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Chinese Researchers' 'Terror Cam' Could Scan Crowds, Looking for Stress
concertina226 (2447056) writes Scientists at China's Southwest University in Chongqing are working on a new type of camera that takes Big Brother to a whole new level – the camera is meant to detect highly stressed individuals so that police can catch them before they commit a crime. The camera makes use of hyperspectral imaging, i.e. a 'stress sensor' that measures the amount of oxygen in blood across visible areas of the body, such as the face. Chinese authorities are deeply concerned about the recent spate of deadly attacks occurring in public places, such as the mass stabbing attack by eight knife-wielding extremists in the city of Kunming, Yunnan in March, which left 29 civilians dead and over 140 others injured.
And before long they'll be labeling people as latent criminals and locking them up before they ever even commit a crime.
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer.
People on the way to the dentist, or a job interview, or even a first date might get called in. At the same time Muslims take great pains to brutalise and desensitise their kids so they will be less likely to show stress.
What is a false positive? I've never heard of it before.
Apple has stopped shipping the latest iPhone as the entire workforce of the Foxconn plants where it is made was detained by Chinese police on suspicion of terrorism.
Does anyone else recognize the irony in calling it a "Terror Cam"? Implying it's going to detect terror - but it's really getting much closer to an Orwellian situation where everyone is terrified of getting noticed by the thought police.
Really, this is about detecting people who are /thinking/ about committing a crime. So, it's completely about thoughtcrime, not real crime.
Many freak shows that do this stuff are completely calm and collected about doing this stuff...
The problem with this kind of tech is a combination of false positive and police harassment of false positives.
Suddenly anyone with high blood pressure is a suspect.
I wonder if when tech will get deployed at customs.
As someone that suffers from severe PTSD, I'm concerned about being picked up for false positives.
What about the extreme stress of having to be somewhere important on the other side of town and having to walk through a riot zone to get there? What if my wife filed for divorce that day? What if my kid is in the hospital and I'm trying to go there? What about people with astynomiaphobia? And on and on and on. If stress is probable cause for warrantless attention, Americans have no rights at all, because stress--not liberty--is the cornerstone of our lives.
An automated meth-head pogrom? Well, OK, if you must.
'Terrorists' quickly discover that a few milligrams of clonazepam right before the big martyrdom operation is way less haram than getting shitfaced and at least as effective at masking anxiety. In other news, state security services are stretched thin in their new battle against 'cosmetics', a class of nefarious concealment powders and pigments specifically designed to mask the user's true facial state. On a happier note, authorities report that perps with anxiety disorders are much easier to interrogate than the other kind and credit a 58% increase in the number and detail of mostly-voluntary confessions to a new focus on these low resistance criminals...
Yeah, if only the Chinese had shut down more mosques and killed more people!
You could just change the government there and allow people more freedoms, including religion. Being fascist dickwads certainly isn't helping things. I'm not an advocate for religious practice however peoples' beliefs can force them to do something awful just to draw attention to their plight. Instead of stabbing people randomly, people being repressed in China could be like Shen Yun and put on a show about it. No? Well okay carry on then creating something that'll put more people in jail or bring back the labor camps.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
This would be great to use in sweatshops! You'd need fewer armed guards and you'd be able to see who is too relaxed (AKA slacking off)! Oh, panoptic society, I thought you were just a fantasy!
Wait, 1984 wasn't a guidebook? Well, then why have been working towards all the same tech? Oh... we're idiots. Got it.
In the attempt of "detecting stress", they would probably be "causing stress" because there is now always someone watching you (not that you might be committing anything, just the lack of comfort due to people always watching you). So pretty much getting rid of people who has the potential of camera shyness
Maybe China should stop being so shitty to its people.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Chinese Researchers' 'Terror Cam'
At first I read that as "Chinese Researchers' 'Terror Clam'...
We live in strange times; anything's possible.
False positives aside, it can also serve as another excuse to arrest whoever you want because "they look guilty".
...in the National People's Congress (China's parliament).
I wonder how many potential criminals they'll find within the halls of government.
What is needed is more knife-control laws, or, as they're known in this country, "knife-safety" laws. It is self-evident that if the government were to take away everyone's knives, these kinds of incidents would cease.
