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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.
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 …
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?
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.
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?
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?
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.
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>
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!
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.
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.
Tom 35 beat me to it -- this system is worthless, because it would only identify people who have had a full body scan performed. And most likely performed outside a hospital, since hospitals have STRICT privacy regulations. I know if the hospital handed my records over to the gummint, I'd demand they pay me a HIPAA settlement.
And, as several people have said, I don't want to be X-Rayed constantly either.
The trouble is, terrorists (and of course, the obligatory thinking-of-the-children-provides-justification-for-anything pedophiles) are extremely rare. Even if the scanner has a 0.1% false positive rate, because the prevalence of terrorists in society are even less than that, it is still likely to finger many orders of magnitude of innocent people over actual terrorists. And no, I don't consider hundreds to thousands of innocent people being hassled, delayed, having guns pointed at them, arrested, or being executed due to police incompetence a suitable trade-off for catching that 1 real 'terrorist*'.
* which probably means he's watched a jihadist YouTube video, or plans to stuff a few petrol cans into his car and drive it into a shop window, given their recent form.
Oh, I suspect they could do something to pick out me, with this tech, if they have the detailed scan to start with. I have a painful collection of breaks, plus the measurements of all the rest. It might be unique.
But it needs that detailed scan.
Bertillon didn't make this idea work. There's a lot of technology come in since his day, and maybe it could identify an individual.
But the spooky terrorists: the problem is you don't know who they are. You don't have that data. And it doesn't help you find criminals: they leave their fingerprints at the scene of a crime, but they don't leave their skeletons.
have you read hippa ?
PHI may be used and disclosed for research without an Authorization in limited circumstances: Under a waiver of the Authorization requirement, as a limited data set with a data use agreement, preparatory to research, and for research on decedents' information.
The Hospital District may Disclose PHI to a public health
authority authorized by law to collect or receive PHI to
prevent or control disease, injury, or disability; or at the
direction of a public health authority, to an official of a
foreign government agency acting in collaboration with the
public health authority (HCHD Infection Control Policy,
Required Reporting of Diseases and Conditions, No. 1101).
Disclosure Pursuant to Law. Disclose PHI as required by law, including
laws requiring reporting of certain types of wounds or
other physical injuries (See also Sections III. B and IV of
this policy for additional information).
gun shoot wounds must be reported.
may Use and Disclose PHI for
Research purposes without obtaining a patient’s Authorization
Is necessary to prevent or lessen a serious and imminent
threat to the health or safety of a person or the public and
is to a person(s) reasonably able to prevent or lessen the
threat, including the target of the threat.
Oh yeah and the one tiny itsy bitsy thing thats is most on point , Is ....
PHI can be disclosed for terrorist preparation .
This is the first time I hear that pedofils are a threat to airports. I understand that terrorists can commit mass murder by blowing themselves up in front of an economy check-in desk but what can pedofils do that is equally dangerous? Wank themselves to death? Commit mass insemination, perhaps?
"Virtually every person has a unique skeletal structure nearly impossible to alter."
1) Virtually? So there's a possibility that two people could have the same skeleton? So skeletons aren't unique? So the premise of the thing is rather skewed? Skewed like an argument consisting entirely of questions?
2) I've broken my nose, my collarbone, and my leg a couple of times. Please don't tell me my skeletal structure is nearly impossible to alter.
I was intrigued so I looked at the article in more detail:
'Ryan Fendley, the research institute’s director of operations and strategic initiatives, said scanners could be used wherever there is a controlled point of entry.
“It could go anywhere,” he said. “It could be in every airport. You could put it in a hotel if it gets down to the right scale and cost.”
"Depending on the selected technology, a skeletal scan would only expose a person to radiation that is the approximate equivalent of taking one cross-country airline flight."'
Really? See, when I look up 'Bone Density' on Wiki I find out that it's measured using dual energy X-ray absorptiometry, and when I look at the references to find out how powerful this kind of x-ray is I find it's "only about a tenth of a chest X-ray". Which is probably OK if you're not exposed very often. However - if you put this together with Ryan Fendley's frothy comments, a holiday and some maths you find that if I stay in a hotel for a 2-week period and enter the building, ooh, 3 times a day, and I get scanned every time I enter the hotel, then by the time I have completed my holiday I will have had the equivalent of 4.2 chest x-rays.
