MythBusters did a segment on this and they where not able to demonstrate a way to beat the test that was reliable. In fact, I don't think any of their "test subjects" where able to do so. Can some people do it? I think so. But I seriously doubt *you* could beat it unless you are a pathological liar who just doesn't care anything about truth, ethics or morals.
The MythBusters "Beat the Lie Detector" segment was particularly bad, and the producers of the show should be ashamed of it. You'll find a detailed critique here. In peer reviewed research on countermeasures, about half of programmed guilty subjects were able to fool the polygraph after a maximum of 30 minutes of instruction, and experienced polygraph examiners were unable to detect the countermeasures. See the studies by Charles R. Honts and others cited in the bibliography of The Lie Behind the Lie Detector.
The case files [...] suggest that the only people being "caught" trying to beat the polygraph are those using crude, unsophisticated methods that anyone who actually understood polygraph procedure and effective countermeasures [...] would ever use.
J. Edgar Hoover actually took a pretty dim view toward polygraphs. When the FBI relied on them for the first time in a counterintelligence investigation, polygraph results led them to relax surveillance of a Nazi spy suspect, who promised to cooperate with the FBI. But after finishing his polygraph, he got on the next ship to Germany and was gone. See Chapter 15 of Nazi Spies in America, a book by the FBI special agent who was in charge of the bungled case.
It is telling, I think, that the only "crimes" that the U.S. government alleges against Williams are those it conceived, funded, and stage-managed. The government has had records of nearly 5,000 of his customers for well over a year, and yet the indictment doesn't refer to a single one of his actual customers. I think this is a clear case of the government abusing its investigatory and prosecutorial powers in order to stifle speech it dislikes. Discovery and witness cross-examination in U.S. v. Doug Williams should prove interesting.
Indeed, the indictment avoids framing the mere teaching of polygraph countermeasures as a crime. But I think it's clear that Williams was targeted for prosecution in order to silence speech that the U.S. government doesn't like. The only "crimes" in the indictment are those that the government cooked up, funded, and stage-managed. This despite the fact that the government has the names of nearly 5,000 of his customers.
A comment by the head of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection polygraph unit last year before an audience of law enforcement polygraph examiners underscores the political nature of this prosecution. Explaining the criminal investigation, dubbed "Operation Lie Busters," Special Agent John R. Schwartz told members of the American Association of Police Polygraphists that those who “protest the loudest and the longest” against polygraph testing “are the ones that I believe we need to focus our attention on.”
I should have mentioned in the original post that investigative reporter Marisa Taylor of the McClatchy newspaper group has a PGP public key (7DCA14DC) that can be used to securely contact her. I've signed it with my own key (316A947C).
I did, in fact, first use a PDF reader other than Adobe's. The PDF is available as a MIME attachment to the e-mail I received, the raw source of which can be downloaded here: https://antipolygraph.org/documents/help%20help%20help%20please.eml . If any readers have the technical skills to analyze it for malware, I'd be grateful.
Thank you! Yes, I did look at the metadata associated with the PDF file, but haven't been able successful in deducing anything more from it. My replies were in Persian.
One sure fire way to fail a federal polygraph is to admit up front that you've researched polygraphy, you know that it has no scientific basis, and that it's vulnerable to simple countermeasures that you have read about and understood (but promise not to use them). When the "test" is done, you'll be accused of deception, attempted countermeasures, or both.
No, it's not a re-post. Last week, Slashdot featured an earlier story by McClatchy about the same criminal investigation. On Friday, 30 August, McClatchy published a follow-up article with details on the case of Chad Dixon, the only person to have thus far been criminally charged in an investigation that the government is calling "Operation Lie Busters."
Actually, it's not a DSS video, although it is made available on their website. The DSS's own security videos indicate the Defense Security Service's name:
http://dssa.dss.mil/seta/training_videos.html
You'll notice that the NSA video includes no mention of the agency that produced it. But the polygraph examiners shown on the video are NSA personnel.
