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Lie Detectors to be Used for Airline Security
swimgeek writes "A new walk-through airport lie detector being made in Israel may prove to be the toughest challenge yet for potential hijackers or drugs smugglers. The product has been tested in Russia and should be commercialized soon. The software in the detector picks up uncontrollable tremors in the voice that give away liars or those with something to hide, say its designers. Passengers that fail the test are then required to undergo further questioning or even search."
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Tell the truth and then blow up themselves near the lie detector?
Scott McNealy to Michael: "Suck my Sun!" Michael Dell to Scott : "Lick my Dell!"
they just shoot your ass.
I can't wait until I have to take a lie detector test before boarding a plane. I'm really getting sick of all these invasive security measures. I'm damn glad I won't have to hop on planes for my job.
If only taking a ship was a valid alternative for travelling overseas.
for innocent passengers as well, who, when faced with M-16 toting guys can't avoid an "uncontrollable tremor" in their voice.
No mention of the false positive rate on this. If just 1 in a million passenger is a terrorist, and given the number of passenger flights per year without bombings on US planes it has got to be way up there, the false positive rate it going to need to be way WAY down there.
If you're honest, you get cleared, right?
"Are you a terrorist?"
"Yes."
"Go on through."
Game Company Database
Maybe they could sell a home version of this that would help rate aspiring actor on their ability to convincingly speak a part from a screenplay.
I found out how the lie detector works. Bend suspect over, shove device in rectum. I only hope that everyone (including officials) has to go through it, equally.
A "Lie Detector" is a fantasy. Machines can detect physiological clues to nervousness, and that's it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldrich_Ames> Aldrich Ames passed his polygraph exams for years, while he was getting every US agent in Russia killed.
Depending on fantasies like "lie detectors" distracts law enforcement from practicing solid investigation.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
The software in the detector picks up uncontrollable tremors in the voice that give away liars or those with something to hide, say its designers. Passengers that fail the test are then required to undergo further questioning or even search.
Sounds like sufferers of spasmodic dysphonia, such as NPR's Diane Rehm are going to have a hell of a time at airports in the near future...
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
If there's a hot female security guard on duty, I'm gonna SO lie so I'll get searched by her.
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
What about the poor schmuck just excited about going off to visit his mistress? Or his girlfriend, knowing he's about to get his first action in 9 months? Or any member of Congress?
I am pretty sick and tired of these jerkwads coming out with all of this technology that is supposed to protect us from somebody who has nothing better to do all day long than figure out ways to hurt us. And stick me with billions of dollars in expenses for a technology that may or may not catch somebody other than the occasional innocent git or two-bit martyr wanna be. Does it work? "Sorry, for national security reasons we can't tell you how many bad guys we caught or how many innocent guys to whom we gave a cavity probe".
Money isn't the root of all evil anybody who votes for any incumbent is.
If the g'vt kept the data on you that google does you'd better believe you'd be calling it "doing evil"
Voice analyzers and polygraphs (the so-called "lie detector") are frauds. They have both been scientifically proven again and again to be unreliable, with lots of false positives and false negatives, which is why they aren't admissible in court.
The only value to either technology is to scare and threaten. If the person being questioned believes that they work, they are less likely to lie or more likely to admit a lie.
Aldrich Ames, a mole in the CIA, passed a polygraph many, many times, as did lots of others.
Since voice analyzers and polygraph examiners make a shitload of money, and they compete with each other, they are great for pointing out the flaws in each other's devices since the other technology threatens their gravy train.
It's fraud, plain and simple. Flip a coin instead. It's more likely to be accurate than a voice analyzer or polygraph.
Then whomever gets the "glory" of murdering innocent civilians has one additional step in the training camp: learning how to calmly lie into the microphone. We don't pack the explosives in his bag until he can pass 10 times out of 10.
I'd much prefer returning to pre-1972 rules where the airlines could decide if you could bring a loaded firearm onto the plane. Those airlines that allowed it would get my business, and the free market would take care of the problem.
-paul
Pistol caliber is like religion: everyone has their favourite, and theirs is the only right choice.
I'm so glad that this new airline security will protect my rights as I surf the 'Net.
And ask them if they're really doing their job instead of just standing around looking helpless.
TSA = Thousands Standing Around
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
Hello my name is Werner Brandes. My voice is my passport. Verify me
Best "hacking" movie ever!
K Man
They searched the place high and low, never finding the door. Someone suggested the fraternity President ask each member, on their honor as a member of the fraternity, if they had stolen the door. So he worked his way down the line, and came to Feynman.
"Richard Feynman, on your honor as a member of the fraternity, did you steal the door?"
"Yes."
He replied, "Quit screwing around, Feynman!", and moved on to the next guy. Everyone else denied having taken the door.
