Replacing Metal Detectors With Brain Scans 327
Zordak writes "CNN has up a story about several Israeli firms that want to replace metal detectors at airports with biometric readings. For example, with funding from TSA and DHS, 'WeCU ([creepily] pronounced "We See You") Technologies, employs a combination of infra-red technology, remote sensors and imagers, and flashing of subliminal images, such as a photo of Osama bin Laden. Developers say the combination of these technologies can detect a person's reaction to certain stimuli by reading body temperature, heart rate and respiration — signals a terrorist unwittingly emits before he plans to commit an attack.' Sensors may be embedded in the carpet, seats, and check-in screens. The stated goal is to read a passenger's 'intention' in a manner that is 'more fair, more effective and less expensive' than traditional profiling. But not to worry! WeCU's CEO says, 'We don't want you to feel that you are being interrogated.' And you may get through security in 20 to 30 seconds."
Wow, that's creepy (Score:5, Interesting)
Right now it is used to find terrorists, but this technology can be used in reverse. Flashing images of the president and the national flag, anyone don't respond positively get singled out... Such uses are very disturbing.
Re:cuz nobody has EVER been able to fool that (Score:3, Interesting)
cuz nobody has EVER been able to fool that wonderful piece of technology known as the polygraph before.....
Nobody said it had to be perfect. It just has to be more useful than the methods they currently employ. This only has to be more accurate then the current practice. The current security is slow, stupid and irrational. Honestly, this doesn't sound that much better. But, unless we totally scrap the system and go back to the 1960's security measures (not freaking likely given the level of politician and media inspired fear), I'll settle for a system that results in less hassle when I fly.
Mmm... Snake Oil... (Score:4, Interesting)
Frankly, about the only sinister thing about this is that there are people in officialdom who are so fundamentally brain-dead they actually believe the claims of whatever idiot is trying to sell this.
Even when interrogators have the time and money to hook people up to the most sensitive equipment available there is no technology that can determine to reasonable accuracy whether a person is lying in answer to a given question, nevermind their exact mindset or intentions in the next few hours.
Now we are supposed to believe that some gadget can automagically determine whether or not somebody wants to blow up a plane when they walk past it and are flashed a "subliminal image" of osama bin-laden?
I could go on about the sheer idiocy of assuming that somebody's reaction to a popular hate figure defines their politics or intentions. I could start about how peoples wildly varying mental states and physiologies make such simplistic measurements useless. But frankly it's not even worth deconstructing an idea this stupid in detail. Anybody dumb enough to believe in this fairy story clearly either suffers from paranoid psychosis or is so mentally deficient as to be beyond any form of rational argument.
Eight, sir; seven, sir; six, sir; five, sir. (Score:2, Interesting)
Or listen to a particularly annoying song, as Alfred Bester suggested.
Ten, sir, said the Tensor
Tension, apprehension
And dissension have begun.
http://tenser.typepad.com/tenser_said_the_tensor/2004/03/a_word_of_expla.html [typepad.com]
I think Kylie's 'Can't Get You Out Of My Head [youtube.com]' would work pretty well today.
20-30 seconds...Until you get a False Positive (Score:3, Interesting)
Somebody introduce these guys to Bayes Theorem (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, let's do...
What many people don't realize is that detection procedures with very impressive-sounding statistical properties [wikipedia.org] generally do horribly at catching rare events.
Imagine some very impressive numbers. Suppose that this procedure has 99.999% sensitivity -- it catches nearly every wannabe terrorist who tries to board a plane intending to do harm. And suppose it also has 99.999% specificity -- out of 100,000 innocent passengers, 99,999 will be correctly identified as innocent, and only 1 will be a false alarm. Sounds good, right?
Not really. In a given year, only a very small number of passengers are wannabe terrorists -- say, 10 per year. (That's probably high.) On the other hand, there are 1.6 billion air passengers [worldmapper.org] per year (that may be a low estimate, since it's a 2000 number). So if this were implemented worldwide, then in a given year, we can assume that this profiling procedure will flag 160,010 people as terrorists. Only 6 x 10^-5 of those will be actual terrorists.
Of course, those hypothetical sensitivity and specificity numbers are unrealistically, ridiculously good. With more realistic numbers, the problem gets much worse. Even if the detection procedure is very sensitive and very specific -- and I doubt that it is -- the low base-rate of terrorism means that an enormous number of people will be falsely accused of being terrorists.
Re:cuz nobody has EVER been able to fool that (Score:3, Interesting)
The specific problems I thought of immediately were:
1) people who are afraid of flying/crowds/etc or just prone to panic attacks would most likely set this off far more often than terrorists. Not to mention the fear of setting this off causing people to be more nervous.
2) Actual terrorists would probably be organized enough to take this into account and pop a valium or two before going through the security checkpoints. I mean, c'mon. The circumstances are a lot less controlled than a polygraph, and are therefore a lot easier to alter.
Hell, the more seriously religious ones might just show up in a calmer state naturally, knowing they will be martyred for their cause. If you're the type of person that dedicated enough to blow yourself up for a religious sect, it's not that difficult to believe that your faith will protect you from capture. I know an otherwise seemingly sane guy that apparently never wore his seatbelt because he thought that God would decide when his time came anyway, so why fight it? He drove like a maniac too, relaxed as can be. I think psychologists call it "magical thinking," and I seriously doubt they're taking it into account.
Re:This might not actually be so bad if it worked. (Score:3, Interesting)
Funny? Hell, I'm serious.
Re:cuz nobody has EVER been able to fool that (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, yeah, a "good" psychic can also usually tell if someone is lying to them. That claim is so subjective, it can not possibly be proven wrong. What you've been told is just part of the obligatory mystic and diversionary tactic surrounding lie detectors. It's like when we tell little kids that they better be nice or Santa Claus will cross them off their list, and the little kids are so naive that they'll repeat the same warning with wonder and beaming pride (that they know so much) to everyone they meet.
The fact is, double-blind studies have proven that lie detectors are less than 2% effective. So how come we still have people (like Dr. Phil) claiming that they're 99.9% effective? Just google it [google.com]. How come there seems to be no middle ground between those two opinions? That 99.9% claim is just part of the obligatory lie. It's part of the diversion and the intimidation required to make the damn "profession" stay alive and the "specialists" keep their job in the first place.
The second fact is, that part of the lie detector training is to always lie [antipolygraph.org] about where the real truth baseline is supposed to be. So when the operator tells you to lie about the color in the room, or some other nonsense, that's not the baseline, that was just the diversion. The real control question (or questions) will come later. And the real control question is some general question that the interrogator assumes you will lie about. So that's the real absurdity of it all! The entire premise of the lie detector is based on the false idea that the lie detector interrogator can even judge what is truth and what is a lie in the first place. It's a circular reference.
I know that you were just joking, but double-blind studies made on subliminal messages showed that subliminal messages didn't even get registered in the brain and had no influence whatsoever on the subject. And by subliminal, those studies defined the term as meaning that the images or the sounds were shown/broadcast at frequencies not visible/perceivable to the conscious mind (so if you start flashing images where people can sort of tell what was there, then that's not subliminal anymore -- and that was outside the scope of those studies).
Also, there is no reason to flash an image of Bin Laden, Al-qaeida [antipolygraph.org] and Iraqi insurgents [antipolygraph.org] already know that those tests are complete bullshit. The only thing this kind of test at airports is designed to do is fool the American public into funneling funds into a fraudster's pockets.