My site is hosted on a server in a data center in Canada by a Canadian company. But it seems that their bandwidth provider is a US company. I'm in the Netherlands.
Actually, the letter that Pearson sent to me does not appear to be formulated as a DMCA take-down request, though it mentions that one has been sent to my ISP. It is true that I did not post the text to which Pearson objects.
Since I posted this to Slashdot a few days ago, my webhosting provider (CanadianWebhosting.com) received a communication from its bandwidth provider (Peer1.com) that unless the post that was the subject of the DMCA takedown notice was removed, the entire server (which hosts other Canadian Webhosting customers, too) would be taken offline. So I reluctantly agreed to temporarily remove the post in question and have replaced it with a brief notice explaining the situation.
Peer1.com seems to be under the impression that once a DMCA takedown notice is received, the material mentioned in the notice must be removed for a period of 14 days, after which, if the complainant does not provide notification that it has sought a court order, the material may be restored. However, my understanding is that the material may be placed back on-line (PDF) promptly upon the service provider's receipt of a counter-claim (which I have already sent), that is, there is no need to wait 14 days.
It's also worth noting that Pearson, the copyright holder of the MMPI-2, filed a takedown notice for the very same post in 2007. We promptly filed a counter-notice, Pearson took no further action, and we thought the matter resolved. Has anyone had a problem with a copyright holder filing repeated DMCA takedown notices to one's service provider for the same material?
That was the idea. But it wasn't a particlarly good or useful one. If you look at the article in the original post, you'll see that a secondary aspect of the DHS study (beyond lie detection) is to try to identify "odor fingerprints" by which individuals can be identified.
As the co-founder of a website dedicated to exposing and ending waste, fraud, and abuse associated with supposed "lie detectors," I think this project stinks. It's redolent of the old East German secret police -- the Stasi -- who maintained a "smell register" of dissidents. For a short video commentary, see Smellograph.
UCLA computer administrators have discovered that a restricted campus database containing certain personal information has been
illegally accessed by a sophisticated computer hacker. This database contains certain personal information about
UCLA's current and some former students, faculty and staff, some student applicants and some parents of students or
applicants who applied for financial aid. The database also includes current and some former faculty and staff at the
University of California, Merced, and current and some former employees of the University of California
Office of the President, for which UCLA does administrative processing.
I regret having to inform you that your name is in the database. While we are uncertain whether your personal information was
actually obtained, we know that the hacker sought and retrieved some Social Security numbers. Therefore, I want to bring this
situation to your attention and urge you to take actions to minimize your potential risk of identity theft. I emphasize that we have
no evidence that personal information has been misused.
The information stored on the affected database includes names and Social Security numbers, dates of birth, home addresses and
contact information. It does not include driver's license numbers or credit card or banking information.
Only designated users whose jobs require working with the restricted data are given passwords to access this database. However, an
unauthorized person exploited a previously undetected software flaw and fraudulently accessed the database between October 2005 and
November 2006. When UCLA discovered this activity on Nov. 21, 2006, computer security staff immediately blocked all access to Social
Security numbers and began an emergency investigation. While UCLA currently utilizes sophisticated information security measures to
protect this database, several measures that were already under way have been accelerated.
In addition, UCLA has notified the FBI, which is conducting its own investigation. We began notifying those individuals in the
affected database as soon as possible after determining that personal data was accessed and after we retrieved individual contact
information.
As a precaution, I recommend that you place a fraud alert on your consumer credit file. By doing so, you let creditors know to
watch for unusual or suspicious activity, such as someone attempting to open a new credit card account in your name. You may also wish
to consider placing a security freeze on your accounts by writing to the credit bureaus. A security freeze means that your credit
history cannot be seen by potential creditors, insurance companies or employers doing background checks unless you give consent. For
details on how to take these steps, please visit http://www.identityalert.ucla.edu/what_you_can_do. htm.