It will be here soon, too. With all the people you have sucking off the government and other taxpayers while screaming for 'security' and a fair share, it will not be long before you have government enforced Eugenics against those who are gifted with Oppositional Defiant Disorder rather than those who were formerly labeled as retarded because their development was retarded due to genetics or environmental poisons. Not only do they want security and a fair share, they want you to admit publicly that you think they are right in living the way they live. F&^k the Constitution, I want my check even if you have to rob someone else to provide it. Communist/Progressive/Socialist/Liberal is just one big dog turd that stinks no matter by which end you hold it. Having executed more than 220 million of their own citizens -and no I am not including casualties of war or collateral damage in that number - I can only surmise that those who find themselves on the Left spectrum listed at the beginning of this paragraph have no more respect for humans with whom they disagree than a butcher does with a cow in the slaughter house. Interesting thing is we are not cattle and we can argue the point rather strenuously when it comes down to it. I see no way that it will avoid coming to that point because those who want to rule INTEND TO RULE NO MATTER WHAT. There is only one way, really, to deal with such insects. One positive take away is that those who vote for such things have to live their entire lives being ground under the boots of those for whom they voted.
Try submitting one instead of whining.
No one is ever stressed out, unless they are planning a terror attack. No job interviews, arguments with the spousal unit, kids run off, financial problems...
The only thing surprising is that this article isn't about something in the UK or the US. Probably that's where it will first be installed, so that more names can be added to the terrorist watch list.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Just thinking it through - if "terrorists" knew this stuff was in use, couldnt they train themselves to calm down and go into a low stress pre-murder state? I gotta imagine if you were serious about this, you would buy a similiar test system and run through it enough to see how to act to not be detected. Is this an accurate thought? Or would you always be flagged before a murderous rampage? Thinking false negative.
several attempts have already been made but still no FP and a nice -1 for the OP.
"PSYCHO-PASS" a japanese anime which actually succeeds to show the audience a possible future if this idea is truly realised.
Just my 2 Cents, but this idea is going to fail badly. - Just noticed...other individuals oscillate on my frequency.
Stop the crime before it happens.
Someone should make a movie about this.
How long before my company implements this and issues a series of penalties for people who aren't stressed?????
And just throw everyone in jail who happens to be unemployed. That will save you a whole lot of time.
[/eyeroll]
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
As psychopaths have no bodily reactions to criminal or sadistic actions, whether they are about to commit them or thinking about committing them. In fact, fear has zero effect on a psychopath's behavior.
If stress is probable cause for warrantless attention, Americans have no rights at all, because stress--not liberty--is the cornerstone of our lives.
Whoa, back the FBI surveillance van up there cowboy. The article has nothing to do with the US. This is about China. Sure, if this technology takes off, there is a good chance that the TSA and NSA would be next in line. However, it is way too early to start decrying the loss of American civil liberties over this story.
Slow Down Cowboy! It's been 1 hour, 47 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
Ironically, once it becomes widespread and routinely acted upon by local police forces, *everyone* in said public areas becomes more stressed about being accosted for being too stressed - at which point there are no longer anomalies to pick out. ;)
all your emotion are belong to us
There are people who says that there is a way to cheat the lie-detector - and I am wondering of there is a way to cheat this new hyperspectral imaging thing ?
There is an easy test. Just play "Stuck In The Middle With You." If they pull out a razor and start dancing, they are obviously a Psychopath and you shoot the bastard before he takes off someone's ear.
Slow Down Cowboy! It's been 1 hour, 47 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
If that's what it takes. Beat them like a drum!
They'll catch a lot of people with social anxiety or agoraphobia.
inmate: So youre the new guy. I got 15 years for murder. what did you do?
new guy: suspicion of terrorism at a train station. The cops said their new camera detected my enormous amount of stress.
inmate: thats gutsy. So, did ya pull it off? the terror attack?
new guy: if by terror attack you mean a taco bell breakfast, then yeah. Im sure theres a plumber and a janitor that are pretty terrorized by me.
Good people go to bed earlier.
The US has had this for a while. It wasn't much news for us, because we have legitimate terrorist concerns (they killed almost as many people as peanuts did back in 2001!).
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Please step away from the camera ...
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
As a (50+) woman who is suffering extreme and frequent hot flashes, this is bad news.
Once we attain a certain age range things start changing and we experience insufferable “hot flashes”.
You can not begin to image how horrible life is with this. One second you’re OK, then without warning, FLAME ON! and you’re about to pass out.
It’s like someone actually hits you with a flame thrower. You can’t breathe, your skin BURNS like it’s on fire, like you have the worst sun burn of your life. The air around you becomes unbreathable and you really feel like you’re suffocating and you begin to panic. At the very least you need a high speed fan, RIGHT NOW.
