specific question. I bet you were just looking down her ..., you bastard! :-)
There is no way you can deal intelligently with all those false positives (contrary to a metall detector, where you can find out very fast exactly what caused the alarm).
Besides, take the scary option that they will actually record who were detected as liars, you'll get an incredible amount of data then to be cross-checked with a lot of other databases, and make a lot of people subject to criminal investigation wrongly.
Besides, I really doubt they will catch any terrorists this way. They only way you can achieve security against terrorists is to eliminate the desire to commit terror, and you can only do that by emphasizing human rights for everyone.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
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All security methods (face recog./x-ray/metal) could be replaced with these simple questions:
Would you like a car/transport to be arranged when you reach your destination?
'no' - they are terrorists, they don't plan to reach their destination
'yes' - they are terrorists, but clever ones who are trying to trick you.
Would you like window or isle?
'isle' - obviously they plan to get up during the flight = terrorists
'window' - they have explosives in their shoes/bodies and don't want people to see = terrorists
'somewhere near the front' - they get air sick
Did you pack your cases your self? Did anyone give you any gifts or packages?
'yes and no' - they live alone - obviously terrorists
'no' - their cases could be contaminated with explosives/anthrax etc...
and last but not least: Do you have any un-aurthorised material as specified in the sign above?
'no, i have no knives, butane canisters, biological hazards, firearms, or explosives' - is the correct answer, however, if they memorised this then they are obviously terrorists, if not, they could just be liers
'yes' - call security, but do it with the silent alarm
Remember, all passengers are potential terrorists and should be treated as such. Its not the airlines' or governments fault that this happens, its the passengers.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
This has got to be the most assinine thing I've ever heard... It will fail for the same reason that polygraphs do - pathological liars will not be detected...
After reading the article, I don't think that they were picking up liars - but rather people who couldn't stop laughing... Come on now - stab a mannequin, then rob it of $20 and someone says "did you do it?" - FUCK YES I DID IT!!! No wait, I didn't do it... No really... hahahahahahahaha...
And the control group - they probably heard it through the walls... More bullshit to try and get the sheepel used to being scanned...
Just say no...
Bayes' Theorem
To make a long story short. This machine has a false positive rate of 10%, and a false negative rate of 25%. Assume 1% of airport travelers are liars. If an airport scans 100,000 travellers, there will be 1000 liars, 750 of which will be caught. There will be 999,000 truth-tellers, 99,900 of which will be false postives.
So, the machine will beep on 100,650 people, only 750 of, or 1.342% of which will actually be lieing. Talk about the boy who cried wolf!
NT
The busty young security dame with the big guns asks you a question and you are just happy to be there? Or reverse, the big buff Mr. Pecs ask you something? How exactly does arousal differentiate from lying? Well, I know most of us will lie when aroused if we think it will help, but still...
Never confuse volume with power.
After listening to the daily tripe dished out by the Taliban leader of how many planes he shot down that day, at the start of military action, and the bile spewed out by Saddam and Usama over the years, it's clear this device is useless. These people don't even *know* when they are lying! To them, there probably is no such thing as lies, unless it's said by a westener.
So, compared to that, a 1 in 10 chance of false positive doesn't seem so bad...
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Maybe they were embarrassed.
Did you stab a mannequin?
Um . . . .
And did you then rob that mannequin?
that's going to be a dozen or so per plane. All it means is that they might have their bags sniffed by dogs, or get their shoes scanned, or something like that. The government doesn't have time to detain and interrogate 1/10 of all airline passengers.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
So this new "hot eyes" detector will be accurate as the current Polygraph machine, eh?
Let me explain what a Polygraph is. The Polygraph is a medical device originally created for taking a patients 1. pulse 2. blood pressure 3. breathing rate 4. amount of perspiration on the skin measured by electrical resistance. The device failed when marketed to doctors. They found it too time consuming and complex to use. It was then repackaged as a "Lie Detector" based on flimsy biological responses to lying. The device is not an EKG, and no one can read your thoughts. No one can tell if you are truly lying and no one can make you "tell the truth" (sodium pentathol, a local anaesthetic, does not make anyone tell the truth).
The true purpose of a polygraph is not in the test itself, but rather the response to the fear of it. The person to be tested is briefed about how accurate the device is and brainwashed into intimidation. The intent is to make the person to be tested admit to their own guilt before the test is ever administered. If the person does not admit guilt, atlest they are brainwashed into being scared that the device can detect lies and have a greater biological response when lying. Because the new heat-sensing device is hidden and the person to be examined has no awareness of its existence, there is no intimidation and thus will create very little biological response to lying.
If this new facial heat-sensing device is as accurate as a polygraph, it's already useless. Go read the Consumer Reports article from a number of years back when they did controlled tests on the Polygraph device. All the test results turned out to be lemons.
As far as I have seen the main focus of almost every security change in airports since September 11th has focused on Profiling instead of detecting weapons. Perhaps it would be wise for some muckety muck to get their head out of their ass and start implementing technology to detect weapons instead of telling wether someone is a little hot under the collar. Perhaps thermal or even magnetic resonance and low density x-ray could be used to recognise and even "see" weapons before causing a fuss.
Otherwise the only changes I have seen in the last 6 months in security at airports are people getting inconvienienced and National Guards People with guns standing around looking bored.
I havent even heard of a single case where airport security stopped a suspected terrorist before they actually got on a plane. Mabe the security agencies are just trying to make us feel good that we arent hearing about any security violations or even attempts.