Extensive information on steps to protect against personal identity theft and fraud are
on the Web site of the California Office of Privacy Protection, a division of the state
Department of Consumer Affairs, http://www.privacy.ca.gov.
Information also is available on a Web site we have established, http://www.identityalert.ucla.edu. The site includes additional information on this
situation, further suggestions for monitoring your credit and links to state and federal resources. If you have questions about this
incident and its implications, you may call our toll-free number, (877) 533-8082.
Please be aware that dishonest people falsely identifying themselves as UCLA representatives might contact you and offer
assistance. I want to assure you that UCLA will not contact you by phone, e-mail or any other method to ask you for personal
information. I strongly urge you not to rel
Indeed, simple and effective countermeasures to the polygraph have long been readily available (and nowadays, with the Internet, are even more so). See for example AntiPolygraph.org's free e-book, The Lie Behind the Lie Detector (1 mb PDF). Polygraph procedure is explained in detail in Chapter 3, and methods for passing are discussed in Chapter 4.
What the file says regarding the Gillette razor blade "study" is that "the entire scheme fell through as far as the Detroit area was concerned at least" (emphasis added). However, Gillette did indeed run advertisements in national publications with Marston proclaiming, "My study enables me to state flatly that Gillette Blades are far superior in every respect to competitive blades tested" (5.2 mb PDF):
This database might also be useful for trying to track down those pesky leakers. For example, a search could be done for all phone numbers that have called Dana Priest of the Washington Post or Jim Risen of the New York Times. According to independent journalist Wayne Madsen (himself a former NSA employee), the NSA has targeted journalists in a codeword project formerly called Firstfruits.
The state of Iowa civilly committed the plaintiff in this case to a mental institution based on the argument that he is a "sexual predator" and a danger to society. He had previously been incarcerated for a sex crime, but he completed his sentence. So he is not now supposed to be being punished for his crime, but rather receiving treatment for a putative mental disorder.
For further information than is provided in the article, see the court's 35-page ruling (also linked in the article):
Slashdot Mirror
MythBusters did a segment on this and they where not able to demonstrate a way to beat the test that was reliable. In fact, I don't think any of their "test subjects" where able to do so. Can some people do it? I think so. But I seriously doubt *you* could beat it unless you are a pathological liar who just doesn't care anything about truth, ethics or morals.
The MythBusters "Beat the Lie Detector" segment was particularly bad, and the producers of the show should be ashamed of it. You'll find a detailed critique here. In peer reviewed research on countermeasures, about half of programmed guilty subjects were able to fool the polygraph after a maximum of 30 minutes of instruction, and experienced polygraph examiners were unable to detect the countermeasures. See the studies by Charles R. Honts and others cited in the bibliography of The Lie Behind the Lie Detector.
The case files [...] suggest that the only people being "caught" trying to beat the polygraph are those using crude, unsophisticated methods that anyone who actually understood polygraph procedure and effective countermeasures [...] would ever use.
Did you mean "never use"?
Yes! Thank you.
J. Edgar Hoover actually took a pretty dim view toward polygraphs. When the FBI relied on them for the first time in a counterintelligence investigation, polygraph results led them to relax surveillance of a Nazi spy suspect, who promised to cooperate with the FBI. But after finishing his polygraph, he got on the next ship to Germany and was gone. See Chapter 15 of Nazi Spies in America, a book by the FBI special agent who was in charge of the bungled case.
It is telling, I think, that the only "crimes" that the U.S. government alleges against Williams are those it conceived, funded, and stage-managed. The government has had records of nearly 5,000 of his customers for well over a year, and yet the indictment doesn't refer to a single one of his actual customers. I think this is a clear case of the government abusing its investigatory and prosecutorial powers in order to stifle speech it dislikes. Discovery and witness cross-examination in U.S. v. Doug Williams should prove interesting.
