back to article Big Brother Blue seeks biometric anti-terror patents

IBM has filed applications for a dozen patents that seek a whole new level of airport security. Forget full-body scans, which are currently being touted as the Next Big Thing™ in security in the wake of the Christmas Day Nigerian crotchbomber. We can't even be sure they would have stopped him. The IBM patent applications, …

COMMENTS

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    The sensors

    The cheap solution could be based on tapping signals from each subject's mobile telephone, supplemented with surveillance cameras as permittet by budget..

    Mine's the one with a SE T300 in the pocket.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If only

    If only they would spend this effort doing something useful, they could eliminate car accidents, heart attacks and cancer, instead of trying to eliminate the statistically insignificant chance of dying in a terrorist attack.

    It seems to me like the real application of these techs is in advertising, having knowledge of the subconscious behavior of an individual, you could push whatever you want on them.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    AI?

    One problem with all this AI behavioural monitoring is that until an actual terrorist is monitored by the system the system is unlikely to know what to look for. Yes, it certain behavioural aspects can be programmed into the system, but how do the developers know that that means someone is a terrorist as opposed to someone who has a paranoia about flying. It's still better to have actual well qualified well paid humans doing the monitoring. It's also good for the human monitors to be occasionally tested to make sure that they don't get too complacent looking for the very small numbers of problem passengers. This includes drug dealers, kidnappers, etc as not everyone is a terrorist.

  4. Andy ORourke
    Joke

    "furtive eye movements"

    No More discreet oggling that hottie as she wanders past you or sits opposite then :-)

  5. Mike Shepherd
    Happy

    Goodness!

    Whoever thought running an empire in the Middle East would get so complicated!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Big Brother

      Stop on

      Agreed.

      The war on the people is never ending,

      the alleged enemy is fiction,

      as is the reality which we consider to be the truth.

      www.tpuc.org

  6. Simon B
    FAIL

    WHOOP WHOOP!

    So when I'm eyeing up that fit bird across the way and trying to do it discretly so she or anyone else doesn't know i'm oggling, I'll get tackled by a guard who is looking for a bomb on my person. Niiiiiiice , that'll work. Nervous about the flight? Stressed cus the flight hasn't been called yet? Had a bad day? WHOOP WHOOP! oh dear.

  7. Christoph
    FAIL

    Worse than useless

    Security will spend all their time hassling anyone with the slightest trace of autism or of anything else that makes them 'different', while the well-trained attackers will be ignored.

  8. Graham Marsden
    Big Brother

    You are being watched!

    "[...] in the past no government had the power to keep its citizens under constant surveillance. The invention of print, however, made it easier to manipulate public opinion, and the film and the radio carried the process further. With the development of television, and the technical advance which made it possible to receive and transmit simultaneously on the same instrument, private life came to an end."

    George Orwell - 1984

  9. Nigee

    I have a cunning plan

    Just say you're doing the eye stuff then shakedown everyone wearing dark glasses.

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