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Homeland Security Department Testing "Pre-Crime" Detector
holy_calamity writes "New Scientist reports that the Department of Homeland Security recently tested something called Future Attribute Screening Technologies (FAST) — a battery of sensors that determine whether someone is a security threat from a distance. Sensors look at facial expressions, body heat and can measure pulse and breathing rate from a distance. In trials using 140 volunteers those told to act suspicious were detected with 'about 78% accuracy on mal-intent detection, and 80% on deception,' says a DHS spokesman."
Sensors look at facial expressions, body heat and can measure pulse and breathing rate from a distance
...And most importantly, skin colour?
Seriously, is there anything a device like this can do that's either more useful or less invasive than a human watching people walking past and profiling/screening them on what they can see?
Is crushing a suspect's child's testicles illegal?
John Yoo: "No, [if] the President thinks he needs to do that."
Does this sound idiotic to anyone else? Of course it's going to work for people who are told how to act in order to get the device to flag them.
Insert obvious Tom Cruise - Minority Report references here.
Minority Report, anyone?
Hi, I'm a terrorist, and I've been made into a stereotype.
The summary talks about the sujects being told to act suspicious. So, if you are told to be suspicious does this make any difference from someone who is actually planning something nasty? I suppose it is difficult to find subjects who are unaware they are being observed, and yet also intent on doing something bad. Nevertheless, I'd hypothesize there might be significant, observable differences between the two groups.
This post brought to you by your friendly neighborhood MBA.
Sorry, but 78% is not even REMOTELY accurate to consider someone dangerous. There is already a high enough false accusation rate.
Excuse me while I gather the virgin sacrifice and assemble the pentagram required to solve your problem
In other news today, Homeland Security has detained the entire Chili Cook-off Carnival event after their new FAST software registered positive hits on EVERYTHING there, including some domesticated animals and a squirrel with three legs.
"Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted." -Groucho Marx
None of that matters - what's important is the false positive rate, ie. the proportion of people with no malicious intent who get flagged up. If it's as high as 1% the system will be pretty much unworkable.
"It doesn't cost enough, and it makes too much sense."
Isn't this a little off-base? People who are really about to commit a crime, as a rule, will be explicitly trying not to look suspicious.
"You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocketship underpants don't help" -- Calvin
I propose the House, Senate and White House also.
I think someone has been watching the Minority Report just a bit too closely. I can just see it now... the 'Pre-Crime' Division of the DHS.
Things like these are only as good as their success rate. If they get a whole lot of false positives, then they're going to be worth squat when it actually comes down to hard evidence.
Then again, perhaps they might be useful as a general indicator of "mal-intent". Not as a method of proof, but just a way of optimising the job of certain DHS officials.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
So if I'm running and about to lie to my trainer or doctor about how far I ran today, my pulse rate, breathing rate, and body temperature are up. I'm thinking about deceiving someone. So I guess that means it's now a crime to lie to your trainer according to the DHS?
Were the 'positive' participants in the test told to "act suspicious" by carrying a radio transponder on their person?
The enemies of Democracy are
I was just about to finish up my patent application for a device that could accurately detect a human pretending to be a monkey 80% of the time when a human test subject is asked in advance to pretend to be a monkey.
Why do I even bother?
I'm a big tall mofo.
But will this new detector include Tom Cruze's crimes in it's detector? Will he have to get new eyes?
Those told to act suspicious ? WTF, did they give them Groucho Marx subglasses ? .And a 20% false negative rate on that.
IMHO, every person involved with this project should be summarily fired, up to and including the Department Head.
All you need to do now is post signs reminding any potential evil-doers to "act suspicious" and the system will work perfectly.
those told to act suspicious
I am much more interested in how this unit would perform against people with evil intent and were trying to hide it, than against people without evil intent that were trying to display one.
At this point, it would be better suited to helping critique a theater performance than actually improving security. It detects and evaluates actors, not real world situations.
Let alone the thought-crime implications. I'll be more worried when it's actually demonstrated to, you know, work as advertised.
--
$tar -xvf
I was visiting the University of Arizona earlier this year, and they have some similar research going on. They were using lasers to measure pulse, breathing, and body temperature. The whole project was involved in deception detection and they had a lot of funding from DHS and other government sources. This article might even be referring to some of their technology.
I am OK as long as the following is true: if the system flags an innocent person the authorities should/must jail or punish one of their own the equivalent of at least half the (now innocent) person would have been punished for.
If everyone was wearing a burka, then, there's no way that this system actually works. It may seem strange, but, what right does the public have to know my face?
This is my sig.
Brilliant idea... install them at airport security checkpoints and border crossings. So, let's say I'm stressed and aggravated because I'm late for my flight, or tired of standing in line being shoved around and treated like a criminal (or an animal). Can you say "false positive"?
Like if I intend to sneak up on my wife and give her a scare for fun? Or if I know I have a 3.5 ounce toothpaste tube in my bag, 0.5 ounces past the restriction? I wonder how many other forms of innocent "deception" will automatically call in the jackboots?
I thought they were called "Soldiers".
... out of the range of human rights?
Good thing about sensors though: They don't aks no quest'ns to 'dem dangerous peepol!
What if a sensor decided you were bad and hit the automatic firing system? Or does a light go on and you're quickly and politely escorted out
Maybe you would be just pissed at someone but it would still take 12 hours of flight to beat their ass. Can't one even have a violent pen pal anymore? Congrats, you prove to us every day that the Terrorists have won.
All we've got is a device which can spot normal people trying to be visibly "suspicious".
No sig today...
The device relies on the assumption that the physiology of people up to no good may be different than normal people.
And that may be true.
However, this'll be much more useful somewhere like an embassy or checkpoint than in an airport. In a sea of potentially hostile people, it's harder to pick out the ones who may actually do something. In a sea of basically docile people, it should be relatively simple to visually pick the nervous ones.
If it helps nailing Tom Cruise
how long until
the machine overloaded and took out the power grid.
God help the nervous flier :)
If these machines pick up on stress then they'll get near to a 100% hit rate for travellers. Possibly the most serene people in an airport lounge are those who've already accepted their fate and are willingly going to meet their makers shortly after the plane takes off.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
For the love of god, I have read too many replies which suggest people think this is actually minority report style pre-crime. I would presume they are going to use this device to decide who to investigate further, i.e. at airports, rather than inferior methods of picking people (I.e. race). If they then find evidence against you, hard luck.
-- All your booze are belong to us.
Hey, if we can detect with about 2% assurance that Iraq has WMD's from space and start a war that costs trillions and kills many thousands, what excuse would the government need to explain why they killed a stadium of fans whom they detected, with their new whiz-bang device, that about 65% of them lied about something at work last week and about the number of beers they told their buddy that they've drank since the start of the 2nd quarter?
Holy run-on sentence Batman!
Hey, if you want to detect malfeasance of any kind with 100% accuracy, you need my wife. I can't get away with anything!
So, this doesn't work for Sociopaths, or people who firmly believe in their religious reasons for doing something and thus have no fear? What about people wearing Baclava or some other sort of head covering? What about the business man that is in a hurry, and has to make a big sale because his job depends on it? This machine is a joke. It will never be a good as a human profiler because it can't infer context. Context is where this machine will really trip up, and yet it is a crucial part of analysis. Another item that the tests overlook, is that an actor playing a "suspicious" person are going to exaggerate the suspicious behavior. Therefore, these tests are of little value in determining the effectiveness of the machine in a real scenario.
Sensors look at facial expressions, body heat and can measure pulse and breathing rate from a distance.
