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Privacy Science

Sweat Ducts May Act As Antenna For Lie Detection 120

Posted by Zonk from the smells-fishy-to-me dept.
Reservoir Hill writes "Researchers have discovered that human skin may contain millions of tiny "antennas" in the form of microscopic sweat ducts that may reveal a person's physical and emotional state. This discovery might eventually result in lie detectors that operate at a distance. In experiments, the team beamed electromagnetic waves with a frequency range of about 100 gigahertz at the hands of test subjects and measured the frequency of the electromagnetic waves reflecting off the subjects' skin. Initially, the experiments were carried out in contact with the subjects' hands, but even at a distance of 22 cm, researchers found a strong correlation between subjects' blood pressure and pulse rate, and the frequency response of their skin."
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Sweat Ducts May Act As Antenna For Lie Detection More

Sweat Ducts May Act As Antenna For Lie Detection

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  • Women (Score:5, Funny)

    by teebob21 ( 947095 ) on Monday April 07, 2008 @02:39AM (#22986222) Journal
    Only men will need this sort of technology...

    Here's to wifes and girlfriends....may they never meet.

  • tinfoil hat (Score:5, Funny)

    by aleph42 ( 1082389 ) * on Monday April 07, 2008 @02:42AM (#22986228)
    Ok, that does it.

    I hereby ask that nobody ever refers to "tinfoil hat" in a deragatory manner anymore, because we are going to seriously need them.

    (cue all known jokes about tinfoil hats, of course; but this is actually a serious post; when some guy will first need to use tinfoil to do any political activism, mainstrem medias should not be able to diss him just because "tinfoil hat" is linked to crazy people).

    • Re:tinfoil hat (Score:5, Interesting)

      by aleph42 ( 1082389 ) * on Monday April 07, 2008 @02:50AM (#22986270)
      Just a quick reminder of the facts:

      Brain scanner can tell if you are going to buy a product or not:
      http://www.boingboing.net/2007/01/11/brain-scans-predict-.html [boingboing.net]

      Brain scaner can tell what you are looking at:
      http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/06/0435226 [slashdot.org]

      Brain scanners are so easy to do that now they are in game controllers:
      http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/20/1314254 [slashdot.org]

      And better than a tinfoil hat, we will need something able to filter what you let or do not let through, as was done with the rfid firewall:
      http://www.rfidguardian.org/index.php/Main_Page [rfidguardian.org]

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by kitsunewarlock ( 971818 )
        Combine these technologies and you'll have marketers using your movements in public to create a "real world" MMORPG in which NPC's movements and actions are based on what happens to non-Players (literally people who don't pay the MMO company) in the game.
        And yes, the marketers will jump out with swords and chain mail and scare the NPCs in order to garner appropriate reactions, when needed. Or just use the "system over-ride" that prevents players from being tracked in the game to stop tracking people's mo

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by mikiN ( 75494 )
          That's just a high tech upgrade to "Society", the MMORPG we've all been playing since birth. Just replace "chain mail" with "bullet-proof vests" and "swords" with "batons" and "Tasers" and you get it. To stir up the game the DM (called PM in the UK, President in the US) sometimes orders police vans armed with tear gas grenades and water cannons out onto the streets. There are relatively few NPC's in this game (among them hobos, Travellers, illegal immigrants and wild animals) since most of us are forced to

      • Re: (Score:1, Funny)

        by Dr. Hellno ( 1159307 )
        can brain scanner tell I just shit my pants?

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by Naughty Bob ( 1004174 ) *

          can brain scanner tell I just shit my pants?
          Depends on where your brain is in relation to where you shit from.

          My guess is 'yes'.
      • Now all the marketing droids need is some sort of way to project an image into your brain. (Think: the huge shark/ad at the movie theater in Back to the Future III)

        Just walking along, minding your own business and a ninja jumps out and tries to kill you...then fades away to a floating picture for the latest State Farm Insurance offering: Ninja Insurance

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by ArsenneLupin ( 766289 )
      I'm afraid, against this technology, a tinfoil hat will not be enough. You'll need a tinfoil bunny suit.

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        And the fools laughed at me! Who's laughing now?

