[iwar] [fc:Lie-Detecting.Devices:.Truth.or.Consequences?]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2002-08-19 06:30:12
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Date: Mon, 19 Aug 2002 06:30:12 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [iwar] [fc:Lie-Detecting.Devices:.Truth.or.Consequences?]
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Lie-Detecting Devices: Truth or Consequences? 
Unproven but Popular, Mainstream Systems Can Be Used Without Subject's Knowledge 


By Ariana Eunjung Cha
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 18, 2002; Page A01 

NEW YORK -- "Lie detectors," those controversial assessors of truth, are
making their way into everyday life. 

Insurance companies use them to help catch people filing fraudulent
claims.  Suspicious spouses use handheld versions to judge whether their
significant others are cheating.  U.S.  government interrogators use
them to double-check analyses of who might be a terrorist. 

Polygraphs, which have been used for decades, have been joined by new
systems that purportedly analyze a person's voice, blush, pupil size and
even brain waves for signs of deception.  The devices range from costly
experimental devices that use strings of electrodes or thermal imaging
to $19.95 palm-sized versions. 

No studies have ever proven that lie detectors work.  Many show that
they assess truth as accurately as a coin flip; in other words, not at
all.  Still, some people have come to depend on them. 

Liz Saul, a radio-station ad executive, got a call from a man who said
he was from an Internet lottery company and wanted to buy $315,000 worth
of advertising.  He was eager and charming, but Saul thought that
something was not quite right. 

Her worries grew as he tried to cancel the contract and then reactivate
it, and cancel and reactivate it again.  Saul was in a quandary: If the
ads started running and the man never paid, she would have wasted her
time and her company's.  But if she dropped a sincere customer, she
would have missed out on thousands of dollars in commissions. 

She decided she needed a second opinion -- from a machine. 

As she and the man talked one day, Saul screened his voice with a "truth
phone," which, its maker says, measures inaudible microtremors in a
person's voice to determine the likelihood that he was lying.  The
digital numerical display that indicates stress level hit the danger
zone.  The guy was a faker, according to the machine. 

Saul politely ended the call, and the contract. 

"I don't have to waste my time or build my hopes up thinking about
something anymore.  It helps me to live in a world of reality," said
Saul, 36, a Manhattan resident who bought the $3,000 device made by CCS
International Ltd.  from a local spy shop. 

The recent proliferation of lie detectors has reignited a decades-old
debate over the ethics and politics of when and how they should be used
and whether such important questions as guilt or innocence should be
left to machines. 

With the help of a grant from the CIA, Lawrence Farwell developed a
technology called "brain fingerprinting" that he says can determine
whether an image triggers someone's memory.  But he has mixed feelings
about the power of his invention.  "Science is always a double-edged
sword," he said.  "In our country, truth and justice are highly
correlated.  In another place, maybe not, and I wouldn't want that kind
of regime to have this technology."

An Elusive Test

Mankind has looked for centuries for a physical indicator that would
expose a liar.  The Romans studied the entrails of suspected liars.  In
China, rice was shoved into the mouths of interviewees to measure how
dry they were -- the drier the mouth, the more likely the person was
lying, it was thought.  Other cultures tried various chemical
concoctions or "truth serums," but they worked no better than chance. 

Especially since Sept.  11, law enforcement agencies consider
lie-detection systems critical to their investigations.  The CIA, FBI
and Defense Department have spent millions of dollars on them. 

In an unusual plea made soon after the terrorist attacks, the government
asked for the public's help in building counterterrorism technologies,
among them a portable polygraph. 

Polygraphs, developed in government labs and in use for decades, measure
blood pressure, perspiration, heartbeat.  The machine's operator
interprets the results to try to determine whether the subject is lying. 

In the United States, there is a double standard when it comes to the
use of polygraphs.  Although the so-called lie detector is considered an
important law enforcement tool, polygraph data are inadmissible as
evidence in a court of law.  The U.S.  Supreme Court forbade private
companies from using them to screen job applicants, but allowed the
government to use them for the same purpose. 

Recent proposals to expand the use of polygraphs face resistance. 

The International Cricket Council found itself under fire last fall when
it proposed using them to try to catch players who are fixing matches. 
After protests, the council abandoned its proposal. 

The Energy Department and FBI got a similar reaction when they announced
that they would greatly increase polygraph screening of their employees. 

Paul Ekman, a psychology professor at the University of California in
San Francisco, is one of the researchers studying the validity of
polygraphs for national security applications for a National Academy of
Sciences report due out in late fall.  He said the government's faith in
polygraphs is misplaced and that it should instead spend its money on
better interrogation training for its agents. 

"We are gadget-crazy in this country.  We think we're coming in with a
magic technological solution to the terrorism problem.  But what if
these things don't work as well as we hope? We may be doing more harm
than good," Ekman said. 

Real-Time Analysis

As debate about polygraphs rages, the devices are being phased out in
favor of voice analyzers, which are more portable and easier to use. 

A voice analyzer device typically consists of a telephone and microphone
attached to a computer that packs neatly in a briefcase, or attached to
any PC with the proper software installed. 

Most of the analyzers can be used in person or over the phone. 
Conversations can be tested in real time or recorded for later analysis. 

