Slashdot Mirror
Face-Scanning Loses by a Nose in Palm Beach
Rio writes: "A story from myCFnow.com reports that Palm Beach International Airport officials said
face-scanning technology will not become part of their airport's security system."
Looks like
the ACLU was right.
Checking a database of 15 employees, the technology gave false-negatives -- failed to recognize the test subjects -- over 50% of the time. A spokesperson said, "There's room for improvement." The Pentagon said
the same thing
in February. The false-positive rate is more important -- it isn't mentioned, but even if it were just 0.1%, Bruce Schneier argues,
it'd be useless.
but delay its deployment for a couple years? this isn't really a victory at all.. I mean, I bet this will only delay the technology two years.. maybe less.
If anything, it should be a call for all Americans to protest this kind of thing (should you disagree with it).
A similar system in Florida (not an airport, but probably a vaguely-similar number of people) had 14 false positives in the first 4 days of operation.
(Two of the false positives even got the sex of the suspect wrong)
Since they state that it was the first days, perhaps it just needed tuning?
How many times have you gone to a store and bought an item with an electronic anti-theft tag and not had it removed properly only to be stopped once you begin to exit. A loud alarm goes off, and everyone in the front of the store and looks at you wondering... is that a thief? Extremely embarassing. False Positives happen all the time. As long as they are dealt with in a timely manner it is still OK; and already deemed acceptable by MOST of society.
Has anybody actually checked how acurate a human is at this task? Find somebody who has only seen these people in photographs and see how many people they can positivly identify. At the end of the day, solutions such as this depend on human 'backup'.
If this system catches just 50% of attackers who would otherwise get through, is this not a step in the right direction?
Sounds like a poor example of a scientific study to me!
Because when they finally get it working right, with a really high degree of accuracy, then it'll positively identify me, and I'll be allowed to exercise my rights to have and bear arms on an airline for the purpose of forming a well ordered militia. Surely this situation exemplifies the purpose of the second amendment; an armed populace defending itself from attack.
What's that you say? That this won't happen? That security will still be something performed by bored and disinterested employees on the ground, not by the people under direct threat? That all this technology will do is to remove rights and further entrench the mentality that We, the People must be protected by a tiny minority of largely unanswerable and self appointed professionals.
Sometimes I wonder why we bother even pretending that the Constitution still applies. If anyone can think of a more relevant application for the Second Amendment short of a full scale invasion, I'd like to hear it.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
If you start to think about it, wouldn't you say that the Bush administration should be thankful for the 911 attack? Now, Bush can do what he does best, show strong leadership. We all remember his campaign speeches, right?
However, what kinds of strong leadership has he given? He has reconfirmed his alliance with Pakistan, the country run by a general that got his power in a military coup, under the banner of "protecting freedom". He needed to do this in order to punish the Taliban.
Now, his poor judgement may very well be biting him in his ass. Pakistan has long offered support for the resistance movement in India-controlled Kashmir. How this support has manifested itself in real life is a matter of debate. However, India does not think Pakistan has done enough to crack down on the separatists in Kashmir after the attack on the Indian parliament in December. Consider it comparable to a band of terrorists attempting to storm capital hill, and then have the nation the terrorists came from refusing to stop supporting the same forces.
What else goes on in Pakistan? Ever once in a while, you'll see small or large reports about how parts of the Pakistani intelligence service is sympathetic to Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Wonder how Mullah Omar got away? He travelled with a pile of money, paying off warlords that the USA trusted for free passage.
Rather than effectively fighting terrorism abroad, your government seems to favor disclosing every non-specific, non-corroborated terrorist threat, complete with security checkpoints that close down this or that because of a suspicious package.
It's looking bleak, folks. Any good conspiracy theorist (or reader of 1984 by G. Orwell) will tell you that keeping people afraid is a good way of controlling their ability to think rationally.
Oh, and would you like to know what I believe to be the ultimate terrorist strike? Trigger a landslide off the continental shelf along the Californian coast. According to Discovery Channel, the ground shows signs of previous landslides. One or more large-scale landslides could trigger a huge tsunami that could wipe out portions of the coastal areas along the Californian coast. What materials are required? Honestly, I don't know, but I'm guessing a few recreational boats with primitive depth charges or timed mines would have a pretty good chance of triggering something if they had a good geological report.
I hope I didn't make any Californians piss their pants. I'm just speculating. And I hope I won't have any government agency knocking on my door tonite.
Then again, the most effective portion of the WTC attack might be the fallout. America is marginalizing itself, giving the rest of us ever fewer reasons to really like the American government. (I like Americans, btw).
Stop the brainwash