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There is growing interest in the potential for a technology known as brain fingerprinting to be used in the fight against crime and terrorism, but it's far from reliable.
Its use without consent violates human rights. And importantly, the technology (as it currently exists) can be tricked.
Brain fingerprinting seeks to detect deception by essentially reading thoughts. It works by using electroencephelography (EEG) to read the electrical activity of the brain, with the aim of trying to identify a phenomenon known as the P300 response [DOI: 10.1097/00004691-199210000-00002] [DX].
The P300 response is a noticeable spike in the brain's electrical activity, which usually occurs within one-third of a second of being shown a familiar stimulus. The idea is that our subconscious brain has an uncontrollable and measurable response to familiar stimuli that the machine can register.
Imagine, for example, that a particular knife was used in a murder, and police show an image of it to their lead suspect who denies the crime. If the suspect registers a P300 response and thus a positive recognition of the knife, this would seem to suggest he's lying. Alternatively, if the suspect doesn't register a positive recognition, maybe police have the wrong guy.
Could you escape culpability for your crimes by taking a roofie afterward?
(Score: 2) by lgsoynews on Wednesday September 27 2017, @01:20PM (3 children)
The guy was not talking about a reliable way to give death.
He was writing about the "certainty" of proving the guilt, because of DNA tests, etc. Which is obviously wrong.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @05:17PM (2 children)
Look, we can't be certain that you won't suddenly teleport to the moon. Quantum uncertainty you know... it COULD happen. Heck, you could be living in The Matrix, or maybe predestination means God is at fault. Nothing is ever certain, but that is a poor excuse to give up.
The current jury system does have issues. It could be improved. The same goes for sentencing.
For example, some fixes: We make the death penalty apply to many more crimes, but we frequently suspend it indeterminately pending additional evidence. The jury gets 30 people, it takes 22 for suspended death (effectively life in prison, pending additional evidence) and it takes 28 to carry out death. All 30 means death by torture.
Alternate fixes: We make the death penalty apply to many more crimes, but we frequently suspend it indeterminately pending additional evidence. There are two juries, kept from speaking to each other. The first jury sees all the evidence, and 12 of 15 is enough to impose life in prison. For the second jury, the defense lawyer gets to exclude any one piece of evidence, and then 13 of 15 means death -- but this jury only votes if the other jury convicted.
(Score: 2) by lgsoynews on Wednesday September 27 2017, @08:57PM
You missed my point.
That guy was saying that technology is never wrong (which is clearly false). That's a very dangerous point of view!
It's easy to find examples where the labs made a mistake or were malicious (see the quite recent huge scandal of the lab person who faked the results for years).
We also know that DNA testing is not a perfect, magical, thing, the tests have some serious limitations.
Don't get me started on fingerprints!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by sjames on Thursday September 28 2017, @01:30AM
How about death sentences only given when judge, jury, and prosecutor agree to die themselves if the defendant is later cleared?
After all, they say they're sure enough that it's OK for someone to die...