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False Positives, Few Matches Plague 'No-Fly' List
lindner writes "According to a recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle, the United States No-Fly List uses a soundex algorithm to match names. Designed 'to quickly summon passenger names or to catch deal-hunting passengers making duplicate bookings.' The system has only managed to rack up a slew of false-positives, including everyone matching soundex ("J. Adams") at one point in time. The problem has gotten so bad that there is now a "Fly List" for chronically misidentified passengers."
That algorithm is so fundamentally broken as to be practically useless for anything but as an aid in simple searches. Why anyone would use soundex in a mission critical application designed to positively identify individuals is beyond me. What, was the 'No Fly' database written by 1st year comp sci major or something? Sheesh.
My journal has hot
Screening for terrorists by name is a nice idea, and maybe eventually it will pop up one or two dumb ass terrorists travelling around the country by plane in a nation that's so paranoid that they're willing to sign away their most basic freedoms they've enjoyed for 200+ years. I think it's pretty stupid to throw the baby out with the bathwater though. Before 9/11 we had Timothy McVeigh and no one was hollering that rednecks shouldn't be allowed to drive trucks. So a terrorist gets on a plane, hopefully he'll be going home. If just make sure that the planes have security in place like police, cockpit doors, and some common sense I'm sure we'll all breath easier than if we've got Big Brother and his faulty software deciding who is a threat to society.
Heck, there's a guy on death row with the exact same name as me out there somewhere...I'd hate for this great idea of the government to lead to my law abiding ass getting thrown in jail even "just in case"
The situation is really bad if you are named David Nelson. Here is a sad but true story about no fly lists and the very common name, David Nelson. There was also a followup story to this one but I am unable to find a link.
But, you feel safe. Don't you?
I think the idea behind this scheme is not to catch terrorists, or even deter them. But to keep the public under a false sense of security, thinking "hell, if they are searching a lot of people, they must be getting the real ones too!" Although it never works out that way.
I think I will be flying private planes if they start looking into your credit. A credit check could be like "Well, you evaded child support and paying the bank $5,000, we can't let you board, if you have the money for a flight, you can pay them!"
They know they they won't be able to get this to work right, they are just pocketing money and putting out a crap system, but I think that it may have better use for private organizations, such as "Well, he evaded taxes and bills, but we see him having a one way ticket to (place), search for him there."
If you want to make sure your hijacking works fly around innocently as "Sam bin Laden" for a few months, get your name on all the "Fly lists," and then hijack a plane.
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."