First, the questioner asks an interviewee about something he or she
would have no reason to lie about, such as, "When's your birthday?" Then
he asks what he really wants to ask.  The device makes an assessment
about whether the subject is telling the truth based on the differences
between the inaudible microtremors in the voice during the first round
of questioning and those in the the second. 

For each sound sample, the program might offer assessments like "false
statement," "inaccuracy," "subject is not sure" and "truth," or it might
display a numerical reading of the subject's stress level. 

"Even an experienced interrogator might be fooled by a guy who is well
dressed and talks in a confident manner.  But the machine might tell you
he's not at all sure of what he's saying or even that he might be
lying," said Naaman Boury, president of Risk Technologies Innovative
Solutions, which markets a voice analyzer. 

The federal government officially says it does not use these voice lie
detectors.  After a series of studies dating from the mid-1990s, the
Defense Department concluded that they do not work. 

In one study, researchers asked some participants to take $50 from a
wallet in a locker and then try to convince an interviewer they did not
do it.  The voice system was correct 52.2 percent of the time in
differentiating between guilty and innocent.  Still, the voice
technology has its true believers, among them more than 1,200 police
departments nationwide, traveler's check issuers, and tens of thousands
of consumers. 

Several car, home and travel insurers in Britain recently began
experimenting with similar technology to detect fraudulent claims. 

One, Direct Line, discontinued trials after concluding that the system
did not help.  But Highway Insurance marketing manager Michelle Holt
said the company's tests went well and it hopes to install a
comprehensive system in the next few months. 

Banks in the Netherlands concerned about money laundering and
embezzlement, and retailers in Canada worried about diverted shipments
are among those using the technology without their customers' knowledge. 

"Just about everyone's asking about lie detectors -- spouses, law
enforcement, hotel loss prevention, lawyers," said Shaed Khan, who works
at the Counter Spy Shop on Connecticut Avenue NW in the District. 

While high-end professional models range from $1,000 to $20,000, there
are devices for as little as $19.95. 

Truths told to the gimmicky Handy Truster produce an apple on the
machine's screen, while lies produce a worm; 911 Tech Co., which
manufactures the gadget, says it has sold 20,000 a year for the past few
years. 

The slightly more sophisticated Truster software program that runs on a
desktop computer gives text ratings of truthfulness.  The companies that
market these technologies say they are more than 80 percent accurate. 

Rick Garloff, a 35-year-old who lives in Galt, Calif., is skeptical. 
Still, he said, even if the systems are not great lie detectors, they
are wonderful lie deterrents. 

Garloff once used the Truster on his 9-year-old son, to see if he had
forgotten to close a door, accidentally letting the dog in.  The dog
tracked dirt all over the floor and knocked over furniture. 

His son claimed no.  But the lie detection system said yes. 

When confronted, his son 'fessed up. 

Truth Phones

The truth phone used by ad executive Saul is a mid-range system and
looks like something out of a spy movie: It's an 18-pound silver-colored
briefcase that opens to reveal a phone and a digital readout display. 

She bought it last spring after two small business owners who each
promised to buy $40,000 worth of ads defaulted on their bills after the
ads ran.  She lost $6,000 in commissions. 

She now uses the phone a few times a month, usually when a contract is
large -- say, $100,000 or more -- or when a client sounds suspicious. 

She begins each test by asking basic questions, to get a baseline
reading of the person's stress: Today's Tuesday, right? What is the
address of your company again? Then come the real questions: Are you
serious about starting a contract? When do you expect to begin to pay?
She watches the numerical display to see how significantly the first
readings differ from the later ones. 

Most of the time, she said, the device confirms her assessment. 

"Most people want to do right, but sometimes they can't and they are
embarrassed and they don't want you to hate them and that's when the
fibs come in," she said. 

Saul has gone against the machine only once, choosing to believe a
client when the device advised otherwise. 

The client, a longtime New Yorker, owned a chain of self-service
laundries.  He seemed to be smart and nice and honest, Saul said, and
the paperwork on his $15,000 order looked fine. 

The ads ran, and so did he.  She lost $2,250 in commissions that month. 

The new devices don't require interrogators to hook wires and sensors to
a subject.  As a result, they can be used more covertly -- which leads
to touchy questions on whether the subjects should be told their words
are being analyzed. 

Debbie Pelletier, who manages a spy shop in Madison, Ala., says she's
sold several dozen voice-stress analyzers to small-business owners and
she doesn't know of any who tell job applicants that their interview
responses are being scrutinized for signs of deception. 

That's legal as long as they don't make employment decisions based on
the results but use them only to flag suspicious responses that they
later investigate. 

Adam, 32, a freelance writer for a sports Web site who asked that he not
be fully identified, is in the middle of a divorce.  He said he trusts
his wife, but he needs extra assurance that if she gets custody of their
son, she'll fulfill her end of the bargain by staying in the state and
letting him visit regularly. 

For the past few months he has been secretly taping their conversations
(he lives in a state where that is legal) and running her voice through
a stress analyzer.  So far, he said, the device indicates that she's
been sincere and that gives him comfort. 

He said he sometimes worries about the ethics of what he's doing, but
alerting her would defeat the whole purpose.  Plus, there is her temper
to deal with. 

"She would not be happy," he said. 

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