I have severe allergies which affect my breathing and a faster-than-usual heartbeat due to another medical condition. I also have hyperhydrosis, so I sweat constantly, which would make me look more suspicious in an interogation room. Oh, and when I start getting antsy, it's not because I'm nervous, it's because of my hypoglycemia and I need to eat.
But at least this new technology will keep me off the streets.
Those who believe the Internet is private,
find their privates are on the Internet.
I notice both of those success rates are less than 100%. Personally, I don't want to be one of those innocent 20+% that gets harassed.
dogs with shifty eyes
/...
I'm sure that 78% success rate figure was calculated with all that in mind. In fact, with a bit of extra work, perhaps we can lower the chance of you being selected wrongly for a strip search to a mere 1 in 5!
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Stupid things like this make my blood boil. Watch me not cross the border anymore. Be it by choice or because some dumb-ass program decided I was too pissed (or needing to take a piss) for me to be a Good Citizen.
....this means no more hot curries for me then :(
My web domain.
in my patent-pending pre-crime detector. My machine flags everyone as a possible criminal. It's win-win for everyone. We're all safer and the DHS gets to interrogate everyone.
It's called the Pants Urination Screening SYstem (PUSSY). Although I haven't finished the test on volunteers yet, I'm confident that I can acheive at least a 90% pants urination detection rate in those told to piss their pants. This, combined with a study I've done which found terrorists may piss their pants before an attack, would be an effective tool in combatting terrorism. One interesting result of my study so far; a surprisingly large number of people who get really, really drunk seem to be terrorists. This can be seen as evidence that the device does in fact work.
Funding please...
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
Aren't these people supposed to be doing what WE want them to do, implementing processes and laws that WE WANT? Why...WHY are we ALLOWING THIS? PLEASE WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm not totally opposed to them trying new stuff out but...
- Looking suspicious because your cheating on someone.
- Looking suspicious because your trying to blame someone else for a ripping fart.
- Thinking up ways to lie about how you totally read the book for your book of the month club when you really only watched the movie.
I mean need I go on? We humans, well us normal humans anyway not the robots they want us to be, are normally always up to something. Unless thou some machine can tell that we are as well as what exactly we are planning it's going to be useless.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
I am from the future. Welcome to America, the land and home of free speech. But, if we think we suspect you of doing ANYTHING, you are going to jail to prevent any crime. Thats how we, BigBrothers, believe it should be! We get off to security, and making sure that YOU can't live your lives. We want to make sure everyone is legal, and not intending to harm the US. Illegal aliens? Not a problem any more. With space lasers, we zap anyone who is crossing the border. Don't think of going to Canada or Mexico illegally, either. We will zap those trying to commit treason by leaving. We make it so you don't have to worry about security. We take the strain off of you. We think for you. We judge for you. Welcome to America. Please put your face in the scanner.
I remember about four-five years ago they had these all over the world, looking for people who could have SARS.
I feel like I have to bring this example up about once a month what with security news and all, but:
Suppose there's a rare illness that occurs in 1 out of a million people. The test for that illness is 99.9% accurate, meaning that one in a thousand well people will be falsely diagnosed as sick and one in a thousand sick people will be falsely diagnosed as well.
A million people come in for the test. On average one has the illness. But a full *thousand* are going to be tested positive. So if this 99.9% accurate test says you're sick, you in fact have a 99.9% chance of being well.
This is a real and well studied problem in medicine (it has a name, but I forget it and if someone knows, please post). I've yet to see any evidence that the problem has been addressed or even acknowledged in the case of mass security screening.
So, even if this crime test is accurate 8 or 9 times out of 10, because most people (of any race or religion) are not criminals or terrorists, the positives are going to be meaningless without further screening. Since "further screening" will almost certainly represent a gross violation of an innocent person's rights, this should be aberrant to anyone who values a free society.
This of course raises the question: if it's so useless, why bother? I can think of two reasons, one cynical and one very cynical.
The first: a well connected contractor is making the device. As our government gets more and more privatized, this kind of thing is running rampant.
The second: an authoritarian police state loves a pretense to hold anyone they choose under suspicion.
The (even more cynical) reality is probably a combination of the two.
Coding with assembly is like playing with Legos. Coding an application in assembly is like building a car with Legos.
Awesome, now we have a great tool to accuse people with. How can anything with an accuracy of 78% be worth using? On a grading scale it's a C+. How many innocent people (22%) will be caught up in this mess? If the government is trying to create a rebellion by the people, then this is a perfect method.
How about hiring intelligent guards? Or people with common sense?
If we spent 10% of what we spend on this kind of crap on actually solving the real problems we face, then we might actually get somewhere. But as long as we live in this ultra-paranoid world filled full of invisable terrorists then we'll never get the chance to overcome the real problems. What a shame and what a waste.
ed duval the very last person
In trials using 140 volunteers those told to ACT!!! suspicious...
So wait, people who were only acting could fool the sensors into thinking they had bad intent when in fact, they did not have bad intent... And... We are to believe that acting like you have good intent when you don't can't possibly work?
all the best,
drew
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
Racial profiling comes to my mind immediately with some lawsuits. Obviously it is a system that will have some sort of AI that is based on certain parameters. As a result, this can create many false positives. For example, a male caucasian is walking awkwardly (has a bad leg) with sunglass on can trigger the system. Or perhaps an afro-american male, with a black hoodie (because he is cold), in a middle/upper class neighborhood (talking a walk around his home) can trigger the system. Or perhaps an older lady (a granny), with a funny grin on her face (bad eye-sight), is struggling the open the car door with the wrong keys can be seen as she is breaking-in because of her high body temperature (frustration) and multiple keys can indicate they are tools.
Just a bad idea....Poor granny might get locked up and I like hoodies!
NO! NO! Please don't mod me, I'm too young to die a troll. *click* Oh the pain, the pain...
George Orwell is likely spinning in his grave.
A new scientific breakthrough allows law enforcement officials to automatically detect people trying to look suspicious! News at 11...
No comment.
FAST, also known as voter registration list.
Are your papers in order?
Most AIDS tests are 99%+ accurate at telling you that a person with HIV actually has HIV. They're also 99% accurate at saying a person who doesn't have HIV, doesn't have HIV. Its the combination of those two facts plus "Very few people in the general population have HIV" which makes mass one-time AIDS screenings a bad idea -- you successfully pull the guy out of 100 who had HIV, then you throw in one negative bystander, and you end up adding 99% accurate + 99% accurate to get 50% accurate.
There are a heck of a lot less terrorists than 1% of the flying public.
There is a countermeasure, of course -- you use the magic machine not as a definitive test but as a screening mechanism. Know why we aggressively screen high risk groups for AIDS? Because they're high risk -- if 1 out of every 4 screenies is known to be positive (not hard to reach with some populations) then the 99%/99% math adds up to better than 95%. Better news. (You then independently run a second test before you tell anyone they're positive. Just like you wouldn't immediately shoot anybody the machine said is a terrorist -- you'd just escalate the search, like subjecting them to a patdown or asking for permission to search their bags or what have you.)
So you could use the magic machine to, say, eliminate 75, 90, 99%, whatever of the search space before you go onto whatever your next level of screening is -- the whole flying rigamarole, for example. Concentrate the same amount of resources on searching 20 people a plane instead of 400. Less hassle for the vast majority of passengers, less cursoryness to all of the examinations.
The quick here will notice that this is exactly the mechanism racial profiling works by -- we know a priori that the 3 year old black kid and the 68 year old white grandmother is not holding a bomb, ergo we move onto the 20 year old Saudi who it is merely extraordinarily improbable to be holding a bomb. That would also let you lop off a huge section of the search space off the top.