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by MrNaz ( 730548 ) *
      Bear in mind that we can now use these to tell if politicians are lying.

        Sadaam has WMDs!
      *BZZZT!*
        He is a threat to our safety!
      *BZZZT!*
        He hates our freedom!
      *BZZZT!*
        He is armed with foul language and has a nasty temper...
      *crickets*

  • Is someone telling the truth? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by BadAnalogyGuy ( 945258 ) <BadAnalogyGuy@gmail.com> on Monday April 07, 2008 @02:45AM (#22986244)
    I knew a guy who claimed he was abducted and sodomized with various probes then dumped in a field in the middle of nowhere. Is he lying? He believes it.

    Whether you know if someone is lying or not does not necessarily bring you closer to the truth.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by somersault ( 912633 )
      Unless you're talking about being abducted by aliens, sounds pretty plausible to me :P
      • Unless you're talking about being abducted by aliens, sounds pretty plausible to me :P

        The Deliverance types figured out the alien masks thing during the Carter administration.

    • It's even crappier (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Moraelin ( 679338 ) on Monday April 07, 2008 @03:49AM (#22986470) Journal
      It's even crappier. We already know know about the normal polygraphs that they don't really work. They just mention someone's reaction to stress, and from there it's a leap of faith that "lying emotional stress". The latter just isn't so.

      1. As you mention, what do you do about people who genuinely believe something bogus?

      As a milder example, human memory isn't photographic, ever. It seems to store more like the description of a scene, and just ad-lib the details that it forgot. Over time you'd forget that, say, the guy was wearing a blue shirt, or maybe that detail never even made it into permanent memory in the first place. But if you try too hard to remember it, it will just give you some best guess. Like that he was wearing a black shirt.

      2. We know that people can train to not feel much emotion about lying, and to psychopaths it even comes naturally. So even measuring their pulse and blood pressure and everything directly, you just can't tell that they're lying.

      Basically we're relying there on the false idea that everyone was educated that it's not nice to lie, and everyone therefore has a hard time telling one and is feeling severely guilty about it. Which is false from start to finish. E.g., speaking of education, we know that some people's upbringing just taught them that it's perfectly _normal_ and indeed _logical_ to tell a lie, if the alternative is a savage beating by your father. They won't feel any guilt extrapolating from there to lying to save their arse from jail.

      3. That emotional stress someone is feeling, can be for a bazillion other causes.

      E.g., because the topic is painful to them for other reasons. A rape victim being the witness in someone else's rape trial might experience severe stress just thinking about it, whether they tell the truth or not. A PTSD [wikipedia.org] sufferer will be in a disproportionate amount of stress when recounting the event that caused it, or anything that reminds them of it. So, you know, some grandpa who fought in Vietnam and still wakes up in cold sweat after dreaming of it, would register as shamelessly lying when they tell you about the atrocities of war. Etc.

      E.g., particularly bad cases of repressed memories and/or the results of some particularly hard to justify cognitive dissonance, can cause a disproportionate emotional responses when you're forced to think or talk about something which challenges them. You see that not only in polygraph tests. A lot of people who are rabidly against something are really just against you challenging their already decided model of the world. The less of an actual justification they have to support that position, other than "but my daddy said so", actually the harder it can be to get them to think logically about it.

      Etc.

      Basically let's just say there are good reasons why that test can't be demanded in court.

      So now we have something that promises to test one parameter from a distance, instead of several measured directly, and which must correlate in certain ways to be considered a "yep, he's lying" proof. It's basically adding one more indirection step to that already weak inference chain. But even if the correlation between skin pores and all those parameters were that infallible, you're back to "stress he's lying", which is already known to be false even measured up close with electrodes.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by SL Baur ( 19540 )

        1. As you mention, what do you do about people who genuinely believe something bogus?

        As a milder example, human memory isn't photographic, ever.

        My favorite proof of this is the work of Adriaan de Groot see http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=3290 [chessbase.com]

        But really now. I *did* have to dodge sniper fire from angry Chiba farmers who didn't want their land "annexed" into a new runway the first time I flew into Narita.