Eventually Feynman took pity on the guys and returned the door and (I believe) confessed. When he did, there was an uproar, as people claimed he had lied.
Please help metamoderate.
I wish I could find the original slashdot comment I saved this from. I googled for it briefly and found the slashdot story but couldn't find the comment. If you do, please reply with it.
--The following was written by someone else--.
"Yeah! Hunters don't kill the *innocent* animals - they look for the shifty-eyed ones that are probably the criminal element of their species!"
"If the're not guilty, why are they running?"
I wrote about this a while ago. Here's the text:
"If you haven't done anything wrong, what do you have to hide?"
Ever heard that one? I work in information security, so I have heard it more than my fair share. I've always hated that reasoning, because I am a little bit paranoid by nature, something which serves me very well in my profession. So my standard response to people who have asked that question near me has been "because I'm paranoid." But that doesn't usually help, since most people who would ask that question see paranoia as a bad thing to begin with. So for a long time I've been trying to come up with a valid, reasoned, and intelligent answer which shoots the holes in the flawed logic that need to be there.
And someone unknowingly provided me with just that answer today. In a conversation about hunting, somebody posted this about prey animals and hunters:
"Yeah! Hunters don't kill the *innocent* animals - they look for the shifty-eyed ones that are probably the criminal element of their species!"
but in a brilliant (and very funny) retort, someone else said:
"If the're not guilty, why are they running?"
Suddenly it made sense, that nagging thing in the back of my head. The logical reason why a reasonable dose of paranoia is healthy. Because it's one thing to be afraid of the TRUTH. People who commit murder or otherwise deprive others of their Natural Rights are afraid of the TRUTH, because it is the light of TRUTH that will help bring them to justice.
But it's another thing entirely to be afraid of hunters. And all too often, the hunters are the ones proclaiming to be looking for TRUTH. But they are more concerned with removing any obstactles to finding the TRUTH, even when that means bulldozing over people's rights (the right to privacy, the right to anonymity) in their quest for it. And sadly, these people often cannot tell the difference between the appearance of TRUTH and TRUTH itself. And these, the ones who are so convinced they have found the TRUTH that they stop looking for it, are some of the worst oppressors of Natural Rights the world has ever known.
They are the hunters, and it is right and good for the prey to be afraid of the hunters, and to run away from them. Do not be fooled when a hunter says "why are you running from me if you have nothing to hide?" Because having something to hide is not the only reason to be hiding something.
Please help metamoderate.
So how many people will get searched as terrorists because their voice is shaky because they're cheating on their wife, didn't tell their parents they were going to costa rica with their friends, or told their employer they were going to a family reunion? Not everyone with "something to hide" is a lawbreaker.
I travelled to and from Israel prior to 9/11 and, being the security geek that I am, I found their approach to airport security very interesting. Not only is it utterly different from what we do in the US, but it is obviously devastatingly effective. Israel has been under open attack from terrorists for *decades* and yet they've never, ever had an incident.
What do they do that's different? The whole focus is different. In the US, we focus on the (arguably futile) task of assuring that there are no weapons on the aircraft. In Israel, they focus on assuring that there are no terrorists on the aircraft. Their approach is about screening people more than bags, on the theory that weapons aren't dangerous, people are dangerous.
The screening is intensive, detailed and time-consuming. They do search the bags while they're at it, but the main purpose of searching bags isn't to look for weapons, it's to look for clues and to provoke reactions. I'll describe my experience of going through security in Tel Aviv on the way out of Israel by way of example.
I was travelling with my boss, on business. The first thing they did was to separate us, sending each of us to a different table. At each table were three agents. One of them searched my bag -- *very* thoroughly, picking through it piece by piece. Another asked me questions at a rapid-fire pace, jumping around between who I was, what I was doing, where I had gone, who I had spoken with, who I knew in Israel and what was the purpose and origin of various pieces from my luggage. The questioner was detailed, but not necessarily thorough. He asked about seemingly random things, but inquired in great detail, testing to see how my story would hold together under scrutiny. After asking the names and phone numbers of some people I had met with, he pulled out a phone and actually called one of them and grilled him for a minute! Then he and the agent who had been speaking with my boss stepped away and conferred with one another, obviously cross-checking our stories to see if they matched up.
The third agent at each table just watched. The guy at my table had his eyes glued to me the whole time, watching for any hint of abnormal reaction... it's unbelievable how nervous that made me! But I suppose my reaction was normal.
I can see *exactly* how a lie detector would fit into this model. Even if it didn't actually work, it would make the subject that much more worried and frightened, making it harder for a terrorist to stay calm enough to have all the right reactions. It wouldn't even matter if it gave bad readings from time to time, because in a situation like that, with trained, experienced agents, the lie detector would be just another tool to help both trigger and analyze reactions; it would be the agents themselves that made the decisions about who to investigate further and who to pass on.