Indeed, the indictment avoids framing the mere teaching of polygraph countermeasures as a crime. But I think it's clear that Williams was targeted for prosecution in order to silence speech that the U.S. government doesn't like. The only "crimes" in the indictment are those that the government cooked up, funded, and stage-managed. This despite the fact that the government has the names of nearly 5,000 of his customers.
A comment by the head of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection polygraph unit last year before an audience of law enforcement polygraph examiners underscores the political nature of this prosecution. Explaining the criminal investigation, dubbed "Operation Lie Busters," Special Agent John R. Schwartz told members of the American Association of Police Polygraphists that those who “protest the loudest and the longest” against polygraph testing “are the ones that I believe we need to focus our attention on.”
That's precisely the official thinking about polygraph policy. Ten years ago, a senior instructor at the federal polygraph school floated the idea of criminalizing the public dissemination of information about polygraph countermeasures. I never thought it would come to pass, but it seems a considerable effort is being made.
I should have mentioned in the original post that investigative reporter Marisa Taylor of the McClatchy newspaper group has a PGP public key (7DCA14DC) that can be used to securely contact her. I've signed it with my own key (316A947C).
I did, in fact, first use a PDF reader other than Adobe's. The PDF is available as a MIME attachment to the e-mail I received, the raw source of which can be downloaded here: https://antipolygraph.org/documents/help%20help%20help%20please.eml . If any readers have the technical skills to analyze it for malware, I'd be grateful.
I found no malware associated with the PDF, though the thought occurred to me before I opened it that it might be malware. The original, raw source of that e-mail message is available here: https://antipolygraph.org/documents/help%20help%20help%20please.eml
Thank you! Yes, I did look at the metadata associated with the PDF file, but haven't been able successful in deducing anything more from it. My replies were in Persian.
One sure fire way to fail a federal polygraph is to admit up front that you've researched polygraphy, you know that it has no scientific basis, and that it's vulnerable to simple countermeasures that you have read about and understood (but promise not to use them). When the "test" is done, you'll be accused of deception, attempted countermeasures, or both.
No, it's not a re-post. Last week, Slashdot featured an earlier story by McClatchy about the same criminal investigation. On Friday, 30 August, McClatchy published a follow-up article with details on the case of Chad Dixon, the only person to have thus far been criminally charged in an investigation that the government is calling "Operation Lie Busters."
Actually, it's not a DSS video, although it is made available on their website. The DSS's own security videos indicate the Defense Security Service's name: http://dssa.dss.mil/seta/training_videos.html You'll notice that the NSA video includes no mention of the agency that produced it. But the polygraph examiners shown on the video are NSA personnel.
My site is hosted on a server in a data center in Canada by a Canadian company. But it seems that their bandwidth provider is a US company. I'm in the Netherlands.
Actually, the letter that Pearson sent to me does not appear to be formulated as a DMCA take-down request, though it mentions that one has been sent to my ISP. It is true that I did not post the text to which Pearson objects.
Thank you for pointing out my error!
Peer1.com seems to be under the impression that once a DMCA takedown notice is received, the material mentioned in the notice must be removed for a period of 14 days, after which, if the complainant does not provide notification that it has sought a court order, the material may be restored. However, my understanding is that the material may be placed back on-line (PDF) promptly upon the service provider's receipt of a counter-claim (which I have already sent), that is, there is no need to wait 14 days.
It's also worth noting that Pearson, the copyright holder of the MMPI-2, filed a takedown notice for the very same post in 2007. We promptly filed a counter-notice, Pearson took no further action, and we thought the matter resolved. Has anyone had a problem with a copyright holder filing repeated DMCA takedown notices to one's service provider for the same material?
That was the idea. But it wasn't a particlarly good or useful one. If you look at the article in the original post, you'll see that a secondary aspect of the DHS study (beyond lie detection) is to try to identify "odor fingerprints" by which individuals can be identified.
