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IBM Patenting Airport Profiling Technology
An anonymous reader writes "InformationWeek's Wolfe's Den reports that IBM has filed a dozen applications to patent a sophisticated airport security system which supports passive software-based profiling of potentially dangerous passengers off of pre-programmed rules. The setup uses a collection of sensors — video, motion, biometric and even olfactory — in terminals and around the airport perimeter, to supply raw data. 'These patents are built on the inference engine, which [analyzes sensor data and] has the ability to calculate very large data sets in real time,' says co-inventor Roger Angell. A small grid of networked computers delivers the necessary processing power. Two applications go one better than Israeli-style security, analyzing furtive glances to detect, according to the title of the patent application, 'Behavioral Deviations by Measuring Eye Movements,' as well as measuring respiratory patterns."
Ever vigilant against the dog with the shifty eyes.
The need for this just appalls me. Hate it. It's amazing what a small group of "dedicated" people can do with a few airplanes.
I feel horribly for the loss of life, but I can't imagine those terrorists ever expected it to get this far.
Stupid.
Sent from your iPad.
SCO? Didnt they go bankrupt or something?
Talk about a company that sold fear....
after all, didn't they provide sophisticated technology for efficiently tracking and "managing" people who were not like the ordinary folks to a certain German government in the past ?
I suppose eating Chipotle before boarding a flight *could* be considered terrorism...
...(if granted) never stand up in court unless something truly novel was listed because this sort of 'data fusion' has been going on in the security industry for the past 10 years.
There is a very specific reason you will only see this sort of 'product' in testing for the next 10 years - 'false positives.' That's a very very important phrase in the security industry because software based solutions are supposed to act as force multipliers (although historically they're used to reduce forces in order to lower costs through automation, not to augment it) and if you've a high 'false positive' rate (as ALL of these behavioral analysis systems do) you actually impede normal security operations. Research in this area of physical security is active and ongoing, but veyr unlikely to produce anything usable except in very specific scenarios (objects left behind, loitering, et cetera.)
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Would actual terrorists behave or have other characteristics all that different that would definitively distinguish them from millions of others? I don't think so.
So really, in their efforts to find a needle in a haystack, many innocent people are going to be harassed.
Also, also with the needle in the haystack issue, I don't see this system effective in catching all actual terrorists, since they will be doing their best to "blend in" with the crowd and not stick out anyway.
So expect to have high failure rates of both type 1 and type 2 natures.
And so, the billions of dollars to deploy this system is justified how?
Not to mention all the civil rights issues with the government monitoring your biometrics without your consent or knowledge. Who knows what will be done with the data, and how it may affect you in the future? There are expectations of privacy violations here, which will be fought out in the courts.
Meanwhile, another "terrorist" will go "BOO", and you'll see hearings and blame-pointing and everything else at why this high-tech expensive system failed to catch the needle in a very big haystack "terrorist".
And now I am about to cause the paranoid US to spend billions more: BOO.
Ruby Neural Evolution of Augmenting Topologies
A device claimed to “smell” snake oil is being marketed as identifying terrorists by detecting “snake pheromones” in sweat.
“The challenge lies in the characterisation and identification of the specific chemical that gives away the signature of complete bollocks,” said project leader Professor Tong Sun of City University, “especially the fear of losing funding for security theatre. If we can reliably detect this fear, we should be able to land some eyewateringly lucrative contracts in the very near future.”
The research is funded by the Home Office. “The project relies on a government with a firm commitment to policy-based science, but the Tories look as craven over David Nutt’s firing as Labour, so we should be coining it in for a good while yet.”
The technology will assist airport security officers in picking out suitable subjects. Sensors can reliably detect if someone is a bit brown, or a bit foreign-looking, or has a non-Anglo-Saxon name, or if they might be thinking of giving cheek to security officers. It will work in conjunction with the millimetre-wave “naked” radar, currently used to identify terrorist subjects with large breasts.
The false positive rate will be only 5% on a terrorist detection rate of 1 in 100,000, meaning only 99.95% of subjects flagged will be a complete waste of time to finger up the arse with a latex glove. “But we’re sure the government will agree that mere statistical evidence is meaningless in the face of the vital necessity to send the right message,” said Prof Sun, “that if you make trouble the government will quite literally forcibly fuck you in the arse until you bleed. So just shut the fuck up and keep giving us money.”
http://rocknerd.co.uk
I think there are very few seasoned veterans of suicide bombing...
Also, I believe this is meant to be used to ASSIST actual people at checkpoints. It can't hurt to have an additional system help pick out suspicious people. Humans can only look at one person at a time as they walk by but the machine can keep a close eye on EVERYONE. What about people that try to get by the humans at the checkpoint and are worked up and nervous but then take a deep breath and regain their composure when they get close to the TSA employees? With a computer they'll be able to monitor and pick out those people well before they even get to the Xray machine and mark them for screening.
Sounds like it can't hurt. It's not like if the machine gives a false positive they throw you in jail. They just use a wand or pat you down. Heck, I was patted down the last two times I went through security and it barely took a minute.
Maybe the system works? When was the last time anyone heard of an attack on an El Al airplane?
And that the latest perp succeeded only in catching his pants on fire, points to some success. If there were no three-ounce rule, or no even haphazard searches, he wouldn't have bothered with the explosive underwear and instead just packed some C4 in his backpack.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
Yes, in my experience flying El Al, that "trick" works splendidly. Particularly when the interview is conducted by a gun-toting human under the watchful eye of other gun-toting humans.
They've lightened up a bit in recent decades, but 40 years ago airport security in some parts of the world was serious stuff. Flying into Israel, at the check-in counter security required all passengers to check *all* of their baggage and carry-ons before proceeding to the boarding area - which was actually a large room opening to the apron where the aircraft waited. Passengers arrived in that room to find all of their baggage in neat rows on the floor where bomb-sniffing dogs were inspecting it. Oh, and there were more humans with guns.
Each passenger when called had to claim his/her baggage and then proceed with it to a station where it was searched while the passenger was carefully watched. From there to the apron. When all of the baggage and all of the people were on the apron, then the baggage was loaded on the plane. But not until then. Anything left behind in the boarding room meant that everybody had to stand with their baggage on the apron until it was claimed and accounted for.
By the time people actually got on the airplane they'd been interviewed once at check-in with their baggage and carry-ons then taken away from them, then scrutinized before entering the boarding room, then scrutinized while claiming their baggage after dogs had sniffed it, then scrutinized again while taking their baggage was being searched, and then scrutinized one more time before actually getting on board.
Made you feel reasonably certain that nothing was going to happen on the plane.
Haha, yea. I realize that. I think people are smarter than keeping a weapon just tucked into their pants, but to anyone watching they don't know how well anyone is going to be patted down. Just the fact that they are stopping people is good because it just lets people know they are taking extra care to check people out. Some people more than others I guess.
However, when we used our data fusion algorithms to augment the history of a person at a checkpoint (simulated) false positives were okay, they just enhanced the interrogation.
The problem is false negatives which is much harder to quantify. Of course we had access to a scintillator that could identify trace radioactive potassium from the banana you had for lunch...