FBI Plans Nationwide Face-Recognition Trials In 2012 102
hessian writes with this excerpt: "The FBI by mid-January will activate a nationwide facial recognition service in select states that will allow local police to identify unknown subjects in photos, bureau officials told Nextgov. The federal government is embarking on a multiyear, $1 billion overhaul of the FBI's existing fingerprint database to more quickly and accurately identify suspects, partly through applying other biometric markers, such as iris scans and voice recordings."
Society and unrestrained power (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:LOL! American Freedom! (Score:5, Interesting)
Glad I'm never going to set foot again in the US, what a nightmare it has become.
The last time I set foot on US soil was back in the early '70s, I liked the place.
I've *no intention ever* of setting foot on US soil ever again (I say 'intention', I suppose I may be dragged there someday to answer for 'thought crimes' against the US, but we'll dynamite that bridge when we come to it..)
FFS!, what the hell have you lot become?
You've now been on 'the Muslim menace' terror scare for a decade, you're getting nowhere, fast, but the joke appears to be that during the decades of fighting 'the Commies', you'd parodied Communist societies and their totalitarian/authoritarian ways, sometimes justified, sometimes just plain loony (total central control?; I think/know not..) and used this parody to scare your population into fearing 'them'. Someone in your government in the light of your current 'difficulties' has saw this shit and thought, 'what a bunch of good ideas! let's implement them' .
You're now becoming that parody of communist societies you used to hate/fear, but, unlike the Soviets, your lot have the technology now to really make it work..
Way to fucking go, USofA...
So much for 'Land of the Free...'
As this is technically still an IT site, can I just add a plea to anyone working on related hardware/software projects, just because you can do something, this doesn't mean that you have to, think carefully about how your work can be used and abused, and just remember, on the abuse side, it'll be used against you and your families as well..
The principal problem: statistics (Score:4, Interesting)
Programs like CSI are a mild source of amusement to me. These films run a partial fingerprint through an apparently flawless database and hey presto, a match that stands up in court. Fantastic. Also total nonsense.
Especially a partial will throw up a whole LIST of possible matches, not one unique one. Even if you have two full fingers you get more than one, and that is a simple function of the resolution with which these biometrics are measured against the volume of data that is being matched - you WILL get duplicates.
To illustrate: use hair color as a biometric. If your database has more than 5 people you're sure to end up with duplicates - there are only so many different colours.
Here we are again heading for disaster. Apart from the fact that we'll again end up with a database that is just BEGGING to be abused by all and sundry (I'm starting to suspect that these days that abuse is actually a goal rather than an issue worth avoiding) we well again end up with lots of false positives. Face geometry isn't exactly perfect, as people using Farcebook must have already found out (yes, Facebook does a biometric scan on *every* picture you upload - not just the ones you tag), yet again it's sold as *the* solution. Even more astonishing is that they find buyers who still believe that (well, OK, maybe after a certain amount of "encouragement").
The reason it works for the Israelis is simple: people have a much better ability to combine various sense mechanisms when properly trained. Trained people and dogs are in my opinion a *LOT* harder to fool than any machine, however expensive. What's more - it's actually cheaper.
But hey - it was never about security anyway, was it?
It's just another ploy to sell some useless kit..
Re:LOL! American Freedom! (Score:2, Interesting)
"Actually, it is illegal to wear a mask in a demonstration in New York."
So how do Burka-clad Muslim women demonstrate for their right to religious freedom?