As the co-founder of a website dedicated to exposing and ending waste, fraud, and abuse associated with supposed "lie detectors," I think this project stinks. It's redolent of the old East German secret police -- the Stasi -- who maintained a "smell register" of dissidents. For a short video commentary, see Smellograph.
December 12, 2006
Dear Friend,
UCLA computer administrators have discovered that a restricted campus database containing certain personal information has been illegally accessed by a sophisticated computer hacker. This database contains certain personal information about UCLA's current and some former students, faculty and staff, some student applicants and some parents of students or applicants who applied for financial aid. The database also includes current and some former faculty and staff at the University of California, Merced, and current and some former employees of the University of California Office of the President, for which UCLA does administrative processing.
I regret having to inform you that your name is in the database. While we are uncertain whether your personal information was actually obtained, we know that the hacker sought and retrieved some Social Security numbers. Therefore, I want to bring this situation to your attention and urge you to take actions to minimize your potential risk of identity theft. I emphasize that we have no evidence that personal information has been misused.
The information stored on the affected database includes names and Social Security numbers, dates of birth, home addresses and contact information. It does not include driver's license numbers or credit card or banking information.
Only designated users whose jobs require working with the restricted data are given passwords to access this database. However, an unauthorized person exploited a previously undetected software flaw and fraudulently accessed the database between October 2005 and November 2006. When UCLA discovered this activity on Nov. 21, 2006, computer security staff immediately blocked all access to Social Security numbers and began an emergency investigation. While UCLA currently utilizes sophisticated information security measures to protect this database, several measures that were already under way have been accelerated.
In addition, UCLA has notified the FBI, which is conducting its own investigation. We began notifying those individuals in the affected database as soon as possible after determining that personal data was accessed and after we retrieved individual contact information.
As a precaution, I recommend that you place a fraud alert on your consumer credit file. By doing so, you let creditors know to watch for unusual or suspicious activity, such as someone attempting to open a new credit card account in your name. You may also wish to consider placing a security freeze on your accounts by writing to the credit bureaus. A security freeze means that your credit history cannot be seen by potential creditors, insurance companies or employers doing background checks unless you give consent. For details on how to take these steps, please visit http://www.identityalert.ucla.edu/what_you_can_do. htm.
Extensive information on steps to protect against personal identity theft and fraud are on the Web site of the California Office of Privacy Protection, a division of the state Department of Consumer Affairs, http://www.privacy.ca.gov.
Information also is available on a Web site we have established, http://www.identityalert.ucla.edu. The site includes additional information on this situation, further suggestions for monitoring your credit and links to state and federal resources. If you have questions about this incident and its implications, you may call our toll-free number, (877) 533-8082.
Please be aware that dishonest people falsely identifying themselves as UCLA representatives might contact you and offer assistance. I want to assure you that UCLA will not contact you by phone, e-mail or any other method to ask you for personal information. I strongly urge you not to rel
Indeed, simple and effective countermeasures to the polygraph have long been readily available (and nowadays, with the Internet, are even more so). See for example AntiPolygraph.org's free e-book, The Lie Behind the Lie Detector (1 mb PDF). Polygraph procedure is explained in detail in Chapter 3, and methods for passing are discussed in Chapter 4.
https://antipolygraph.org/documents/marston-razor- high-res.pdf
This database might also be useful for trying to track down those pesky leakers. For example, a search could be done for all phone numbers that have called Dana Priest of the Washington Post or Jim Risen of the New York Times. According to independent journalist Wayne Madsen (himself a former NSA employee), the NSA has targeted journalists in a codeword project formerly called Firstfruits.
The plaintiff in this case is not in prison (although he once was). He served his sentence. He is now involuntarily committed to a mental institution.
For further information than is provided in the article, see the court's 35-page ruling (also linked in the article):
http://antipolygraph.org/litigation/willis/willis- v-smith.pdf