But what you really need is to climb inside a walk in cooler and hold cold things against your face and forehead. This happens 4-5 times an hour, 24 hours a day and Antarctica is the only cure for it. On FLIR you look like an inferno. And those little handheld laser thermometers? One would think you’re about to die because they only measure surface temperature and not your core temp. It’s your surface temp that’s off the charts when this hits.
In airports having an episode will get you pulled out of line for questioning because you’re in obvious distress. Also where they have those thermal scanners looking for people with abnormal temperatures. And now this silly crap. Almost all women experience this to some degree (npi) at some point in their life.
I object to these scans that look for stress and temperature that is outside the standards set by the men that design and control these devices.
And transportation (airport/train/bus) “behavior scans” where you’re obviously a terrorist if you’re not cool as a cucumber, that’s rubbish.
It becomes harassment for some of us.
Won't be long until the UK steals this idea.
Why aren't they doing anything to curb all the knives in China? I understand that knives don't kill people, people kill people, but if the people had less access to knives there would be less of this. Give them guns instead.
If you don't think the Amerikans are trying this already in secret, you're dumber than a bag of hammers.
All workers in the foxconn buildings have been arrested after the implementation of the stress cams.
please... let me sleep... a little more... yay, no longer annonmyous coward.
Hope they don't combine this with this , would make it pretty messy
psycho pass anyone?
Suppose you have a falling-out with family, spouse or something, and you go for a walk to cool down. Instead of some nice peace and quiet to think things over, you find a SWAT team in your way. They do their thing and the coroner collects the remains, and there's a press release that a dangerous would-be criminal was safely neutralized so you can all go home and sleep safely, citizens.
Something like this will happen at least once, possibly more often than actual would-be mass-murderers get "apprehended" this way.
In fact, I've held a job so stressful that I'd've gotten SWATed every walk from work, and even ten years on I can't even think about that place without feeling my blood pressure rise. And I know for a fact my successor in that job had similar blood pressure problems bad enough to warrant immediate medical attention. So that would mean I carry memories bad enough to trigger SWAT responses.
It does bring up a question: At what price eternal safety?
Looks like being out of shape & exercise just became illegal. If you're fat you're screwed, if you're skinny you'll soon be fat from the lack of exercise then you're right back at fat and screwed.
i think they meant "eight knife-wielding MEN", why didn't they tell the truth! they are almost always MEN!
or did they mean "eight knife-wielding PEOPLE WHO DRINK WATER"! those terrorists ALWAYS turn out to be filthy water-drinkers!!!
Any anti-terrorist system has the same problem. Even if this is 99% accurate, the amount of false positives would overwhelm the system.
Which one do you want running a muck.
The perfect tool for American law enforcement. Now we can identify the stressed out, on the edge people in the crowd, send in body armored "officers" to accost and confront them, and when they inevitably question or resist, well.....you know how this story ends. We can now easily single out the ones that are most likely to argue or fight. Now we can really keep those prisons full. We're gonna need some way to fill'em since the drug war is losing popularity. Gotta have an excuse to keep all those cops on the payroll. So it might be you someday with your picture on tv and some bimbo telling your community how they should be glad they live in a police state, how they have just been "protected" from another violent criminal (you). Singled out just because you were having a bad day.
I believe Orwell predicted Face Crime quite some years ago. I am dismayed (but not surprised) to see people attempting to realize it.
In china where their peoples rights take a last priority, any false positive for a system like this is actually a boon as an excuse for state thuggery 'to maintain control by intimidation' .
The work I did with face recognition software left me appalled at the continuous high failure rate.
I doubt that all the cameras they are installing will be each hooked to their own supercomputers to do any valid job of such assessment (if and when that software is developed)
No dioubt the UK will be announcing installation of equivalent systems shortly.
The chinese communist party is on its last straw of survival, facing stress from all fronts:
1. external opposite forces from all other countries in the world.
2. internal pressure from all chinese places e.g. mainland, hong kong, taiwan, xinjiang, macau etc.
3. its own economy can no more develop from complete absence of law and common morals.
4. its supressed problems from the past all surfacing at the same time e.g. skyrocketing debts of all kinds everywhere, aging and gender-skewed demographics, complete absence of soft power, mass exodus of all able chinese with talents and money, complete absence of common morals in all chinese from brainwashing by the CCP etc etc.
It's far more likely to occur in Europe, where population density and cultural habits make this an efficient and effective tool. Americans are usually in their cars, which makes this mostly useless in the US.
I can imagine it now: "My God! Everyone's a terrorist!"
"One of the most important advances in casino technology comes from facial recognition systems, where guests entering the gambling area are photographed and their visages are compared with an ever-growing database of known cheaters and suspicious people."
- Link
-kgj
That is all.