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False Positives, Few Matches Plague 'No-Fly' List

Posted by timothy on from the measure-twice-cut-once dept.

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."

1 of 325 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Ten Problems with Soundex by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Redundant

    Ummm... They are a soundex competitor.

    What's next, linking to a page at Microsoft to give us 10 reasons not to use Linux?