      • This is not about getting to the truth, in the sense most people mean it, this is about finding the TRUTH: what they already know is TRUE - they just need somebody to admit it. Hence the use of torture, sorry coercion, polygraphs and other dubious methods. It is scary to see how these things are used in the US - the nation that is supposed to be the epitome of scientific knowledge.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Jurily ( 900488 )

        As a milder example, human memory isn't photographic, ever. It seems to store more like the description of a scene, and just ad-lib the details that it forgot.
        That's only true for conscious memories. The subconscious remembers everything. Hypnosis can be used to remember e.g. a phone number you saw when you were 6 months old and couldn't read yet...

        I fully agree with the rest of your post, however.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by weicco ( 645927 )

          For a right amount of cash I can remember anything you like.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Hypnosis is bullshit and only work on people who believe it will work....

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by Jurily ( 900488 )

            Sleep and dreams is bullshit and only work on people who believe it will work....
            Fixed that for you.

            Hypnosis is a state of mind, like any other form of meditation, not the ritual used to achieve it. Everyone can be "hypnotized", it's just that there are a lot of crappy hypnotists out there.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by gnick ( 1211984 )

          Hypnosis can be used to remember e.g. a phone number you saw when you were 6 months old and couldn't read yet...
          According to some sources [wikipedia.org] roughly as reliable as most hypnosis publications, people can pull up memories dating all the way back to conception. The fact that somebody recovers a repressed memory and strongly believes its accuracy doesn't make it true...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gnick ( 1211984 )

        Basically let's just say there are good reasons why that test can't be demanded in court.

        But that doesn't mean that they're not regularly used for matters of national security. Some levels of clearance demand that the person holding the position must submit to random polygraph screenings just like many of us are subject to random drug screenings. Of course, this is a hazard to people who may get nervous when randomly selected to be hooked up to a bunch of wires and asked a bunch of questions - Knowing full well that perspiring or getting excited/nervous could cost them their jobs. It's not

        • Not that I believe in the accuracy of polygraphs as lie detectors, but...

          Of course, this is a hazard to people who may get nervous when randomly selected to be hooked up to a bunch of wires and asked a bunch of questions - Knowing full well that perspiring or getting excited/nervous could cost them their jobs.

          This is why they ask baseline questions before starting the interrogation proper.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by gnick ( 1211984 )

            This is why they ask baseline questions before starting the interrogation proper.

            Personally, I only get nervous when I'm asked something that may damn me. I can answer, 'Is your name gnick?' without breaking a sweat. And, when they ask me 'Have you ever done anything you were ashamed of?' and instruct me to lie, I can lie without feeling any nervousness or guilt - Providing them with a very shallow baseline for gauging a lie. However, when they get to the 'If a member of your family was kidnapped and the adversary demanded information in return for their release?' and I know that a

      • If the question requires a yes/no answer, then it can be dicey too. There's that new reality TV show that basically puts people through a lie-detector, and they try to beat it (or let out their most embarrassing secrets) to win cash. Well enough, but a lot of questions don't have a yes/no answer, or you're not definite either way on the answer.

        How about this one that popped up "could you see yourself having children with your girlfriend." If I say no, does it mean I don't want children with my current GF

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Reziac ( 43301 ) *
          And there's the question requiring a yes/no answer, for which *either* answer is an indictment.

          Frex, "Have you quit beating your wife?"

          If you answer "Yes," you've admitted that you used to beat your wife.

          If you answer "No," you've admitted that you still beat your wife.

          So, both YES and NO mean you're guilty. How is an innocent person supposed to answer such a question without experiencing stress?

          (Some wag once postulated that the correct answer was "Which one?")
      • For anybody who thinks that the scientific basis of the polygraph is anything other than 100%, weapons-grade bullonium, I got a couple of names names for you:

        Aldrich Ames:
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldrich_Ames [wikipedia.org]

        Gary Leon Ridgway (AKA green river killer)
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_river_killer [wikipedia.org]

        Both of them passed a polygraph. With Ames, he passed numerous polygraphs while he was working for the USSR.

