The 99% Rule (nsfw)

Hey guys,

I apologize that I got punked with the image. It is a known fake.

Having said that, the technology really does take naked pictures of folks. The only question is how much image manipulation the software performs (and how easily it can be hacked)

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backscatter_X-ray - " it performs a virtual strip search, easily penetrating clothing to reveal concealed weapons; however, it raises privacy concerns in that it appears to screeners essentially as a nude picture of the subject, and may allow screeners to gain access to otherwise confidential medical information, such as the fact a passenger uses a colostomy bag, has a missing limb or wears a prosthesis, or is transsexual."

From http://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/backscatter.htm - "And yes, it's possible for backscatter X-raying to produce photo-quality images of what's going on beneath our clothes. But because of privacy concerns, for the time being, the peep show has been distorted: "

I would also direct you to http://www.prisonplanet.com/exposed-naked-body-scanner-image... and http://oklahoma.watchdog.org/1053/naked-machines-do-store-an...

Very sorry about the slip-up. I'm also sorry that this was taken as a political rant. This same thing happens in large organizations when dealing with other things that cause political risk, and for the same reason. And it's just as upsetting. I simply used the security business as a theme. It's what upsets the most folks, and it seemed to be easily understandable by the largest audience.

I've updated the blog to remove the naked picture and make the correction.

In a functioning constitutional republic we would not first be asking what Amendments prohibit government power, but rather by what constitutionally-delegated power does the government assert its authority to act. Alas we've spent the better part of two centuries carving out an ever-widening reading of Federal power.

There are those who are perfectly willing to read into the Interstate Commerce Clause the power to mandate individuals purchase health insurance. There are those who are perfectly willing to read into the Interstate Commerce Clause the power to forbid purely intrastate sale of otherwise legal drugs. How sadly humorous that these two groups, likely opposed in most political issues, can agree on near-limitless Federal power, and in so doing they have left us with only "penumbras and emanations" as defense.

I don't mean to detract from the article but it's worth pointing out that those are absolutely fake/photoshopped images and not at all actual scans.

The image used in article is a known hoax (it's a stock image, not a real scanner result). http://www.tatumba.com/blog/archives/1369

Compare with: http://www.kelowna.com/2010/04/08/kelowna-airport-using-full...

A "99% accurate" paedophilia test would quite possibly falsely accuse as many innocents as catch positive people (given that only a tiny fraction of people are paedophiles) and being wrongly accused of being a paedophile has a pretty substantial negative impact on your welfare.

I'm not sure the airport scanner argument is really connected: it causes mild embarrassment to 100% of people asked to use it. The real question is whether having the mild embarrassment of being subject to certain security procedures (voluntarily; you bought the ticket) is worth a reduced chance of a fiery death in mid-air. Personally I'd say yes even though the chances of the latter occurring are vanishingly small. If anything the "99% rule" is the defending the opposite argument: >99% of the time it reveals nothing or throws up false positives, same with passport control and with the delay-inducing regular maintenance checks on the aircraft and the costly OEM approvals required for each and every component fitted on the aircraft and the extra hours spent by the pilot getting type-rated on the newer variant and the slight adjustments to the flight path to take into account the remote possibility of bad weather and extra airspace assigned to that particular aircraft because of mildly reduced visibility and the minute corrections of altitude shortly before and the possibility of deploying the autopilot.... and actually, I quite like the way having all these seemingly easily-dispensed-with checks ensures that an aluminium tube travelling at several hundred mph thousands of feet above the ground is the safest mode of transport.

I missed absolute numbers.

Talk for example about false positives in airport security. An error rate of 'only 0.01%' looks pretty good at first. But if you put in the actual numbers, you see a very different image.

Airport Frankfurt had about 50 million passengers in 2009. An false positive rate of 0.01% would cause trouble for 5000 people. Each day about 13 people would be falsely accused.

"Look. I don't like running naked pictures of people on my blog. This is a family deal and the kids read it."

Hmmmm, what's wrong with kids seeing people naked? I'm sorry but I can't understand, I'm not American.

Satellites are only available for short periods of time, and are so expensive, SUAVs are going to be way more used than satellites.

Ben Franklin put it well:

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Of course the arguments for governments doing full backscatter body image scans are fundamentally the same as the arguments for getting access to encrypted mail and voice calls.

As India is doing in this other currently popular story here on HN: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/india/100831/blackberry-r...

If we're happy to have government agents inspect our private parts to board a plane, why shouldn't we be happy for them to inspect our emails and phone calls to be able to communicate with each other?

Email and phone calls aren't any more of a right than freedom of movement are they?

Technology should be increasing not decreasing the effectiveness of our freedoms. And us folks who make it should have liberty on our brains as we hack away.

Can someone with a scientific knowledge tell me if we'll one day have technology to package the full body scanner into glasses? That will open a massive can of worms for humanity :/ What happens when everyone can see everyone else naked...

I'm surprised image filtering technology doesn't have a way to just view a silhouette of the skin. I.e., establish the skin color gradients and then remove them...

A few years ago I was on a school trip, and we were flying back to the US from London. The security at the airport asked me if I minded going through a new type of scanner with a shorter line. The airport was doing a test run of the same kind of backscatter machine. Everyone likes short lines, so I agreed. After the scan was over, the security showed me the scan of my backside. It was literally an inverted naked picture of my ass. They looked at the scan of the frontside, but didn't show it to me. I wasn't expecting anything like this, because the technology was so new and it hadn't been widely publicized. It was really embarrassing to think that I had just been practically strip searched.

That image is a fake, but it's not very far from the truth.

Is anyone else more worried about radiation exposure from these things than their privacy?

I'm at work. Can someone at least tell me why I shouldn't click?

Quick nitpick: The Court that issued the judgment on the GPS case was the 9th circuit (not district). Otherwise, I do agree. The right to privacy is something that is not explicitly guaranteed in the Constitution. It only exists because it was read in by Justice Douglas as a side product of "penumbras and emanations" of the Bill of Rights. The balance between freedom and government protection has always been tenuous. After 9/11 we have certainly seen a tipping toward the latter. Only time will tell if this trend continues, but in a world in which technology can reveal even our naked bodies, I certainly hope not.

Interesting how a nsfw link makes it to the top of HN between 9:30 and 10:30 AM :-)

> There is no doubt in my mind that if every person in the United States were relieved of their guns, we would have no gun violence

Uh... there's a whole lot of doubt in MY mind.

That picture is a fake. That's how the scans actually look.

There are airport scanner photos of a naked woman.

This isn't really a 99% case is it? He's saying that someone making fun of a scanned persons genitalia is part of the 1% where it doesn't work. I would argue that 100% of the time this practice is demeaning. I think that using spy satellites on American Citizens (I'm Canadian) is a bad idea 99% of the time. It's the other way around. You're catching the bad guys maybe 1% of the time or less, not the other way around.

Where is even the 1% of crimes prevented by taking naked pictures of women and children? What is the benefit if the bomb won't be in underwear anymore, but an orifice.

"Sometimes the people in charge of tracking you have ulterior motives -- which are very easy to have when there's no warrant involved. That pesky 1%"

Yeah, my tracker is always calling me out when I'm off my diet.