The difference between the magic machine and racial profiling is that racial profiling is politically radioactive, but the magic machine might be perceived as neutral. Whether you consider that a good or a bad thing is up to you. Hypothetically assuming that the machine achieves, oh, 80% negative readings for true negatives, many people might consider it an awfully nice thing to have 80% of the plane not have to take off their shoes or get pat down -- they could possibly get screened as non-invasively as having to answer two of those silly, routine questions.
(Of course, regardless of what we do, people will claim we're racially profiling. But that is a different issue.)
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Are they entirely certain they haven't just invented a frog exaggerator?
"In trials using 140 volunteers those told to act suspicious were detected with 'about 78% accuracy on mal-intent detection, and 80% on deception,' says a DHS spokesman." What I like about this is that the people on whom this was tested were not actually suspicious people but were merely acting suspicious. It seems possible then, that someone who actually was suspicious might successfully act not so. Are you kidding me?
"In trials using 140 volunteers those told to act suspicious were detected with 'about 78% accuracy"
Uhm...so, they were acting. Shouldn't it read,
"In trials using 140 volunteers those told to act suspicious were detected as 'people pretending to act suspicious' with 'about 78% accuracy".
That entire system is fundamentally flawed based on the concept of lie-detector tests. Think about it for a second.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
I never doubted what I was doing was right, or justified, but that didn't stop my heart from pounding out of my chest.
Does this sound idiotic to anyone else? Of course it's going to work for people who are told how to act in order to get the device to flag them.
Three reasons to be concerned with how they're testing it:
1) Even when told to act funny, it misses 20-22% of targets, giving it a terrible success rate.
2) We know the false negatives are bad, but how are the false positives, or does DHS not even bother to test that?
3) If they're calibrating it to pick up on "acting suspicious" instead of being actually nervous, stressed, or hostile, then it's effing useless for picking up on real terrorists and is yet another way for DHS to annoy law-abiding citizens to make them feel "safe" while spending massive amounts of taxpayer dollars on administration friendly contractors. Yay!
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Elect Bob Barr, stop this madness!
So this device was 80% successful at picking up suspicious activity from PEOPLE WHO WERE ASKED TO LOOK SUSPICIOUS.
Wow, amazing! Something any police officer who has served a couple of years would be able to do with 100% (or nearly so) accuracy.
What is missing is an assay of how many people it would flag if they were told to behave as if they were SCARED. You know... scared of being flagged for behaving abnormally, strip-searched, tortured, and never seeing their families again. Something tells me that the rate of false positives on this machine will overshadow the rate of false negatives by a very large margin.
Love the cartoony explanation. Don't forget the "After I get through I'll play my pirated movies while waiting for my plane" scenario.
What do you mean they cut the power? How can they cut the power, man? They're animals!
So if you're sick and in pain, or PMS'ing, youre screwed. Off to gitmo with you!!!
Umm.
Told to act suspicious? I'd be more apt to believe ANY results that where double blind.
Told to "act suspicious"... Isn't this what made the polygraph inadmissable in court, the fact that someone CAN be trained to BEAT the polygraph?
How hard would it be to fake this / these tests? I mean, C'Mon now.
--Toll_Free
Someone lands and hastily leaves the pressurized cabin of an airplane? They are red faced and super tense. Not to mention they're probably sweating and nervously glancing about. The only terrorism on that person's mind is the assault on the poor toilet they're about to lay waste to. And by lay waste I mean...
I bet this machine would go off like it detected satan himself if it was pointed at a slashdot reader trying to ask out a female.
If you'd RTFA, you'd know the study was actually totally different. See they gave half the people a porno magazine and the other half got "Time", and they had to put it in their carry-on bag and smuggle it past this camera that their mother/wife/girlfriend was watching...
Read: "Thought Crime"
Fact: Everything I say is fiction.
It's a long expensive story, but I freak out around authority. Traveling and going through security at airports makes me so nervous that my pulse races and I'm sure that my eyes dilate and other things. I just see myself being "detained" and "questioned" every time I fly.
Add in those bomb sniffing booths where they trap you in there for 30 seconds, I'm really off the wall. I basically have to fly shit faced as it is and with the scope creep of the TSA, I'm sure I'll be snagged for FUI - flying under the influence or something.
Cops always give me a second look. When I read that they look for folks that avoid eye contact, I make it a point to stare down cops and TSA folks all the time. So far, none of them has given me any shit about it.
The United States better come up with a new name for their country. With so many founding principals being constantly and blatantly violated the constitution will become censored because it will incriminate Americans unwilling to depose the domestic enemies of those principals. Oh yea, have a great week all!
We lose more people to premature death each and every year because we have no health care than we have to terrorism in the whole of the 21st century.
fear, fear, fear, be afraid, fear, fear, be afraid.
A young girl waring a proto-board with blinking LEDs could have ben shot dead because of the hysteria.
fear, fear, fear, be afraid, fear, fear, be afraid. fear, fear, fear, be afraid, fear, fear, be afraid.
You can't say we have nothing to fear, but we have a lot of real and pressing things that need to be focused upon.
fear, fear, fear, be afraid, fear, fear, be afraid. fear, fear, fear, be afraid, fear, fear, be afraid. Threat level purple.
The U.S.A. has to re-grow our spine. We have nothing to fear but fear itself. Unfortunately, the current powers that be like to rule by exploiting and enhancing the terror of terrorists.
NOTJOKING
There are a number of things fundamentally wrong here:
1. As has been pointed out in the replies and elsewhere, actual terrorists and nut-bars are exceedingly rare. So rare, in fact, as to disappear in the white noise of normal individual variation. In other words, the false positives will be too high.
2. This is tantamount, in my view, to searching for thought crime. It is the approach of a police state dealing with a suspect population and asserting preemptive control, rather than that of a democratic state dealing with suspect individuals after a crime has occurred.
3. This is a resource sink. The dollars and people that this will soak up will divert dollars and resources from reasonable preventive and investigatory efforts that are much more likely to actually improve security.
To sum up, this is operationally weak, ethically wrong headed, and will not pass a cost-benefit analysis. That pretty much guarantees major funding from the security bureaucracy.
Thanx,
John
When the going gets weird, The weird turn pro.
- Hunter S. Thompson
If the figure quoted above of 200,000 people per day passing through O'Hare airport is correct. A 1% false positive rate would be 2,000 people per day flagged as suspicious in just O'Hare. If they got the numbers down to less than 1/100 of 1% that would be only 20 people per day. That's still pretty bad if you are one of the 20, but the numbers would be manageable. (Please note that I am talking practical application, not my own belief, which is that this proposal is very very scary.)
You are correct. From TFA:
It is absolutely ridiculous to think that they have produced any kind of test results that would indicate a functioning system. This is government and business at its absolute worst.
Not only is DHS trying their damnedest to become big brother, they are doing it in the most incompetent way possible.
This tech will never, ever work. All it can measure is physiological attributes. Correlation is not causation. Just because some percentage of people who are intending to commit a crime have certain physiological characteristics does not mean that anyone with those characteristics is a 'pre-criminal' and should be questioned. I weep for the future.
And even if, in some far-flung scenario, it did become functional it would still be illegal. It is invasion of privacy. Our thoughts and intentions are private. They mean nothing until we act on them. Human thought is vast and unlimited, part of our nature is boiling down the infinite array of ideas we have into action in the physical world where there are consequences. Everyone has the right to think whatever they want. When they act on it, then that action enters the territory of having (potentially bad) consequences.
What this evolves into is thought control and that is the end of liberty.
Thank you Dave Raggett
I feel safer already.