        Apologists for polygraph testing say that Ames was given big, bad, scary, 'sophisticated countermeasure
    • You bring up an important point here. A lie is only a lie if you believe it is a lie. If you believe the lie is the truth then all of the lie detectors in the world ain't gonna get you one step closer.

      What bothers me in all of this is that you are going to catch the idiots who can't lie. The ones who are sophisticated enough to get through are the ones that we need to worry about, and they will not be caught.

      The more I see technology being applied the more worried I get that people will not understand what
    • "I knew a guy who claimed he was abducted and sodomized with various probes then dumped in a field in the middle of nowhere. Is he lying? He believes it."

      All I know is those probe kits are a bitch to clean...

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by sohare ( 1032056 )

      Whether you know if someone is lying or not does not necessarily bring you closer to the truth.

      Fortunately, reality is not so simplistic. Here is an article from 2007 about distinguishing the brainwaves associated with false memories from those of true memories. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071023163853.htm [sciencedaily.com]

      This is not to say that the sweat-gland technology gets you closer to the truth, just that a person can be convinced they are telling the truth but still "lying" in the sense that they are reporting as true something that never occurred. That is, lying need not be a conscious ac

  • Surely they'll only get readings if the subject's engrams are out of whack? :)
    • Speaking of which...wikileaks.org just recieved the Scientology Thetan operating manual. Pretty scary stuff.
  • ...welcome our... oh, fine. it's redundant. given

    http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/06/2056240

    and

    http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/06/1917259

    on the day that Charlton Heston died, we can just

    http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/06/1641201

    and welcome our true new overlords -- our old overlords.

  • Nerves (Score:5, Insightful)

    by backwardMechanic ( 959818 ) on Monday April 07, 2008 @02:48AM (#22986254) Homepage
    It's not a lie detector, it's a nervous person detector, just like the polygraph. It's clever, but it's more likely to find someone who doesn't like being interviewed by the [insert agency here] than a cold blooded killer.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by joaommp ( 685612 )
      It could be either a lie detector or a nervous person detector. 100GHz? It will just grill the bastard into an honest being...

      Now serious:

      At a distance? Will the privacy invasion comments please start?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by sdavid ( 556770 )
      It's not even a nervous person detector, it's a sweat detector.
      • I am immune [wikipedia.org] to such things. As long as these researchers don't discover the truth about personal hygiene, we'll be fine.

        • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

          by cbart387 ( 1192883 )
          Can you get the word out on this miraculous device. The smell of the computer lab begs to differ.

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      It's not a lie detector, it's a nervous person detector, just like the polygraph. It's clever, but it's more likely to find someone who doesn't like being interviewed by the [insert agency here] than a cold blooded killer.

      No doubt the science behind this will be proven just as porous(pun intended) as it is with polygraphs. Unfortunately you can also expect it to be used in similar fashion as well as an interrogation device, a test for trustworthiness for bonding purposes and job retention, as well as behavi

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gsslay ( 807818 )

      it's a nervous person detector, just like the polygraph
      Exactly. And only idiots and talk show hosts believe in polygraphs. If you're highly strung or ill or prone to hot flushes or know how to deliberately raise your heart-rate then they won't work. If they don't work even for a small percentage of people then they are useless as lie detectors.

  • This isn't new (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The most significant result from polygraph tests is and has been the Galvanic Skin Response Test. It works by measuring the voltage change in your skin when your sweat glands dilate due to a response in your sympathetic nervous system. The simplified (and not completely accurate) version is that telling a lie triggers your fight-or-flight reflex which is tied into your sympathetic nervous system.
    • Being interrogated by jack booted thugs, be they cops, soldiers, school administrators or Agent Smith (or his many alphabet soup lookalikes), is generally enough to raise any innocent individual's fight or flight response. Which of those two responses it is depends on how much they have left to lose at the time of the interrogation.

      What has to be asked is this. How much more will people put up with... and how often will this be used, as the "polygraph" is used now, to merely incriminate nervous individual

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AB3A ( 192265 )
      Your comment is precisely what I was going to say. It's a fancy way to measure skin conductivity. B. F. D.

      I know some folk who stay cool as a cucumber during such tests, and I know folk who will nervously answer even a question about whether the sky is blue.