Although I would really hate to see what would happen if the US tried to institute a *real* airport security system like the Israelis have, rather than the "security theatre" that we have, I found it very impressive. It sucked royally to be the subject of that scrutiny, even as an honest guy just trying to fly home... it's easy to see why they have such an amazing track record.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Lie detectors are also used in Kansas. I am surprized they don't use the good old medieval torture techniques to find witches.
Click here to watch it. :)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Lie detector tests are premised on the probability that people will experience anxiety when lying. Of course, some people are more susceptible to anxiety than others. Generally nervous people might experience the anxiety that causes these voice microtremors without actually lying.
On the other hand, people can fairly easily be trained to pass lie detector tests while still lying. Psychopaths in particular, many of whom are constitutionally underreactive to certain stressors (search Google for "deficient affective experience"), tend to be able to lie without the slightest trace of anxiety. This is mainly because psychopaths have an entirely self-centered attitude and thus no moral qualms about lying, stealing, or doing anything to people to get what they want or to serve their own twisted brand of justice. Note that one type of psychopath (the so-called secondary psychopath) is hypersensitive to stress; these are the common-criminal/reckless type.
My guess is that psychopathic individuals would be attracted to international terrorism. Osama bin Laden, for example, is almost certainly a psychopath. Therefore, these lie detector tests will be less effective against the people most likely to do harm!
On vit, on code et puis on meurt.
Even for friggin' nervous.
... MAKE THEM WET THEIR PANTS.
So - lets pick on the people that find flying stressful and
Is this an adaptation of the let's only give loans to the wealthy, or health insurance to the rich ideas ?
As me types in 'whimper' as the security word for this post - I wonder.
EMail: 0110001101100010010000000110001101110010 0110000101111010011011100110000101110010 0010111001100011011011110110
It's not ever going to happen again in any of our lifetimes. The terrorists burned that plan from ever working again because the pilots and people on the plane know that they're dead either way, so there's no reason not to resist. If they have a bomb, no difference. Dead when the bomb goes off or when the airliner hits whatever they're aiming at. No one on the plane has anything to lose. You can't control people with nothing to lose.
The 10-15 minutes multiplied by the millions of people who fly each day, the money for all the extra security...it's all meaningless. We're wasting millions of man-hours and millions of dollars to try and stop something that's not ever going to happen until a new generation comes along with "don't resist" drilled into their heads so a hundred of them just sit there like sheep and let five guys drive them into a wall.
But you can bet the terrorists know the things we're missing. That's where the next one will come from. Somewhere we're not expecting. And Condi Rice will be on TV going, "Who could have guessed they would use..." whatever it was. A little success for them goes a long way. We'll tie ourselves in knots and exhaust our treasury fighting phantoms. We'll over-react, like usual, and end up making more enemies than we started with while expending billions to little or no effect in the process.
All because of people like you.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
I started a new courier job, and was amazed by how much paperwork is required to ship a package on a flight and pick one up from the cargo terminal these days! They even have a federal security agent who randomly walks around the terminal lot trying to open the doors of your vehicle while you're inside trying to drop off an outgoing package or pick up an incoming one. If he/she is able to - then you're immediately stopped from making the delivery or receiving it.
(The theory being "You're responsible for the security of your delivery from the moment you accept it until you drop it off for shipment.")
IMHO, this is just more assinine posturing -- because let's face it. The courier himself might be the one sabotaging the delivery, right? He'd have the most access to the package of anyone. And furthermore, an unlocked vehicle door on the airport lot is no guarantee the person kept the doors locked during the rest of the package's transit.
The software will almost always pick up uncontrollable tremors in the voice that give away liars
I'm elderly, you insensitive clods.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
NT
-- My Weblog.
You sound a bit like you think the world is like a Hollywood movie - where the people flying in the cabin know everything that's going on just like the person sitting in the cinema and seeing both the control tower, the cockpit and the hero hiding on the landing gear.
Terrorist attacks do not play out so dramatically like in the movies, man.
i've flown on El Al a few times. invariably they find something they don't like about me after 30-45 minutes of questions. the last time i flew them i asked the questioner to call their supervisor, and then just asked that they search me. they asked me to calm down, etc. and i explained that i had no desire to go through the interrogation and that it would be easier for both of us if they just searched me. so yeah, let them search me.
...vividly encapsulates that post-Watergate/pre-punk/coked-up moment when you could trust no one, least of all yourself.
Then there's the cellular phone "Love Detector" service. You call someone via their system, and after the call, you get an SMS message with their analysis. (TV commercial here. In Hebrew, for the Israeli version.)