I could probably look it up, and maybe I'm ignorant....but for all the pain in the ass they've made flying now, how often do they actually thwart terrorist attempts or find people trying to smuggle explosives through security? I just don't recall hearing any news in recent history about DHS actually *doing* anything productive.
In a crowd of thousands, there are probably only a few individuals who are up to something. Security personnel currently has no better option than to just look around, waiting to catch someone in the act, at which point it's usually too late. With this kind of technology, security staff will be able to make an educated guess about whom to observe a little more closely. Because, let's face it, most of the time they're just walking around, doing nothing except being present.
Possibly the most serene people in an airport lounge are those who've already accepted their fate and are willingly going to meet their makers mark shortly after the plane takes off.
Fixed it for you
I can't wait for Schneier http://www.schneier.com/ to rip this one apart. Security theater and more waste of tax payer money.
So what they've built, then, is a device for detecting people deliberately acting suspiciously?
How do you test for "mal-intent" when you're telling people "OK, I want you to stand there and sort of dart your eyes backwards and forwards; like you see in the movies. And then, I want you to think REAL HARD about robbing a bank."
Do they go up to people on the street and ask "our system says you're thinking about knocking off that jewelry store; are you?"
What if they say "no"?
We're geeks... We're the sorcerers of the modern-day world. --
The "Political Candidate Will Embarrass and Impoverish The Nation" detector
The "Spook Who Gets Advanced Killing Gear Is Insane And Should Be Fired" detector
The "Chick Will Sleep With Men Who Have The Detector" detector
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
What is up with people with panic disorder? I used to suffer from panic attacks and am now suffering from PTSD. It's not nice believe me, but most importantly for this context, it's sometimes not avoidable to get a (negative feeling) adrenaline rush, heart rate is going up and i'm sure all the other signs which would be detectable from distance by this detector.
So now we've arrived at a level where we're repeating the Inquisition again?
Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many.
This reminds me of something called a "Telescreen".
Glad to see the Government still loves 1984
It would be unworkable at a public place like an airport, but for say security at the crossing it wouldn't be. The Israeli have special border gates where they check everyone and can isolate suspects quickly and safely, basically trapping suspects in a bomb proof area.
Since they don't care about the hassle this introduces (discussion in another area please) the system would be helpful, although how much better this is then a person trained for regonising suspicious behavior I don't know.
Fact is, the border checks stop and awful lot of suicide bombers but a lot get through as well.
For point security, where you don't mind the hassle introduced for the false positives, this system could be of use. It biggest failure is NOT so much the false positives, but the false negatives. What if it is installed not as a backup system BUT as a replacement?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
3-13% of the population has fear of crowds in some time in their life, not to mention any of a dozen other anxiety disorders that can be triggered by a huge crowds, authoritarian TSA security theater, deadlines to get on claustaphobic planes, the stress of travel, etc etc - "Sensors look at facial expressions, body heat and can measure pulse and breathing rate from a distance." - That's what anxiety looks like. If they implement anything like this it's going "catch" anxious people who are already terrified of being caught being anxious and make them choose not to travel anymore.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
God bless the police state!
So I am pissed cause I find out at work through a phone call from a friend that my bitch ass girlfriend or boyfriend is cheating on me and I am anticipating a fight when I go home and chew his/her ass out and kick them out of my house since they are live in.
On my way home the cops pull my sorry ass over and put me in jail cause I look like I am a terrorist. Fscking great!
Or I am on the bus to pickup my car from a mechanic and I am pissed cause the bill is going to be so damned high, I am going to tell him to shove it, pay my bill and never do business again with the jokers. Then When I get on the bus I get flagged and pulled of the bus and sent to gitmo cause I am nervous.
If we get too many false positive scenarios then I guess the drug companies will love it as sales of anti-anxiety drugs.
Yay more drugs for a drugged society.
Pretty soon you will have a a band of rebels that will rise up against the society and the leader will be falsely accused of corrupting minors and brainwashed back into society as a "normal" person. Then he break the washing and figure it out only to be sent to Cygnus Alpha prison planet.
I wanted a Star Trek Future, not the Blake's 7 future.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
I'm just impressed by the number of people who immediately assume that when the red light goes off, you automatically get waterboarded.
Those people must be afraid of metal detectors.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
And then the DHLS agents can all be Commanders Braxtion, zipping through the timelines, arresting or aborting people, or arresting and coitus-interrupting the would-be parents, all stating like the Vidal Sassoon (And, THEY'LL tell two friends, and so on and so on and so on... commercial):
"I am Commander Braxton, of the DHLS Timeship Aeon. You are being arrested for crimes you WILL commit...", or,
"I am Commander Braxton, of the DHLS TimePos ICOS. You sex act is being disrupted to delay or prevent arrival of the bastard/bitch YOU MIGHT give rise to..."
So, what of a Kenyan sprinter, having lost his run, is sweating profusely, dons his sweat pants, runs to a store outside the track event, and is frustrated because he doesn't know what to do? In SOME countries, he might be assumed to be en route to a criminal activity (if the cameras and human monitors don't take into account he's a jogger...)
But, what of a hunter who takes down the helpless elk, only to watch a ranger or warden haul it away, or, worse, has some teens or (gasp, senior citizens bored with life) come along and take that elk away? But, the shooters head to town for some beers. If caught on a camera, would THEY be suspected of prepping to kill or harm anyone?
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
This will work until they point the system onto the members of Congress.
Man, all I have to say is this thing had better not film me when I'm talking with my ex-wife (affectionatly referred to around the house as "The Devil"). I'm sure this thing would have pegged me as "homicidal madman".
But, when going through security, it's a toss up between beautiful martyrdom and failure resulting in a good long stretch in Guantanamo Bay being questioned unmercifully by the infidels.
So, it's just like being any US citizen of Arab descent trying to re-enter the country these days?
Hell, I'm afraid of being blackbagged by TSA and sent to Gitmo, and I'm an old white guy.
Ok, look, I am tired of this crap, this is such a waste of time and money. Anyone in security will tell you blacklisting is a horrible and ineffective way to handle things. Whitelisting is the only reasonably efficient way. It also isn't fair to keep harrassing innocent people. We need to quit investing so much time and money into catching or detering bad guys and fully adopt guilty until proven innocent.
It is much easier to just force everyone to prove they are innocent before allowing them to do anything. Even when false positives occur in a system like this they are still more likely to keep the majority of bad guys out rather than letting the majority in. This will stop innocent people from being harrassed since they have already proved themselves before being let in.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
This is so fucked. These people are believing their own lies.
There is no such thing as a lie detector. The technology that is called a lie detector only measures certain biological factors. These factors are not always present when some one lies, and sometimes these factors are present when a person is NOT lying.
How can it be different with this machine?
The principles of liberty preclude the use of this machine and lie detectors (by the government).
"It's because they're stupid, that's why. That's why everybody does everything." -Homer Simpson
Technically, if the system says you have intent, doesn't mean shit. You've not done anything and as long as you have nothing on your person, you shouldn't be held but a few moments until you contact your lawyer.
I'm sure this will be hard pressed to be used in a court of law.
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
Do you think that after 9/11 people would have wanted the president to say, "Citizens it is your responsibility to stop future air jackings because the government can't always protect you from crazy ass-wipes with box cutters".
An Angry mob of citizens would have friggen hung him from Washingtub Monument by his neck till dead if he had said that.
Politicians love to "take care" of the citizens because that keeps the corrupt silmeballs in power and they can use fear as a tool to hold that power.
We should look out to a certain degree for our own safety, but we as a society don't want the responsibili9ty of watching out for our selves so we want the government to take care of us, either by limiting our own freedom to be stupid (seat belt/helmet laws), or imposing new bureaucracies upon us that take our money and limit our freedoms (Dept. of Homeland Security).
