Re: Apple should launch this for the public.
> Don't see how you can possibly do that without too high a false positive rate.
That is what I was hinting at by including the Acetone / Nail Bar example that the DARPA programme manager gave. False positives are expected. Their plan is is use roving sensors (they talked of cars, but chemical sensors masquerading as smartphones fit this model too) to build a huge real-time data set and then use algorithms to highlight unusual cases. Fertilizer on a farm or agricultural wholesaler = normal. Fertilizer by a government building = worthy of investigation.
I daresay that a similar approach is applied to purchases made online. Gallons of acetone supplied to a nail salon raises fewer flags than if it were supplied to a residential address in a certain area.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
