back to article Skeletal scanner would ID terrorists from 50 meters

Scientists are developing an identity verification system that would spot terrorists and pedophiles by scanning their skeletal features and comparing them against a database of stored images. The system could be deployed in airports, sporting events, and other settings vulnerable to criminals and ideally will be able to …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Title

    Yeah, we must be crazy tinfoil hat people to reject this!

    How about the harmful radiation that this would be emitting? From that far away, who knows how many people you'd be hitting at once.

    1. Someone Else Silver badge
      WTF?

      Hmmmm...

      Ionizing radiation at 50 meters.

      I'm gettin' some barbecue!

  2. John Hawkins
    Big Brother

    Health and Safety?

    Will everyone be issued lead shielding like that we get given at the dentist when our teeth are being x-rayed? Or will we just have put up with the risk of cancer in our own interest? Potential for class action lawsuit methinks.

    1. Wize
      Unhappy

      Not to mention...

      ...pregnant mothers.

  3. a53

    Oh

    So only terrorists and pedophiles have unique bone structures??

    1. Captain Save-a-ho
      Big Brother

      Only always

      Especially when you're trying to upsell the general public to support a frivilous technology from which you'll be able to greatly profit and for which you can extort large lump sums from both sides (those peddling the kit and those wishing to remain at large).

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Not as far fetched as you might think

      'So only terrorists and pedophiles have unique bone structures??'

      Latest research (Morris, Fox et. al. (2001)) suggests that paedophiles have 'have more genes in common with crabs than they do with you and me.'

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Boffin

        Now that is scientific fact.

        There's no real evidence for it, but it is scientific fact.

        1. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

          Of course! What do you think?

          They were created that way. Through Intelligent Design.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        WTF?

        WTF?

        Care to point a published reference to that paper, Google throws a blank (except to your comment). Well unless your on about female orgasm research, but that was in the 60's & 70's

        Oh 2001 is not latest research. it's almost decade old research.

        1. Alex Wells
          FAIL

          Don't worry about it

          From the tone of your post it's probably better if you just let this one pass you by. seeing as both the comment and the immediate reply went straight over your head, I would just suggest that the post has value to other people whose aforementioned heads are less pointy.

          hold on, "Well unless your on about female orgasm research"? any chance you're available to come to parties as entertainment?

        2. crowley

          Re: WTF?

          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brass_Eye#Paedophilia_special_.282001.29

        3. Neoc
          Stop

          Re: WTF?

          Anonymous Coward@08:50 25 August 2010: "Oh 2001 is not latest research. it's almost decade old research"

          Point of order, kind sir - if no research has been done on the subject since 2001, then it *is* the latest research. Just not very fresh.

      3. Adam Foxton

        It's not research

        I mean there's no scientific basis for those claims, it's just FACT.

      4. a53

        Not as far fetched as you might think

        Latest research (Morris, Fox et. al. (2001)) suggests that paedophiles have 'have more genes in common with crabs than they do with you and me.'

        Last I heard you couldn't get much DNA from an Xray or similar...

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      me also

      I'm not a terrorist or a paedo but since my motorcycle accident a year ago I have a unique bone structure. Plenty of fractures, pins and a damaged shoulder.

    4. neb
      Black Helicopters

      @So only terrorists and pedophiles have unique bone structures??

      apparently paedophiles share crab dna too!

  4. John A Blackley

    Ummmm

    Wouldn't the terrorist have to have been captured in order for the authorities to have a scan of his bones to compare?

    In the case of suicide bombers this is hardly likely to happen, is it?

    1. Anomalous Cowherd Silver badge

      No good scanning suicide bombers after the fact

      You'd need a very big scanner, or maybe a bin bag.

  5. JoeyG

    Can't disguise their bones?

    They "can't disguise their bones" has to be the stupidest thing I've ever heard a researcher say - but is a typical justification for yet another technology that will exclusively track people who aren't trying to hide.

    1. JasonW
      Boffin

      Easy enough to disguise your bones...

      Simply break your arm/leg after the plod have uniquely identified your bones.

      1. Fizzl
        WTF?

        Er..

        Ok you go ahead and break your own bones but I'll just get some animal bones sewn into the inside of my cloths.

        On an unrelated note... if body scanners = ghost porn does this me soon we shall have skeleton porn?

        1. Paul 129
          Coffee/keyboard

          New keyboard please

          Oh Err... Look at the Femur's on that one Guv!

        2. Adam Foxton
          Joke

          Bringing a new meaning

          to the term "boning"

      2. hplasm
        Thumb Up

        Or for extra irony-

        get them to do it for you.

  6. Version 1.0 Silver badge
    FAIL

    A Brilliant Mind (not)

    Where have we heard this before? It's just Security Theater - it's not so long ago that we were going to ID the bad lads by the way they walked ... except that didn't work and anyone in the gait community could have told them that the idea was a loser from the start.

    Now it's "bones" - like that's going to work? Have any of these idiots even bothered to figure out the resolution needed to ID a skeletal abnormality at 50m? Maybe you could get the resolution needed to distinguish one person from another reliably at a couple of metres but that's not going to be anything close to good enough to tell one ankle break from another.

    What's next? We can ID people by listening to the sounds they make in the crapper? Slurping noises in noodle shops? I've got it - I'm off to patent a foolproof way to ID terrorists by they way they pick their noses while waiting in the security line at the airport...