Living in a sheltered sub-urban and urban settings has shielded us from the harsh reality of nature that we have to look after ourselves and has created a society of gullible sheep.
Laws are good to help limit people from hurting others or punish those that hurt others, but now we as a society are imposing laws to hurt ourselves because we are too lazy to take responsibility for our own well being.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
The Thought Police are coming.
They'll surely send you to Room 101 for uttering "Down with USA".
proud caffeine whore
reason: "ding-ding-ding-ding-ding!"
"And THAT, Mr. President, is how it works. you can see its accuracy."
"stop pointing that THING at me!"
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
The government has been working on devices like this for years.
This device detects many things that humans are not able to perceive, and uses this information to pick out people that are trying to act normal but who are actually very stressed. I.E. - a guy with a bomb will be very stressed because he is trying to blend into a crowd of people that might spot his bomb. (and he's planning to commit suicide...)
This device is FAR more accurate than humans - here's why.
Humans-
Get tired and bored.
Can be distracted or deceived.
Forget things like terrorist names. (Obama... Crap! it's Obama Bin Ladin!)
Have prejudices and pre-conceived ideas about what a terrorist looks like.
Can't tell your heart rate or know that it went from 78 beats a minute to 130 when you handed your papers to the security person.
I hope that everyone gets the point. A device like this can be a valuable tool, and should actually reduce the number of people that get harassed at airports. It will help to take the "human error" out of the security equation.
Every time I read about the latest in "criminal/terrorist spotting techniques/technology," it just makes me more paranoid. I happen to be rather sociophobic, and am very uncomfortable in public places. And that often leads to behaviors that some would find "suspicious." I'm not a goddamn terrorist....I just avoid close contact with others as much as possible.
I wear dark glasses all the time, regardless of weather, simply because I feel more comfortable that way. I frequently look around and glance over my shoulder to insure that I'm not about to have my personal space violated by another pedestrian (or, for that matter, by some idiot bicyclist riding on the sidewalk when there is a bike lane 10 feet away in the street). I do not want strangers I don't know closely approaching me, or trying to address or converse with me for no good reason. (Acceptable reasons: "Your hair is on fire" or "You are about to be run over by a semi." Unacceptable reasons: "Got a light?" or "Some weather we're having, huh?") I have been known to cross a busy street rather than encounter a large group of people walking my way on the sidewalk. At bus stops, if there are people there I wait some distance away and out of direct sight. In line at the post office or wherever, I usually have to stand several feet to the side of the line because modern-day people tend to want to stand close enough to me to conduct a proctology exam. I do not make casual eye contact, and keep my tunes cranked up and am in my own little world out there.
Sure, you may say I'm mentally ill, or just a dick. And you may be right on one or both counts -- me, I just accept that this is the way I am. I'm a private person, almost a hermit, and I don't like mingling with the masses. And none of that is a crime. Yet, already I have a history of having been approached by the local gendarmes several times because I am acting "suspiciously." If these "Terrorist-O-Matic" type devices start to be widely deployed, I'm going to end up not merely an asocial loner, but an agoraphobe as well, because I'm sure alarm bells are going to go off every time I'm in range of one of these things.
Suspicion, like so many things, is in the eye of the beholder. And what we term as "suspicious behavior" increasingly is being broadened to "anything different or non-conformist." Basically, the post-9/11 world has made it dangerous to be eccentric.
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
It begins here, next thing you know they'll be deploying psychics scanning our thoughts...
I'm increasingly growing concerned and paranoid of our government. I'm starting to get scared. This all but too closley resembles the the "Thought Police". I doubt this will be used for it's intended purpose. This will be used for automated tracking of key individuals.
Trying to install linux on my microwave, but keep getting a kernel panic...
The ideas behind this are absolute bullshit; (especially using the type of technology they are discussing).
It won't help. It won't work reliably, and it's basically a "thought crime" scenario. Warrantless "no probable cause" searches etc are bad enough already without some technological pseudo-justification.
I am thinking that any technology which would truly work for this would be quite intrusive; the current research and cutting edge development in electromagnetic neuro interfaces is almost unbelievable, like science fiction. It's actually quite scary and goes way beyond stuff mentioned in this article. That is where the real threat will emerge, according to some it already has.
So its going to be about 78% effective at catching terrorists who have been told to act suspicious. Why wouldn't we implement this immediately!?
They need to modify their test instructions from "act suspicious" to secretly giving one persion in 100 an assignment like "We'll pay you $10000 and protect you from any legal liability if - once you get past the detectors - you punch the operator in the nose. If the machine catches you, you get nothing."
If the machine works, the TSA operator shuttles that person safely aside into a holding area.
If not...
I've stolen this from Cory Doctorow
Here's the thing... The system picked up 80% of the volunteers, none of which were an actual threat or had harmful intent, who were deliberately acting in a way to try and fool it. Er, that's unbelievably bad, don't you think? 0% of the people screened were a threat, but it flagged 80% of the actors anyway.
I wonder what it would do if you told a psycho ex-girlfriend of one of the researchers that she could kick the guy in the nuts if she could stay calm enough about it to slip by the machine. From the sound of it, the researchers would be easily emasculated.
"In trials using 140 volunteers those told to act suspicious were detected with 'about 78% accuracy on mal-intent detection, and 80% on deception,' says a DHS spokesman.""
So tests prove that it detects people acting suspicious. Are there any tests showing that it detects people who are in fact suspicious?
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
This will be interesting in real life. Air travel is already stressful for most people: arranging transportation to the airport, getting to the airport on time, waiting in line to check bags and get tickets, trying to figure out the arcane rules of what can be brought on the plane, half undressing and partly unpacking your carry on in to a plastic bin while keeping an eye on your personal belongings as your body and bags are subjected to the scrutiny of a random stranger... really, they are going to just flag the average traveler because the average traveler is already stressed and angry at the whole situation! Ok, maybe that's a generalization or maybe just me, but I can just see someone walking up to security and noticing extra cameras, bio-lidar contraptions and whatever else hanging off the wall and just grimacing at the thought of another pointless layer of security and then being tackled by airport security.
I *always* attempt to act suspicious whenever I know I might be monitored by some supposed "behavior detection" expert. After all, ill will is not a crime until acted upon.
--
www.nitemarecafe.com
Its a box with a bunch of flashing lights and a big sign on it that says "Pre-Crime Detector". You just apprehend anyone who tries to tamper with it.
Have gnu, will travel.
Does anyone remember the name of the movie, where people were arrested for crimes the government thinks they "Might Commit" in the future? This machine sounds very familiar!
Any beta blocker will keep the adrenalin-related symptoms in a normal range.
Temperature is probably related to that, 2ndary effect, but anti-thyroid drug will compensate if necessary.
No doubt this is thought of by the authorities, but the point of these systems isn't catching terrorists, it is employing security personnel and providing investment opportunities for the decision makers at Security-R-US.
That reminds me of the people who tested their polygraph device by splitting their guinea pigs into two groups. One group was told to pretend they'd committed a crime and the other group was told not to. People in each group were then asked whether or not they'd committed a crime. They could apparently spot the people who lied about their imaginary crime. I kid you not. I got this from a BBC documentary, probably Horizon.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Can you for a moment outline your reasons that make you think ethnic (or sexistic or age-istic) profiling is wrong?
Sure, I can do that for you.
Smugglers and guerillas (the talent pool that terrorists have readily available) can test and measure the effects of profiling and defeat it completely. It's a trivial exercise, in fact - just spend a few days looking at who gets stopped and who doesn't.
