Tuesday May 3, 2011
According to a post on the Danger Room blog, the U.S. forces who took down Osama bin Laden were mostly likely carrying a device called a Secure Electronic Enrollment Kit (SEEK) to verify his identity.
The SEEK captures iris, fingerprint and facial scans and fires them back to an FBI database in West Virginia for verification.
Monday May 2, 2011
On June 7, 1999 Osama bin Laden became one of the FBI's 10 Most Wanted. Today, his picture sports a red banner reading "Deceased."
However, it didn't take long for conspiracy theories to spin up over the exact identity of the man killed in Abbottabad on Sunday. So how exactly was bin Laden's death confirmed? Various news agencies are reporting that the CIA's own facial recognition technology identified the face of Osama bin Laden with 95% accuracy.
Facial recognition works by mapping points on a face and creating a biometric template. The template is, essentially, a digital code that describes the subject's face. The trick with facial recogntion has always been that images taken from even slightly different angles will result in a variation of the the biometric template. So a 95% match is about as good as it gets.
In addition to the facial recognition technology, authorities have apparently compared bin Laden's DNA to that of several of his relatives. The exact identity and number of the relatives used for the DNA samples has not been revealed. No surprise there. It's not unthinkable that the government has also been able to collect samples of bin Laden's own DNA from locations where he has lived over the years. The body was also identified by a female survivor of the attack; a woman believed to be one of bin Laden's wives.
Read More: Facial Recognition Technology
Thursday April 28, 2011
Seriously. Did you not know that your smartphone was tracking you?
Yesterday, two Michigan women filed a complaint against Google in Michigan Eastern District Court. The suit (Brown et al v. Google, Incorporated) alleges that
the Google Android operating system collects location data from its users, and that such tracking was not disclosed in it (sic) privacy policy and violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, as well as state unfair or deceptive acts and practices statutes.
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Google's initial reaction seems to be, Hey, you can always turn those location services off.
This will be an interesting lawsuit to follow. My gut reaction so far? Any savvy smartphone user knows that their device is tracking them. How else does Google Maps know where the nearest Starbucks is? In addition, turning location services off is as easy as changing a ring-tone.
In a similar suit filed in Tampa, Florida earlier this month two customers are suing Apple over its data collection practices. This suit also references the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
Apple's practices strike me as a little different than Google's. In Apple's case, it seems that tracking could not be disabled, and users were unaware that their data was being collected. In Google's case, tracking was permission based.
Tuesday April 26, 2011
This Friday, over half a million people will crowd into central London for the wedding of His Royal Highness Prince William and Miss Catherine Middleton.
While most will be well-wishers, some will wish to do harm. Protesters, stalkers and, of course, terrorists have no doubt been planning for this day.
Here is a quick run-down of just what it will take to keep the happy couple secure:
- Roof-top snipers;
- Undercover Special Air Service (SAS) snipers;
- Nearly 5,000 police officers (some armed, others not).
In addition to these more conventional protective measures, British authorities will clamping down in ways that would be difficult to pull off in the States.
For instance, the iPhone app Color will be banned near Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace. The app groups uploaded pictures by location, and London police view this as a security threat. They've already warned that uploading photos in the vicinity of the wedding will be grounds for arrest.
British authorities will also have the power of "pre-emptive policing." Simply put, they'll be reducing the level of evidence needed to make an arrest during the wedding.