      Even if one were to calibrate the responses, I don't think much of the method. It's merely one trick among many in the toolbox.

  • At a distance? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by blind biker ( 1066130 ) on Monday April 07, 2008 @02:55AM (#22986284) Journal
    I hope they improve existing lie detectors, the "at a distance" option is much less important.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Not if you want to monitor large groups of people... like in a shopping mall or ($next_wild_idea_to_improve_security && $think_of_the_children); Combine this with CCTV, face recognition and you can detect who goes where and if they're 'suspiciously nervous' without having to tell the person(s) in question. Being someone who has panic attacks and periods of agoraphobia, I do not like this at all..

      • Being someone who has panic attacks and periods of agoraphobia, I do not like this at all.
        Well, that and a fear of non-anonymous posting :-) I know what you mean, though. Even if you are not the type to have panic attacks, people go through really bad spells sometimes and would appear 'suspicious' to the stupid fucktards who run these things.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by BountyX ( 1227176 )
      We have one lie detection method that works 100% . It's called torture. Keep doing it and eventually you'll detect a lie.
    • "the "at a distance" option is much less important."

      I'd even say it is a severe drawback. The only practical interest of a lie detector is not to measure stress, it is to induce it in order to increase the chances that the interrogated person will make a mistake.

    • I hope they improve existing lie detectors, the "at a distance" option is much less important.

      Existing lie detectors are a complete sham. They're nothing but security theater, designed to scare the guilty into confessing. The problem is that there is no concrete difference between truth and lie. The "at a distance" thing is utterly absurd in the context of polygraphy anyway. Polygraphy is already based on the comparison of reactions to "control" questions and "relevant" questions. Such a comparison is already on shaky ground when the examiner is asking the questions. Anyone who suggests that it's e

  • Voight-Kampff (Score:1, Insightful)

    by NemesisBubu ( 745363 )
    Describe in single words only the good things that come into your mind about... your mother.
  • Cool discovery, but I think the bit about using this for lie detection is a bit of a stretch. This sounds like a polygraph that does not require physical contact. But, polygraphs are not believed to be all that accurate [nap.edu].
  • Even if this worked, which it won't since it has all the same problems as polygraphs and probably a few more (want someone to read guilty? put them in a warm cell for a few hours), the countermeasures are easily available - antiperspirant.

    Nothing happening here, move along.

  • Good ! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Ihlosi ( 895663 ) on Monday April 07, 2008 @03:12AM (#22986356)
    I want these detectors to be made a mandatory addition to any camera that is used when interviewing politicians. Data from the detector should be processed into a simple BS-o-meter gauge that is displayed along with the interview.

    • Trouble with that is most politicians are stupid, ill-informed, rabble-rousers who actually believe the BS they come out with.

      Rich.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dbIII ( 701233 )
      Unfortunately the detector is also bullshit along the lines of the long running scam from the writer of the Wonder Woman comic - the polygraph. Human thought is a little more complex than skin resistance.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Stray7Xi ( 698337 )
      Sorry but lie detectors can't detect sociopaths.
    • >I want these detectors to be made a mandatory addition to any camera that is used when interviewing politicians.

      Sorry, it won't work on sociopaths. You have to have a conscience about your lies in order to get nervous about telling them.

    • Oftimes politicians, or chronic liars in general, are so enamoured with their mistruths or owned skewed point-of-view, that to them it becomes more truth than the reality.

  • Sci-Fi Lie-detection at a distance? I think not (Score:5, Informative)

    by Neuticle ( 255200 ) on Monday April 07, 2008 @03:13AM (#22986360) Homepage
    If they can get this to remotely measure blood pressure and pulse to an accuracy that is acceptable (90%? Pure guessing on my part, the article only mentions a "strong correlation"), using it for lie detection would still be based off of the shaky assumption that increases in blood pressure and pulse indicate lies or deception.