I'm told that on I95 where it passes through Delaware, the drug smugglers discovered that profiling was being used. They then began hiring mules that fit the profile and having them transport just enough dope to have the police force fall over themselves with "yay profiling works" self-congratulation. Meanwhile, literally hundreds of pounds of dope were being moved by people who did not fit the profile - you can put a lot of cocaine in a station wagon full of screaming kids driven by a sweating, red-faced white guy.
The main victims were the poor schmucks who were purposely hired off the streets in Miami to be caught. Their recruiting, and the drugs that were seized, were just an overhead cost easily absorbed by the drug lords. But the secondary victims were the harmless brown-skinned folks with Florida tags who were harassed, and the tax payers whose money was being wasted.
Look, say I'm Omar Hooknose the Greasy, I kidnap your kids and strap dynamite to their bodies, then I have your atheistic European wife carry my luggage to Philly. She thinks she's smuggling drugs, but it's a pressure activated bomb. I'm sure I don't really need to point out the thousand other ways any half-witted moron can defeat profiling, since terrorists are provably capable of learning and planning.
Profiling will always appear to work, because it is in the best interests of the bad guys to feed human fodder into the profiling machine. But actually, it's just distracting resources and staff from the real threats. Profiling works in the best interests of terrorists, really.
Either search everyone to the same degree or randomly choose people for extra searching. Don't bother with racial or ethnic profiling, it is trivially easy to defeat.
Personally, I'm not afraid of terrorists. I would like the government to disband the TSA and stop all efforts to protect me and my family from terrorism. I think only cowards are afraid of terrorists, because terrorists are less effective than whiskey at killing Americans, and I'm not particularly afraid of whiskey.
if I'm grumpy or didn't sleep well, I'll miss my flight at the least, might spend some time in jail until they get it cleared up, or I could disappear for several months.
Goddammit, I miss the USA I grew up in.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
If someone has done the planning and has the resources for a terrorist attack, what is to stop them from popping a beta-blocker or diazepam etc. before entering the airport?
In trials using 140 volunteers those told to act suspicious were detected...
You have got to be kidding me... Did they tell them to wear a giant black hat and carry around one of those cartoon bombs too?
As a statistician, I stopped reading there - whatever numbers they get have nothing to do with anything, except these daft fools pantomiming Osama.
Still, even if it does work there will be "immune" people (that is, those with "flattened affect"; e.g. total sociopaths like Barris from A Scanner Darkly). And since everyone who shows any response at all, will inevitably be interrogated-on-the-spot, it'd be easy for enemies to find the immune people. Just send recruits into sporting events with some alcohol, or a lighter, or some other light contraband to make a normal (read: susceptible) person nervous, but not carrying a significant penalty for possession.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
I, for one, welcome back our old government overlords!
How the heck was it right only 78% of the time? I would think a human being could pick out people trying to look suspicious more frequently than that. Either it's terrible at finding people who are *trying* to look suspicious, or those people just aren't trying hard enough.
Well, 78% perfectly, anyway....
Hey, does this thing work on politicians running for President?
Every time you call tech support, a little kitten dies.
When I am bored (standing in an endless lineup, waiting for a delayed flight, etc) I often look at my surroundings.
I used to install video equipment, so I look at the installed video monitors and cameras.
Is noticing security cameras (and the quality of their installation) in an area suspicious?
I am a model railroader.
Is is suspicious that I take pictures of trains and their environment so that I can build more accurate models?
I studied architecture for a time.
Is it suspicious that I spend a lot of time looking at (and sometimes photographing) interesting buildings?
Am I acting suspicious when I notice a guard of some sort watching me doing the above, and that I am curious as to how he might react to my perfectly harmless activities in these highly paranoid times?
---
"I can't complain, but sometimes still do..." Joe Walsh
We call it Voight-Kampff for short.
Lots of people who fly do have some level of anxiety about flying. Others may have discomfort with being treated as terrorists, being searched, being interrogated and/or sent to undisclosed locations for waterboarding, sleep deprivation, rape and other non-torture interrogation techniques.
Let's hope the device only picks out the bad guys.
to McCarthyism of the 21st century. Scary Stuff!
The very question leaves me in a quandry, here is an organization seeming devoid of functional intelligence trying to capture hints of intelligence in advance but with nefarious aims. If, indeed, it could work, at least, as an a priori probability 90% should on the basis of bad intentions point back to that department. But how could it point back to an intelligence void?
Nonetheless, on the scale of philosophical questions it surely ranks in the realm of importance as "How many angles can dance on the head of a pin?". Therefore, it should be funded into eternity for further study.
Let's say you're not lucky: you are a false positive and the system triggers just because you are naturally stressed by life. Having to pass the full terrorist test every time you walk in an airport is going to be rather annoying.
If the objective of this device is to get the public to feel safe with less hassle, random screening is a much better idea.
I intend to harm people every day and yet the threat of prosecution and knowing its wrong has prevented my actions over fifty years. I admit it, I want to blow shit up, kill idiots and otherwise reduce the human population in mass every day. But, I choose not to kill. So what now, am I supposed to put up with constant harassment for thinking badly? Are they going to next cross reference these scans with medical databases and send me to analysis for later drug regimens and psychotherapy?
Have you ever experienced rage dealing with traffic or brain dead bill collectors at the tax department? Have you ever dealt with a corrupt, oppressive cop who only wants you to bend over and take his authority up the a*s? Imagine his cruisers camera alerting him to your now angry and violent feelings towards his coercion, how about a scenario where your boss decides to provoke you into "bad" feelings before the scanalyzer to build his case against you.
Do they have any clue that automated incrimination will bring about an increase of the very hyper empowered individual with the desire to destroy there coercive system that they attempt to suppress?
This invasion of individual privacy doesn't bode well for humanity.
I'm thinking that instinct will also step in and make pulling that pin less than blissful; we're hard-wired to freak out, or at the very least react, when facing mortal danger.
I suppose you're going to tell me that there's no study available that shows whether they wet their frocks before, or after the detonation?
Besides, these sorts of systems break down when evaluating a medicated subject. Beta blockers are highly effective at suppressing the involuntary physiological effects of fear. Ask any professional musician. So is alcohol, though unlike beta blockers it has the problematic effect of making you drunk.
Sounds like the thing works by automatically detecting people who have the adrenaline rush going on.
This is great, all we need to do to knock homeland security off their high horse is to put up a billboard on the way to the airport with a picture of Chuck norris and the words "Chuck Norris will kill you when you get through airport security."
Everyone will have heightened body temperature, increased perspiration, faster breathing, and will be looking over their shoulder. The machine will get so many false positives that it will blow the fuck up.
I work in the FAST program, and the New Scientist article is really bad.
1) You can't detect "pre-crime." The proper phrase is "malintent" (I know, it's a made up word). You ask someone a couple of questions and you can detect a number of things which let you know if they're being evasive. Each person is his own baseline, so the question is not if you're nervous, but whether the question: "Are you planning on smuggling a bomb in today?" makes you more nervous than: "What did you eat for breakfast?"... for example.
2) None of the test subjects was told how to act. That's such stupid idea only a reporter could come up with it. Some test subjects were put into situations where they would get "an award" for getting away with something potentially illegal related to the security screening. None of them were "eager volunteers," but real people who had no idea they were part of a DHS experiment. All they knew was they would get paid to go to this conference.
3) The idea is to use multiple sensors. Even as part of the project, I don't know how many sensors there will be in the final version. Each of these sensors tries to measure something different, so you can't just fake your way through the facial expression sensor and expect not to get caught.
