Brain Scanning May Be Used In EU Security Checks 132
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from the Guardian: "Distinctive brain patterns could become the latest subject of biometric scanning after EU researchers successfully tested technology to verify identities for security checks. The experiments, which also examined the potential of heart rhythms to authenticate individuals, were conducted under an EU-funded inquiry into biometric systems that could be deployed at airports, borders and in sensitive locations to screen out terrorist suspects."
The same article says that "The Home Office, meanwhile, has confirmed rapid expansion plans of automated facial recognition gates: 10 will be operating at major UK airports by August."
I wonder what Bruce Schneier would have to say about such elaborate measures.
Next up: thought crime (Score:5, Insightful)
Because we can (ab)use this technology to identify brain patterns of illegal behavior.
The identification would be fool proof, but who cares when you can catch terrorists and pedophiles.
Terrorist Brain Patterns (Score:5, Insightful)
Do terrorists have distinctive brain patterns that would cause an alarm to go off?
All this does is help to confirm that the passport holder is the person to whom the passport was issued. The 9/11 bombers would all have passed this test, as they were travelling on their own passports.
Video Games FTW! (Score:3, Insightful)
Distinctive brain patterns could become the latest subject of biometric scanning
Time to start journeying to Wild Divine [wikipedia.org]. Learn to change your mental state for fun and profit.
Enough is enough... (Score:5, Insightful)
Enough security at airports, we get it, they're "safe." The real security threats are against soft targets with no protection at all. Any location with a large crowd is a target and they're also impossible to defend.
I can see why you want fingerprints on passports, but all the insane stuff since then (e.g. "makes you naked" (Backscatter) child porno vision) is just over the top and adds an insanely small amount of additional protection.
Let's remember:
- All 9/11 passengers used valid ID
- All recent terrorists have also used valid ID
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Next up: thought crime (Score:5, Insightful)
They seem determined to abuse technology as far as it can go. They need to learn that just because we now have ever more technology to abuse peoples privacy, that doesn't mean that's the right thing to keep on doing ever more. For example, just because we have the technology to knock down everyone's door, drag the people out of the house and strip search them in the road, that doesn't mean that's what everyone wants them to do. If they are just allowed to keep abusing technology as far as it can go, then we are walking into a horrific world. This abuse has to stop.
Re:Next up: thought crime (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly.
All these attempts at automated biometric identification just need to stop, now. None of it works. Facial / Iris recognition is far too unreliable to be used in any sort of serious context. Not even fingerprint recognition works reliably (or we'd all be bloody using it).
They need to stop pouring money down this black hole right now.
Re:Yet they won't even take simple measures (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Terrorist Brain Patterns (Score:5, Insightful)
And even if they hadn't, passports are hackable anyhow. They can change all that information on both the paper and the chip.
Also, how much work is it to keep thousands of brain scanners all calibrated the same?
And finally, what about false positives/negatives? Sure, fingerprints are 'unique', but we only sample a few points... It's actually possible to be wrong. Same with DNA, etc etc. Why is this any different? In fact, it's worse... Brains CHANGE over time.
Re:Yet they won't even take simple measures (Score:3, Insightful)
We think we're taking the moral high ground when all we're doing is importing people who want to tear down our societies
The point of a cultural melting pot is to take those people in and make them a part of the society, changing it and making it more worldly in the process. Unfortunately, we have done everything we can to be as isolated and insulated a global citizen as we can (as a nation) and most people still think affirmative action is something being done to benefit minorities.
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Re:Yet they won't even take simple measures (Score:4, Insightful)
If Western countries simply prohibited Saudi nationals from staying for any length longer than a vacation or business trip, it'd be easier to keep out suspected Islamic terrorists. If Western governments would also start shutting down Saudi-financed mosques and Islamic schools, that'd be even better.
We can't do that. Do you know how much oil comes from Saudi Arabia?
Re:Terrorist Brain Patterns (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't even think this is an invasion of my privacy. I do, however, realise that it's a money soak, a sham, another prop in the security theatre.
Sometimes I wish I didn't realise it. Then I wouldn't feel so ashamed to be part of this nation.
Re:Enough is enough... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Enough is enough... (Score:4, Insightful)
Any location with a large crowd is a target
Indeed - such as the queue of people waiting to be fingerprinted and brain-scanned...
That's how theocracy works (Score:3, Insightful)
hmmm, I wonder how could that be [countrystudies.us]?
The problem is that a "moderate Muslim" is really an oxymoron. Islamic law very explicitly says that it *must* be applied to every circumstance in life, without exception.
This situation is very well analyzed in this book [wikipedia.org]. Islamic scholars like Sayyid Qutb [wikipedia.org] have put the situation in the following terms:
1) One must choose between evil or good
2) If one chooses the path of good, one must be consisten in it
This is a logical argument, no one can say anything against it. The problem is when people like Sayyid Qutb and his followers assume that "good" is equal to Islam, and any deviation from the strictest interpretation of Islam is evil.
Unfortunately, this interpretation is consistent with a careful reading of the Quran.
Differently from the Bible, which is a compilation of writings from different authors from many different times and places, the Quran was written in a short time at one place. The Bible has reports of historical and legendary events, intermixed with moral teachings. The Quran is mostly moral teachings alone.
Reading the Quran leaves many people with a strong sense of duty to perform those acts, to lead a life of moral righteousness, much more than the Bible does because it's much more concentrated on the moral commandments. I have read a translation of the Quran and was impressed on how those commandments seem to be worded in such a stronger way than in the Bible.
There are also some extremely [wikipedia.org]radical Christians [wikipedia.org], it's true, but they have never reached such a high number of sympathizers as radical Muslims, at least not in the last few centuries.
I believe that if someone want to be a Muslim without following the radical path, then he must make an effort to study and analyze the Quran, like the radicals have done, and try to verify in which manner the moderate interpretation can be validated by the text. It seems to me that the radicals have been more successful in putting forward their interpretation.
Re:Next up: thought crime (Score:5, Insightful)
They need to stop now not because it doesn't work, but because eventually it will get to the point where it does work.
Re:In Soviet America (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:thank you. (Score:3, Insightful)
First, we have not even been able to eliminate the false positives from facial recognition ! How in the world do you propose to eliminate false positives from a pattern set that is orders of magnitude less understood than optics? I mean really, patterns of consciousness vs. patterns of light reflection seems like quite a jump.
Second:
We just need to make sure enough "good people" are descion makers in the new paradigm.
The fact that you think this way scares me. Just re-read your own sentence a few times. Start thinking about Power and what types of people gravitate to power. Re-read your sentence again. Take a look at the world today. Re-read your sentence. How do you propose that we "make sure" enough "good people" are the decision makers? We seem to have done a pretty piss poor job of it even in the last 100 years, even in the past 20.
Really, isn't that the ultimate crux of the world today? It will all work out if enough good people are decision makers, in government, industry and as individual citizens. Yet it turns out that those decision makers with the most power routinely put their own personal interests ahead of the good of the people they profess to serve.
We are all human.
Yes. But humanity has a wide range of available states of consciousness. Some of them clearly need de-populating. How do yo propose we screen these individuals from becoming decision makers? I know - lets use brain scanning techniques!
oh, wait...