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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?
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
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
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...
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.
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
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
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.
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...
Exactly... 20 people in a control group is utterly inadequate to demonstrate even proof of concept, let alone actually be ready for real world use. Those same percentages might be marginally more acceptable if they had a control group a hundred, or preferably a thousand or more times that size.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
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?
It should be noted that Farwell is a bit of a publicity hound, and has formed his own company called Brainwave Science which peddles a technique he calls "Brain Fingerprinting" (Yes, a stupid name). He has essentially overstated the value of his technique, and now claims it can be used to detect terrorists. The NYTimes did a decent article on the issue here (free reg, blah blah).
Oh, and it's been shown that you can demonstrate the same effect by simply measuring reaction times (no need for goofy electrode cap) (Seymour, T.L.; Seifert, C.M.; Mosmann, A.M. and Shafto, M.G. Using response time measures to assess "Guilty Knowledge". Journal of Applied Psychology, 2000, 85.)
As someone who works in the field (and who is avoiding trouble by posting anonymously), I can tell you that these techniques are not well suited for practical use. Also, with some exceptions (e.g., Farwell), most researchers don't make grand claims about applications of such technologies. The publicity offices at universities and journals like to jazz things up a bit by overstating scientific findings -- gets the university's name out there.
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!
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.
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.
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rm -fR
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
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.
I already do this one.
Did your bag leave your possesion after you packed it?
No
Did anyone ask you to carry on their bags?
No
They're going to start having to ask questions like "Are you not not a terrorist?", "Uhhhh, no?"