4) The goal is to *quickly* differentiate people who need additional screening (like going through a metal detector) from people who don't. Right now it's not fast enough, but the idea is to head in that direction. The goal is not to let a computer decide if you're a criminal... there are some of us who work for the government who still believe in the Constitution.
Let's see. Barefoot, dehydrated because no water allowed, can't find a pay phone or internet connection, some ass monkeying with the laptop or sensitive equipment, combative airline employees eager to assert their authority or that sneer over a ticket's class or changes, $100-$400 ticket changes for the unwary, airlines with "customer service" weaseling on their responsibilities for equipment failures, overbooking and delays. Add the normal stresses of work, school, family, traffic, economic reverses. Soon most, if not all airport, passers could be "terrorists".
This was in the coming.
See Naomi Klein a few months ago.
those told to act suspicious were detected with 'about 78% accuracy on mal-intent detection
Congratulations. You can now detect bad acting.
The guy doing ninja rolls, lurking, wearing comedy glasses and a big nose, looking through holes in a newspaper... he's completely screwed now.
The terrorist who's spent five minutes running some deep breathing exercises to lower his heartrate, who's come to terms with the fact he's about to blow himself up over the last several months, who has been schooled on how to act normal rather than "act like a guy with mal-intent"... is going to walk straight through.
If you train your system on actors, you can successfully spot people "acting" a certain way.
Now, pull a guy out of a jail cell, tell him you're part of a black ops CIA branch who needs a national disaster to shore up presidential support, tell him he gets his freedom if he can get what he believes is a real bomb on to a real aircraft... and give him a few weeks to prepare with expert help... now you've got something approximating an actual terrorist, with real intent, trying to "act" as normally as possible. Train your system on that and you might have something.
It sounds a hell of a lot like the classic AI program that could detect tanks, even hidden ones, with near perfect accuracy. Then someone pointed out all the tank pictures were taken on a cloudy day and the non tank pictures on a sunny day. Their expensive system could now tell when the weather sucked but knew absolutely nothing about tanks.
This systems sounds like it knows a hell of a lot about bad acting and nothing whatsoever about terrorists beyond the self congratulatory assumptions of a bunch of idiots.
Am I missing something here? It can detect people "acting suspicious", but what if you're not "acting suspicious"?
Let me get this straight. They tested the software by asking people to PRETEND they were considering doing something malicious? In other words, they calibrated it with known false positives?
Dumb.
Seems to me, the real purpose to this is so that you can continue to hire minimum wage morons to do screening and feed most of the huge anti-terrorism budgets into contracts and purchases where it's easiest to produce kickbacks.
Yeah, let's let the computer observe and think for them, so that all the "warm body" need do is look for the red flashing lights. What a joke...
This is really very disturbing. I strongly recommend you spend the 20 minutes looking at this poignant Twilight Zone episode about the thought police. http://www.fancast.com/tv/The-Twilight-Zone/97525/626446465/The-Twilight-Zone-(12-hr)-Penny-for-Your-Thoughts/videos
This reminds me of a Twilight Zone episode. A guy develops telepathy and hears the thoughts of another guy who sounds like he's planning a crime. It turns out the would-be criminal is just fantasizing.
Wth kinda of teenagers STEAL a dead elk from a bunch of guys with guns no less. I mean an elk weighs what 800lbs? These are some well prepared kids if they can run off with fresh kills like that, were they waiting in the woods in camo or something?
(aside from that i totally agree)
You forgot an obvious one:
- Typical /. poster, socially awkward, is sweating profusely and studying the detector in great detail.
Move all sig!
He'll still show signs of stress, though.
So do overweight joggers.
Keep that thing away from the track
Pretty sure you can program a computer to see race and color with FAR greater accuracy then your average Security person.
Teenaged GRIZZLY BEARS.
This reminds me of a military image recognition system that was developed with a neural network that had to be trained. After feeding it hundreds of images of tanks it seemed to be accurately picking out the tanks, but as soon as they took it to a field with real tanks for testing, it was spotting false positives everywhere. It turned out it had learned to recognize "tank-like shadows" instead of tanks because the source images had all be shot on a day with strong sunlight.
Putting actors or people told to "act suspicious" through to build this system is going to create a system that spots cartoonish "evil doer" behavior. Anyone who twists their mustache in an airport is going to get a body cavity search, while people with actual bad intentions will pass through with a smile.
The problem this system really solves is the unpleasant perception that a government worker has picked you to get patted down. The screener can now point to the machine and say, "I didn't want to pat you down, but the machine says I have to." It's a machine so its results will be deemed "impartial" but its selection process will be opaque, which helps the TSA eliminate the nagging problems of accountability and transparency.
The government has used this technology for a long time. It is called "racial profiling". Now a machine will perform the dirty work.
...so those of us who are already prone to random panic attacks will have one more thing to panic about.
Just declare that everyone is a criminal and be done with it.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
It sounds as those this system is based on behavioral stereotyping, something humans have been doing for as long as there have been humans. There could be a cost advantage in having machines do it if the alternative were well paid, well trained workers, but if a high false positive rate is acceptable, then why not use rummies willing to work for cheap rum?
Loose lips lose spit.
.
Millions of people may pass through an airport each year.
That doesn't mean that millions of people have direct access to the tarmac.
There is no reason why behavioral analysis shouldn't be useful and effective in places where there are few legitimate reasons why you should be there at all.
"Wth kinda of teenagers STEAL a dead elk from a bunch of guys with guns no less. I mean an elk weighs what 800lbs? "
Teens with mommy's or daddy's Hummer, or Jeep equipped with something like a 2-ton pull/haul winch and say 60 feet of cable? Maybe they pepper spray the hunters, or stink-bomb them away? Or, i s'pose they have a transporter. They don't need to steal the elk... just cook the carcass on the spot.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
I cant believe no one is aware that thinking about something that may be illegal is not a crime.
That`s the biggest lesson from the works of Orwell, Phillip K. Dick and all others.
If i go into a supermarket and think of what it would take to rob the thing.. not illegal
A person intending to do something illegal is not a criminal.
Sadly this whole "pre emptive strike" idea seems to make sense to all Americans.
I say we use 4 of these devices and if three of the four agree we go for it and ignore the Minority Report!
Why bother
This isn't about actually catching terrorists any more than polygraphs and Scientology's "e-meter" is about catching liars. It doesn't matter that it doesn't work.
What matters is that it's a "magic" box that looks "cool" and "high-tech." It gives the Department of Homeland Security an excuse to basically do whatever they want. When the judge asks, "Why did you detain this individual?" they can't answer "Because we felt like it." What they can answer, however, is "Our technology indicated this individual to be high risk with a risk factor of 98.8 percent."
This is nonsense, of course, but the judge will allow it because it sounds "scientific."
It serves the same function polygraphs do for people seeking a security clearance. Polygraphs are nonsense -- you have comparable accuracy looking at the suspect's face and guessing -- but it provides cover for the agency to deny security clearance's to people whose politics they don't like. "Oh no, your Honor, we didn't deny him clearance because he wouldn't swear allegiance to George Bush, we denied him clearance because he failed the polygraph."
It's got nothing to do with accuracy. It's got everything to do with bureaucratic cover.
Sociopolitical fear is a strategy to push the population to the political right.
The old saw about a conservative being a liberal who's been mugged holds true; all you have to do is mug their minds and they'll cave in.
It's a sleight of mind in risk assessment: the real risks are automobiles, heart disease (i.e. a botched food system), botched health care, botched education, natural disasters, and crime/poverty. Well, everyday accidents too, but that's just natural selection. Terrorism is about as much of a risk as wayward lightning strikes.