    No, on second thoughts I'm heading for the crapper - we're all obviously surrounded by idiots.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Coat

      a brilliant idea

      I can identify Paedos outside schools by their breathing. Then again, maybe they jogged down and are picking their kids up!!

      //Mines the one with John Merrick skeleton in the pocket.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Happy

      Now /that's/ a brilliant mind.

      If I could upvote this post more than once, I would gladly do so.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Go

      Use my method...

      ... I use a divining rod to detect pedeos and terrorists, I can safely say I haven't found any in my area at the moment.

      1. I didn't do IT.
        Boffin

        Re: Terrorist Divining Rod

        Actually, that was a real product that sold for over $5,000 a pop - until someone finally got some sense in the audit office and kicked them out on their ear.

        Was originally used for "detecting" bombs and drugs... but didn't do any better than random searches. Surprising, eh?

  7. Tom 35

    system that would spot terrorists

    No, it would only spot KNOWN terrorists that you happened to have an x-ray of (or what ever other boogy man they want to use to sell this). Your not going to have much luck spotting a suicide bomber since they are never repeat offenders (unless they are really bad suicide bombers).

    And just how are they going to get what is in effect an x-ray from a distance?

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Someone's been watching too much Total Recall, methinks

    mine's the one with five kids to feed

    1. Alexander Rogge

      Definitely an idea from Total Recall

      This device plan sounds like it was ripped out of the pages of Total Recall. If only we would place more emphasis in copying the parts about travelling to Mars, instead of trying to make people look naked in public, we would probably have a better world for it.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Thumb Up

        TWO

        better worlds for it!

      2. Stephen 5

        Someone was watching Total recall

        Get your ass to Mars!

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hip replacement anyone?

    Scientist 1: I'm bored

    Scientist 2: It's the silly season - let's thing up something unbelievably moronic and see if we can get a newspaper to run it.

    Scientist 1: How about: "The large hadron collider has produced a mini-black hole that is swallowing the moon"?

    Scientist 2: Done that.

    <repeat for 5 hours>

  10. Asgard
    Big Brother

    WTF is happening to our country!

    Year 2000 - It wasn't perfect land of hope and glory and all that, but we had some freedom, privacy & liberty.

    Year 2010 - Police State, they try to spy on us at every move, even being stripped naked by scanners is ok for them, and now they don't even care about our health!

    The terrorists don't need to destroy our way of life, our own government is doing that for them!

    1. Evil Auditor Silver badge

      re WTF is happening to our country

      One suggestion, though incomplete: NuLabour.

  11. Pablo
    Alert

    Oh good.

    A few gamma rays never hurt anyone, right?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Joke

      RAAAAARRRRR

      Don't make me angry - you wouldn't like me when I'm angry!

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Joke

      That could make a good

      Banner headline...

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    In Paranoid America, the closet skelleton is yours

    So instead of eating too much and you can't get back into Blighty because the turd at the turnstile doesn't recognise you from the face in your passport, you break a leg and you can't get back into Blighty because the turd of a machine at the turnstile doesn't manage to match your x-ray to the one broadcast by the RFID in your passport. Protest, repeat x-ray until cancer.

    New technology and the NHS, a sure winner.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    So they can tell whose a terrorist by the shape of his bones.

    All they've done is reinvented Phrenology.

    Paris, she'll change the shape of your bone.

  14. Nexox Enigma

    Probably not Xray

    I doubt that they plan to use Xrays, as that produces imagry /behind/ the subject, which means the subject has to stand between the Xray source and some sort of film / imaging device. Clearly that's a bit nuts at 50m.

    So they're looking for a wave which will penetrate skin, cloth, etc, reflect off bone with a good resolution, and (probably) not cause any sort of permanent damage. I believe most forms of ionizing radiation wouldn't get past the first two requirements, and obviously not the third.

    Good news is that they'd probably be broadcasting on a pretty specific wavelength, so all of those terrorists (I imagine that there must be crowds of them around everywhere by now, with all that people are spending to stop them) just need a pretty simple device to detect when there's a scanner in range. Like your average flashlight or search radar, it'll advertise it's presence to people that are far outside it's bonescan range.

    1. beli bouton
      Alien

      Probably not Xray

      Backscatter Xray ... pervs^H^H^H^H^Hspooks have been using it to electronically undress you for years.

      1. John Latham

        Radiation/penetration

        Apparently a backscatter xray scan gives about the same radiation exposure as 2 minutes of flying, so it's not a huge safety concern at airports.

        However, neither backscatter xray nor millimetre wave scans reveal skeletal structure.

    2. Pablo

      Think again

      The article linked to specifically says it could use x-rays or gamma(!) rays, though it does leave the door open to "other forms of body scanning". I guess some type of ultrasound might work, but that normally has a range of zero (bodily contact) not 50 meters.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I was talking to someone knowledgeable recently

    Apparently taking up martial arts will cause small changes to your bone density, as will any other sport which involves a lot of blunt trauma. No need for fractures, just tiny cracks that repair over time.

    1. Charles Manning

      ... or weight training or calcium suppliments

      or any change in exercise level. Pretty much anything targeting higher bone density in the aging, especially women.

      1. hplasm
        Joke

        How about Adamantium?

        At X-ray Station #1-

        "Look at that! Metal bones!?!"

        "Shhh! He might hear us!"

        *schwingg*

        "O crap- he did..."

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