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DHS To Use Body Odor As a Lie Detector

The US Department of Homeland Security is studying lies, damned lies, and smells. They hope to prove that human body odor could be used to tell when people are lying. The department says they are already "conducting experiments in deceptive behavior and collecting human odor samples" and that the research it hopes to fund "will consist primarily of the analysis and study of the human odor samples collected to determine if a deception indicator can be found."

13 of 206 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Something stinks around here by sgbett · · Score: 4, Funny

    They could be lining this up as the replacement for UAC!

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    Invaders must die
  2. Best reply by commodore64_love · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "I take the 5th amendment" or "I choose to remain silent"

    Don't give the government anything, else they will use it later to entrap you or jail you. The right to free speech also includes the right to be quiet.

    --
    "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
  3. Consumer version, please ... by tomhudson · · Score: 4, Funny

    After all, it would be nice to be able to say that Office Depot's policy of lying to customers literally STINKS!

    So how are they going to calibrate this?

    Your Stink-o-Lie-Meter
    1. Kid with hand in cookie jar
    10. Madoff with hand in cookie jar
    66. Used car salesman
    666: Bush "They Have WMDs" salesman
    2. "No, the dress doesn't make you look fat."
    0. "It's not the dress."
    9. "It's not the dress, and I ENJOY sleeping on the couch!"
    4. It's a bug (it's not a "bug" - it didn't crawl in on its' own volition - fess up and admit you made a mistake).
    40. It's a feature.
    0. "They're real." (It's none of your business, Jack!)
    9. "I didn't forget your birthday."
    500. "We have a plan to deal with the current financial crisis" - ANY POLITICIAN - we KNOW you're just making this sh*t up as you go along.
    499. "Bankruptcy is not an option." - GM head honcho Ron Wagoner

  4. A pack of dogs by mc1138 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Just looking to smell the fear on you. Will it be able to tell if someone is actually lying or just really nervous that they're being questioned by a federal agency?

    1. Re:A pack of dogs by yttrstein · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It won't be able to reliably tell anything about anyone, except perhaps that they were a little bit nervous about something, just *exactly* the same way current lie detectors do.

      The problem with lie detection, as quite a number of people have said endlessly over the years, is that the assumption is made that a lie is something that somehow the body has a physiological problem with. Clearly this is swan songs of morality, as amorphous and dynamic as they are, being applied directly to the human nervous system, and somehow people are surprised to discover that there hasn't been a lie detector in the world that's been proven unquestionably to work at all.

  5. Beanz meanz fartz by AliasMarlowe · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If they want odour, let them have it, full throttle. Eat chilli beans with garlic and cream cheese (or whatever supercharges your afterburner) a few hours before boarding a flight.
    "I fart in your general direction! In fact, I fart uncontrollably in all directions!"

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    Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
    1. Re:Beanz meanz fartz by jimicus · · Score: 4, Informative

      You can be denied entry onto a flight for any reason whatsoever - even "the security inspector x-raying your hand luggage didn't get laid last night".

  6. Same as always by aepervius · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Polygraph, and other assorted gadget do NOT detect lie. Ever. What they possibly detect is stress, (fear and its little cousin nervousness for example) which in some case may or may not be correlated to a lie. It is all based on putting the idea that "it works" in the mind of people it tests, and indeed sometimes law enforcement get confession from people (they CAN use the confession but may not use any lie detector crap, and recently even that was put under fire). There isn't really a good scientific background on it The Lie behind the lie detector.

    Using odor instead of breathing heart beat and so on will not bring anymore science is this than pissing into a violin and expecting a concerto.

    --
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    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
    visit randi.org
  7. Re:Should be cheap! by silentsteel · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Um, no. Every creature on earth has an unique scent. Scent will actually come out of a human being, or other "game" in cone shaped form. This is why search and rescue units will work a patch of land moving in the expected cone shape (based on what the dog picks up) when trailing a victim in a search. I have done search and rescue and that is the logic they use because it works. The first thing they do when a new volunteer comes on is show them how it works. Tracking, what you were referring to, also uses the same concept but, with the individual scent being left by brushing against the ground itself.

    In a nutshell, this scares the hell out of me.

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    I cut it three times, and it's still too short.
  8. Life imitating... er... life? by MrNemesis · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is just precious - the Stasi in the GDR (east germany to most) did exactly the same thing with their suspects.

    http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,484561,00.html
    http://scent-lab.blogspot.com/2008/07/body-odor-preserved-and-exhibited-at.html

    People being interrogated would frequently be asked to sit with their palms face down on a piece of cloth, usually stuck to the chair. After the interrogation, the cloth would be removed and placed in a jar for later analysis. I don't believe it's ever been admissible as evidence in any western court, but that's obviously what the whole DHS "proof" is all about.

    Quite why one would invest so many resources in this when fingerprints and DNA are already reliable forms of identification I don't know, and I strongly suspect that the "indicator" of deception will be flawed for much the same reasons the results of a polygraph are flawed - I can understand how someone who's stressed might well emit a different sort of sweat than someone who's just hot, but trying to define a "liars sweat" reeks (hohoho) of pseudoscience to me.

    Who knows, maybe there's something in it, maybe the article is making too much of things, maybe I've got my paranoid hat on. But it still seems worryingly like the whole "this man is the serial killer cos his writing is all weird" argument to me.

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  9. Truth by bartoku · · Score: 4, Funny

    The new fragrance by Calvin Klein.

  10. Re:it might work in some situations.. by Comboman · · Score: 4, Funny

    Lawyer: I refer you to the case of Smelt It vs Dealt It.

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    Support Right To Repair Legislation.
  11. Re:Something stinks around here by stewbacca · · Score: 4, Funny

    I went to a Magic, the Gathering regional tournament. The place was packed with liars! Same goes for the local comic book store, evidently.