    Even a polygraph, which measures blood pressure and pulse directly and accurately, as well as additional things such as respiration, skin conductivity and even muscle movements (fidgeting, ticks etc), is not all that reliable. To borrow from Wikipedia:

    The [National Academy of Sciences] found that the majority of polygraph research was of low quality. After culling through the numerous studies of the accuracy of polygraph detection the NAS identified 57 that had "sufficient scientific rigor". These studies concluded that a polygraph test regarding a specific incident can discern the truth at "a level greater than chance, yet short of perfection".
    And "A 1997 survey of 421 psychologists estimated the test's average accuracy at about 61%, a little better than chance."

    In reality, even if polygraphs could be PROVEN 95% accurate, it wouldn't ever hold up in court: 1 in 20 is reasonable doubt.
    This thing would be using the same theory, but with less input. FAIL

    The real benefit from this will be in medical monitoring. If blood pressure and can be measured remotely, accurately and in a short amount of time, that would be a big improvement over the current sphygmomanometer (a regular BP cuff that gets pumped up), especially in situations where it is hard to measure BP because of background noise or vibration. Ambulances sometimes have to stop to take a blood pressure (not on critical patients, but still).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dbIII ( 701233 )
      Considering that the inventor was the comic book artist famous for Wonder Woman's lariat of truth and the device got only credibility by being accepted by the famously bribable J. Edgar Hoover we should not really be suprised that the polygraph gets thrown in the same basket as Uri Geller by law enforcement in the majority of the world. It's one of the most sucessful technology snake oil scams.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hyc ( 241590 )
      Ah, so they've finally developed the technology for the Star Trek handheld medical scanner. Cool.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by aadvancedGIR ( 959466 )
      "especially in situations where it is hard to measure BP"

      You mean, like hidden in the front door of insurance compagnies?
      • While I can see the danger in insurance companies using this to deny coverage (or jack up rates), I don't see this being such a huge problem right now. Why? because insurance companies already find out about a blood pressure problem as soon as it gets billed to them. If they are going to raise your rates for that anyhow, why would they bother with expensive toys?

        Plus, I don't think they could raise your rates, claiming you had high blood pressure (measured with this machine), without having you independentl

    • The real benefit from this will be in medical monitoring.
      You forgot to mention terrorists. Think airport screening. Or maybe subway screening.
    • Of course, they don't really measure a lie.

      However, what they do do very well is let an interrogator bluff better.

      First of all, people will frequently make admissions or confessions in the 'pre-test' interview, mistakenly thinking "the magic box will be able to tell that I lied", and 2ndly, it lets the examiner come in after the exam and say "Look, you can lie to yourself, but your body can't lie to this machine. We know you did it now, this proves it.", and frequently get a confession.

      It's a slightly more
  • Lie detectors aren't science. They never have been, and at this rate they never will.

    Come on people.. sheesh.

  • HA! to all who claimed I was going to die alone (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    "reveal a person's physical and emotional state."

    Forget the lie detector. Bring on the gadget that shows me what my chances are of getting lucky.

    • Bring on the gadget that shows me what my chances are of getting lucky.
      It already exists, it's called the Mk I eyeball. Use it to search for a white stick and/or a dog in a harness.
  • I didn't read TFA because that's against the rules, you know.

    Is Diebold behind this?
  • it's a sweat detector. It has the same problems as other lie detectors: sweating and similar reactions don't mean you're lying. Maybe you find the interrogator hot, or maybe he or she reminds you of your mother in law, or maybe you just generally fall apart under pressure.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by threeturn ( 622824 )
      Precisely. More hocus-pocus rubbish from the "we'll sell you security" brigade. Still doubtless the TSA will buy loads so they have a new toy to intimidate travellers with.
  • I can see the scale on this remote lie detector now ..... it would have to have a nice big round dial labelled in words (in big serif type) and a black arrow-tipped pointer pivoted on jewelled bearings which, thanks to a well-crafted damping vane, would sweep smoothly and hardly oscillate at all .....

    "TRUE" ..... "MILDLY DISINGENUOUS" ..... "FIB" ..... "STRETCHING CREDULITY" ..... "MARKETING" ..... "WHOPPER" ..... "SOFTWARE MARKETING" ..... and in big, red letters over at the far end ..... "YOUNG EART
  • Old and venerable practice. In old times they didn't used fancy staff like microwaves though, just plain red-hot iron. Show it to test subject and he admit his lies at once.
    • Or would he tell you more instead?