Not good.
What's most disturbing/funniest (they're so close together though, aren't they? Especially when I write them next to each other) about this is the backstory:
"The idea was born when a Wright State University scientist went online as his young daughters were preparing to go trick-or-treating and discovered that convicted sex offenders were living in his neighborhood.
What if there was a way to positively identify sex offenders as they arrived at theme parks and other venues populated by young children?"
For one thing how would solving problem #2 help with problem #1?
For another thing problem #2 can be solved by utilising the tried and tested method of security guard + photograph of undesireable.
For another thing the entire fucking world is populated by young children. As a species we're growing faster than we can handle. Walk down pretty much any street and there they are, all young and childreny and loud and annoying. If he wants to do mankind a service could he not invent a way to make them shut the fuck up? Like a smack in the mouth, or a gag or something?
For another thing the entire fucking world is populated by young children. As a species we're growing faster than we can handle. Walk down pretty much any street and there they are, all young and childreny and loud and annoying. If he wants to do mankind a service could he not invent a way to make them shut the fuck up?
Well this should help with the population problem. As we'll all be so thoroughly irradiated the average male sperm count will fast approach zero.
They intend to use "X-rays, gamma rays or other forms of body scanning". They are so clued up that they don't even know yet what they will use.
So to protect the little children they will be hit with bursts of X or gamma rays every time they go near the park? Much better than them being in the same park as someone who once got nicked for peeing in a public place, or any of the other things the yanks use to mark you for life as a pervert.
And hey, we can make those perverts' lives even more hellish! There's already towns in the Land of the Free where there's hardly anywhere they are allowed to live. Now we can set off screaming alarms if they just walk near a park. You need to walk there to get to your job? Or to the hospital? Tough luck - you'll get lynched if you try.
expose ppl to sundry hypothetical but potentially harmful RF ?
the UNC(LE) network ( UltrasoundNeighbourhood-CompilationLEmon just make sure it never work for the wrong guys guys ). using technology ( ars priori cred joculus anon ) combining chiropterometricaudiology, accipitroptics and ACCUMlated__Overview_ and FAce_Recognition_ Technologies *, fixed data collection points are established to build up a picture of " normal " patterns in a given locale.
then system is networked to smmoooothly interface with recycling bin rfids and ze waltz may commence.
*administer for n0_@u^t_awful purposes*
* bats differentiate texture and track at high speed
vultures see from afar and (can) smell
no two people move_in_the _same_way all the time
faces are pretty unique too and there_is_a data-base
BeBuggered for the obvious
and did any-one see a coat with a can of fosters in the left pocket
and a safety pin under the right lapel please ?
Given that they are talking about paedophiles it makes a lot more sense that they are looking at the relative lengths of bones, ie: the ratio between the length of your forearm to your upper arm (think facial recognition but applied to your body)
This kind of information could easily be manually digitised from pictures of abuse and then compared against a digital model derived from your movements ... no doubt it will be using a similar technology to the gait tracking stuff, so a more reasonable assumption is that it will be fed by basic cameras not x-rays!
That said, some shoulder, elbow & knee pads and this code would likely be as broken as a facial recognition is when eye makeup or prosthetic noses are applied.
Even aside the well-expressed objection based on the indiscriminate dosing of citizens with radiation, I can't say I'm all that worried.
I *used* to be worried about new ideas for government snooping; but Jacqui Smith solved that for me.
No, she didn't win me over with her seductive wiles and dupe me into accepting her point of view. What she did was simple: she said that she'd force paedophiles to register their email addresses so the police could keep tabs on them.
At that point I realised that no matter how lofty the government's surveillance schemes might be, they probably don't have the basic technical knowledge a) to implement them; or b) to know who to hire to implement them on their behalf.
As far as I can tell most contractors hired to carry out tech development/installation work for the government just bugger about until they've had their fill of Treasury pork, then slink off to play golf.