Moving up the product line a bit, they offer Ex-Sense, their low-end lie detector product. Only $149, including phone connector cable. Screenshots here.
Then there's Ex-Sense Pro, at $499. Unclear what you get with the "Pro" version.
All these, NemesysCo says, use the same technology as Gatekeeper.
Okay, how about this, "Would Jesus Christ have approved of your trip today?"
There wasn't a damn thing I could float past her my entire childhood.
The Luddites were ahead of their time.
"Calibrating" or training these devices must be fun. I have worked on modeling data with mathematical models for scientific projects. While studying the methods I found articles about psychologists using the same methods to model people's behavior. Of course, psychologists in the US would get their samples in the US. That was quite popular in the 60's. Later the psychologists applied their models with the coefficients from the US in Europe. It turned out that the Europeans are all crazy. They just would not match the hyperplanes.
At least the Europeans of today are not using lie detectors to protect air traffic, objects important for national security, check police officers, or innocent people like you and me.
you know, those autistic savants that stare at x-ray screenshots of people's luggage and look for bad shit.
Temple Grandin, "an autistic woman who was recommended for institutionalization as a child, [...] went on to become an influential expert on animal behavior and inventor of humane systems for handling livestock. [...] Grandin, in her book, notes that autistics have ably performed quality-control jobs that draw upon their detail orientation, and score exceptionally well on tests that involve finding a hidden shape inside a picture. She suggests that autistics be tried as airport screeners, to spot guns, bombs and the like amid the cluttered images of x-rayed luggage. Is anyone in the Department of Homeland Security working on this idea?"
Source: http://www.techcentralstation.com/091305C.html
The only worse thing I can imagine than the farse that is American airport security, is the possibility that some day they might actually successfully implement true security. I thought society was taking a step forward since you no longer need papers to travel inside Russia, or passports to go between France and Germany. I dread travelling now, because it offends me to have to take off my shoes and belt at the airport to maintain the illusion of security. But how much worse would it be when they confiscate my laptop because I could make an explosive from the battery in about three seconds? Or when I'm detained indefinitely because I'm a 20-something travelling alone, and I happen to be carrying a Quoran for some leisure reading.
In my life, terror doesn't come from desperate fundamentalists. Terror is the government trying to control every aspect of the way I live and the way I think. I can only hope that it's not too late to undo the damage. Vote while you still can! And pray, if you're into that sort of thing.
Ever wonder why we don't see any of these?
- Glasses frames with sharpened ends
- Suitcase handles with sharpened ends (pull them all the way out of the suitcase and you have a gigantic shank)
- A sharp plastic credit-card size object
- Some kind of chemical disguised as a useful medication (e.g. Tylenol) that ignites when it reacts with beer or soda or laptop batteries or something
- A car bomb in the pickup/dropoff area
And the list goes on.I make websites and stuff. Buy one.
The net tightens ...
I hope people keep in mind that terrorism kills fewer people than traffic accidents, lifestyle diseases, or regular crime (one of these alone suffices).
The way I see it, many of the prevention measures that have been taken only increase the effect that terrorism has on American society.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
The guard recoiled and asked what the noise was and I quickly said "a massager".
If anything, it's a lie by omission - you didn't say *what* it was for massaging.
And studies argue
<rant>
Apart from the loss of civil liberties and the loss of billions of dollars, this is just another pointer to the fact that the so-called war on terror is costing many, many more lives than its ostensible targets. Up next, after two thousand dead American troops and literally countless dead Iraqi civilians:
</rant>
What a stupid concept, for a number of reasons.
Firstly, this kind of thing is based on the assumption that even a 'bad guy' will somehow feel bad about what their are about to do, and there will feel under emotional stress. Two of the most dangerous kinds of persons, psychopaths and suicide terrorists, are not likely to to fall into this category. Psychopaths don't care, simply, they will lie or contemplate atrocities like normal people would think about buying a bottle of milk. And a person who has decided to die has overcome the fear; it is a wellknown phenomenon that a person who wants to commit suicide often enters a phase of perfect calm and contentment when the decision has been made.
Secondly, as others point out, a lot of people feel very bad about small transgressions. I remember one lady who felt very nervous because she had bought 1 small bottle of alcohol over the limit and was afraid to get caught. So are we now going to catch all those who are under a bit of strain, but let through the really dangerous ones?
Thridly, wouldn't it perfectly possible to subvert the equipment - perhaps simply by eating Valium or similar?
But, FYI, if you avoid those 2 things, you will never be hassled. Even (or perhaps especially) if you are wearing a turban and muttering, "Muhammad, Jihad." repeatedly under your breath.
A subtle, yet important clarification: followers of the Sikh faith wear turbans, not Arabs or Muslims.
"The problem with our economy is that our budget is balanced by people who aren't" - A.E.N.