      I know I'd confess the murder of Lincoln and JFK (or whoever, for that matters) for a 5s pause of the treatment, and yet I've never been within 4000km of the USA.

      Of course, if you don't need truth but a scrapegoat, torture is a wonderfull investigation tool.

  • In Other News..... (Score:3, Funny)

    by IHC Navistar ( 967161 ) on Monday April 07, 2008 @04:59AM (#22986672)
    The underwire in a push-up bra also acts as an antenna for lie detection.....

    (GASP!) You LIED to me!
  • "Because lying is a skill like any other and if you want to maintain a level of excellence, you have to practice constantly." -Elim Garak
  • Am I the only one who at first glance read the title as "Sweet Ducks May Act As Antenna For Lie Detection"?

  • Great. Now they're taking a subjective indicator of a subjective indicator of a lie. Subjective correlation twice removed and that's an improvement? Where's the science in this country? Dare I say it's not evolving?

    -[d]-

  • Enough with the Privacy tag already (Score:3, Insightful)

    by stewbacca ( 1033764 ) on Monday April 07, 2008 @06:17AM (#22986958)
    Gee, a study that says 40% of us are paranoid, then this article gets posted as newsworthy ( and with the tag "privacy" ).

    I used to think slashdot was a site about technology but now days it's just a bunch of paranoid conspiracy theorists worried about stuff that isn't happening, at the same time complaining about the Bush administration's culture of Fear.

  • Lie detectors are the biggest scam against society. They only work in as much as people think they do. Study after study has shown that the galvanic skin response (used in the polygraph) DOES NOT detect lying or dishonesty, rather stress. People sweat when they are stressed. If you put a person in an interrogation room with authority figures and strap on a "Lie Detector" its going to stress them out when they lie. This is all the lie detector detects. If I understand the article correctly this is essent
  • Don't think of it as a tool for lie detection. What about putting one in every hospitalbed, to know if people are sweating profusely.
    It's clean as there's no contact.

    Or pilots, to monitor stress levels?
    Or astronauts, who are (at least, remembering the apollo 13 movie) constantly monitored. No longer having to wear crap but having an external system is much nicer.

    • Or pilots, to monitor stress levels?
      To what end? When something relevant happens to cause a pilot stress, you can bet he's going to announce it to his co-pilot, air traffic control, and the cockpit voice recorder!
  • the team beamed electromagnetic waves with a frequency range of about 100 gigahertz
    Not only can the system detect lies, it can detect with 100% certainty that the subject has cancer!
  • While its an interesting discovery, the term "lie detector" is a blatant badge of ignorance. The term is more than fraudulent for what amounts to a pure pseudo science. Why not just call them "truth detectors"? Wouldn't that make as much sense?

  • This reminds me of a story I read long ago (cant remember the name - Ill leave this as an exercise for the reader) where a man wanted to commit murder, but the police had scanners all over the place that could read your mind.

    He paid a commercial jingle musician to write the most annoying intrusive "sticky" jingle he could come up with, and listened to the jingle for 48 hours straight. Then went to the victim, shot him, and walked away. Through it all his head was filled with the annoying jingle playing over

  • This isn't new (Score:3, Insightful)

    by hyades1 ( 1149581 ) <hyades1@hotmail.com> on Monday April 07, 2008 @10:08AM (#22988894)
    There's been something around since the dawn of history that can detect a lie from a significant distance. We call her, "Mom".
  • I personnaly had a pre-employment polygraph test, and I can assure you that, remotely or directly, a polygraph is no more than a more or less sophisticated vital signs recorder.

    The test was 10 questions long, repeated 3 times in a different order each time, and out of those 10 questions, I intentionnaly lied to 4 of them. Strangely, the guy told me "this particular question about computer crimes, I think you lied to this one". In fact, when I was asked this question, I could feel my eart beating a little
    • Although I think it's illegal in my state to polygraph a prospective employee, but what company was that, so I can remind myself to A - never try and get a job there, and B - never buy their products?
  • Polygraph tests only detect an emotional response. Whether it's considered a lie is an interpretation of the person giving the test.

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