An increasing real risk in the world is war. Guess who is promoting this risk?
Damn those pesky terrorists
Pre-crime
1. Having a "criminal" face.
2. Moving your body like a "criminal".
3. Having a skin colour like a "criminal".
4. Wearing "criminal" clothing.
5. Wearing "criminal" jewelry.
6. Wearing "criminal" hairstyles.
7. Having a bad day? Angry faces are now a "crime".
8. Looking too long at her boobies? Lustful faces are now a "crime".
9. Making a fist at someone but NO contact? You have committed a crime.
10. Crawling on the ground looking for contacts? You have committed a crime.
11. Use your imagination. Everything you do is now a "crime".
12. Welcome to the Police State of [ country ].
NOTE : No crime has been commited, except your appearance, and body language.
That's right. Your appearance and body language are now "crimes".
Everyone is now a "criminal" by default.
I have no clue what this discussion is about, but taking a SHOT DEAD ELK is much less immoral than shooting it in the first place.
so this is going to falsely accuse some cultures' people, and ignore others' mal-intent?
( remember the oft cited line,
get an Englishman and an Italian in a room,
and you've got a cornered Englishman in 5 minutes...? )
What about those who are shot preemptively, in "false-positive" events?
Robo-cop, do we need the?
I was in a study with 140 volunteers where we were asked to act like we had a STD. They found 78% of us had gonorrhea and 80% of us had AIDS.
At a checkpoint, each passenger is instructed to eat a ham cube. Those that complain will be screened thoroughly and their whereabouts disseminated to the air marshalls. The observant Jew may complain but (s)he would eventually understand that under dina d'malkuta dina (the law of the land is the law) AND since it does not involve fornication, idolatry, and/or murder, and it involves the preserving of life (called 'pekuach nefesh')(s)he is permitted to do so. This will prevent the 'instant Sfardi' tactic that such terrorists may try by merely slapping on a kippah. AFAIK, there is no fatwa permitting the consumption of pork products immediately followed by a suicide operation.
So are they going to confiscate my laptop? Keep me in a cell for 2 hours asking why I am coming to the US? Look through my phone book and ask who XYZ is for the 20th time even though I explained 20 times that it is an automatically added contact from my email collected addresses ....
Are they going to finger print me, photograph me, and ask the most stupid fucking question that confuses me, then that answer confuses them...
Anyway, even though I am whiter than Cindarella, speak perfect English (with a European accent), have no intention of staying in the US, nor to blow anything up or kill anyone, have NO criminal record or did anything bad and I have a wife who is a US citizen and somewhat makes my border crossing more fluid (given that if you travel with family who is from the US they should make the non-US/Visitor line with you) ..... anyway ... even like that, crossing that border just gives me the creeps, makes me sweat, fart, change colors from white to read to pale to green, slurred speech, confused feelings ........
Yeah ... please now start monitoring the heart rate and my face colour and I end up being shot because I wanted to go and buy some discount TV at Bestbuy and felt slightly uncomfortable by your border procedures, got identified as a potentionally aggressive just about to blow something up terrorist .... died at 9:30 am MIA... ..... guess what ... I do not feel like going anymore ... no wait my wisa expired and I do not even feel like going to the embassy to try to prove that I have no bad intention (including not leaving the US) ...
I traveled Europe and some other places back and forth, and the most stressing entries of my life were the US ones. And that includes crossing from East Berlin to West with an eastern European Passport .....
No I never got stopped, interviewed or strip searched, but it feels like it happens or about to happen every single time ...
...And most importantly, skin colour?
Not to mention people with Graves' Disease.
A lady of my acquaintance had a bad case of it.
The paralysis of the muscles around the eyes, along with the surgery to return her eye to its socket and close the lid around it, changed her facial expressions - in a way that makes her look unemotional in some situations and makes cops think (unconsciously) that she looks like a criminal sociopath - and act accordingly toward her.
It also gives her pathological nystagmus - abnormal eye motion - which made her fail the first screening of the field sobriety tests, where the cop looks at the driver's eye motion before deciding to pull them from the car for more extensive harassment. (She was working near a police academy and it got to where the cops would pull her over every night and burn an hour of her time using her to train the students.)
So here we go again...
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The device is nothing more than a non-contact polygraph, what's commonly called a "lie detector". The device measures physiological response. It can detect a person in distress (negative response to stress). Unfortunately it can't determine the reason because it can't get into the person's thoughts, it can only detect if they're undergoing a period of physiological arousal.
Heaven help the person waiting at an airport who's afraid to fly. This device will flag them as a potential terrorist. Indeed, heaven help mostly those people who're fearful because this device will give them good reason to be. As for intended criminals, they need only practice yoga, biofeedback or any other means proven to promote control over physiological response in order to escape detection. This has always been true of polygraphy. I've got a lot of experience with physiological measurement as well as with hatha yoga, I know what's possible and not possible. The only thing newsworthy here is the non-contact part. The fact that they intend to use it, despite the flaws, is not newsworthy. It's just very scary, same as a lot of the other recent developments in the erosion of civil rights in the name of protecting the public.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Some subjects were told to *ACT* shifty, be evasive, deceptive and hostile. And many were detected.
So, for only a few million dollars, we have created a device that can detect bad acting almost as effectively as a movie critic? How well does it detect actual bad guys trying to act casual? Will it also go off for perfectly normal and harmless people trying to appear even more normal and harmless to avoid an anal probe?
Couldn't we cut out the middleman and just tell DHS to heat their building with $100 bills?
They can start with Bush and work their way down. They would have a backlog before Jan. 20 2009.
for the pizza delivery guy at 31 minutes when he walks by an agent with a detector.
You have 1 out of 1,000,000 that have the disease
(and we suppose that you detect it since you
have 99% accuracy)
You have 10,000 false positive (1% wrong)
Grand total: 10,001 "potential" infected.
Only 1 real infected out of 10,001 =>
The test is wrong 10,000 time out of 10,001
or about 99,99% of the time!
(In the false positive, you can garantee
that they are almost all wrong.)
So Cory Doctorow is correct in :)
is 9,999 out of 1,000,000 (~99,99%)
I was told to act suspicious I would start to tiptoe round like a pantomime villain
What they really needed to do was make the test subjects act innocent under stress.... A better test would be to have a control group who have to travel across town and deliver a package particular location and are told its an experiment in traffic routing
The test group are told there on a TV game show and they have to deliver a package to drop off but there being hunted by men in white suits (and have a load of hunters wandering round town), tell them if there spotted they get a ducking in a vat of slime if there not caught they get $200 and a chance go on to the next show.
That would provide ample data to both test and train a system.
A moose once bit my sister..
those told to act suspicious were detected with 'about 78% accuracy
if ((subject ().GetShirt () == BLACK_AND_WHITE_STRIPED_SHIRT)
&& (subject ().Bag () == BIG_SACK_WITH_SWAG_WRITTEN_ON))
printf ("You're fucking NICKED");
There, done it.
A møøse, you mean?
Mynd you, møøse bites Kan be pretti nasti.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
... They gave all the volunteers a laquered wooden ball with their name on it.
Say hello to my little sig.
Great, so the govt admits they've developed a system with a 78-80% *FALSE POSITIVE* rate.
After all, these were people who were *NOT* planning to commit a crime, but were told to *ACT* as if they were. Any single person picked out by this system was, by definition, a *FALSE POSITIVE*.
I understand that it's easy to defeat lie detectors - you just make yourself believe what you say, or else you literally don't *care* what you're saying.
Real bad guys will be easily capable of this. It's the complete amateurs who would probably be noticed by folks around them.
Oh, along with folks who get nervous about flying....
mark