Tech & Biz

Hostile Intent Technology

by publicreader | April 14, 2007 at 12:49 pm

678 views | 10 Recommendations | 5 comments

The Department of Homeland Security is developing new biophysical sensors and detectors designed to detect "hostile intent" on the part of people crossing borders.

The novel program, named “Hostile Intent,” is geared towards detecting and gauging physiological and behavioral indications of deception and bad intentions. These include signs of nervousness, such as body head, perspiration and certain facial movements.

It is not clear what part the new screening technology will play in the overall decision on whether a person would be allowed to enter the country. It is worth noting that a number of physiological conditions, such as hypo- and hyperglycemia could mimic some of the symptoms of "hostile intent."

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Jordan Yerman

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 13:48 on April 14th, 2007

How easily would such a method be confounded by rising levels of agitation amongst the queue of passengers waiting and waiting and waiting, belts, shoes and laptops in hand?

Good stuff.

publicreader

at 13:54 on April 14th, 2007

Good point. Didn't even think of that- I was more focused on medical mimics.

dysviz

at 07:50 on April 15th, 2007

i remember how nixon's portrait scowled down on me smack dab in front of the main service counter at border crossings, it did the same thing, scan out progressives by detecting facial expression, raised blood pressure, hot forehead, perspiration, nervous movements, what not.

it works just as well, but it is not computerised.

i think you can tell apart people who are pissed off from those with something to hide, at least people would have no problem.

now it is done without human attention, automated, fed into computers.

and then symptons could be misread, high blood pressure, hot forehead could be irritation at long lines, suspicion about bag content, making to wait even more..

Markus Schlegel

at 16:49 on April 15th, 2007

Oh, great. I tend to stress a little bit amidst large numbers of people in confined spaces. Sometimes I get nervous, often a bit heated or even sweating. Does that make me suspect No. 1? Where are the heaps that can be set alight to burn the suspects identified by such hokuspokus-tech? Forgive the sharp interjection, but culturally both practices could be the brainchild of the same age. Is an end in sight for us, some voluntarily sliding down the slippery slope into a New Middle Age, with the rest of us being pushed?