The Washington Post reports that lying may soon become a lost art as our digital, data-hoarding culture means that more and more evidence is piling up to undermine our lies. "The research shows the way lies are really uncovered is by comparing what someone is saying to the evidence," says Tim Levine,"and with all these news analytics that can be done, it's going to enable lie detection in a way that was previously impossible." For example in Pennsylvania, police are prosecuting a woman who claimed she was sexually assaulted earlier this year after data from her Fitbit didn't match up with her story, Just like you can Google a fact to end an argument, instant messaging programs that archive digital conversations make it easy to look back and see exactly who said what -- and if it matches up with what a person is saying now. "Lying online can be very dangerous," says Jeff Hancock. "Not only are you leaving a record for yourself on your machine, but you're leaving a record on the person that you were lying to."
Even more alarming for liars is the incorporation of lie detector technology into the facial recognition technology. Researchers claim video-analysis software can analyze eye movement successfully to identify whether or not a subject is fibbing 82.5 percent of the time. The new technology heightens surveillance capabilities—from monitoring actions to assessing emotions—in ways that make an individual ever more vulnerable to government authorities, marketers, employers, and to any and every person with whom we interact. "We must understand that—at the individual level and with regard to interpersonal relations—too much truth and transparency can be harmful," says Norberto Andrade. "The permanent confrontation with a verifiable truth will turn us into overly cautious, calculating, and suspicious people."
Original Submission
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 10 2015, @11:51AM
You better answer truthfully!
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anne Nonymous on Friday July 10 2015, @12:39PM
Yes, you need something with a lower neckline and a higher hem.
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Saturday July 11 2015, @07:22AM
and put some tape to hold down that bulge in your crotch...at least until you get the surgery.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 10 2015, @02:05PM
No, that dress doesn't make you look fat. (Unspoken: Because that would mean you'd not look fat without it.)
(Score: 2) by infodragon on Friday July 10 2015, @05:12PM
No, you're fat makes you look fat!
Don't settle for shampoo, demand real poo!
(Score: 2) by infodragon on Friday July 10 2015, @05:15PM
My apologies for using "you're" rather than "your." I hang my head in shame for not using the preview button!
Don't settle for shampoo, demand real poo!
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 10 2015, @12:14PM
I made an almost identical submission to SN three years ago, but it got rejected by the editors.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 10 2015, @12:22PM
Well, that's probably because most of the links didn't yet work three years ago. :-)
(Score: 3, Informative) by Pslytely Psycho on Friday July 10 2015, @01:09PM
Soylent News didn't work so well three years ago either....
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 10 2015, @12:18PM
The 82.5% figure is completely meaningless. What would be meaningful would be separate false positive/false negative rates.
Anyway, that rate means that roughly 1 of 5 times the system gets it wrong. Not really what I'd consider a reliable information.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Francis on Friday July 10 2015, @12:37PM
And it gets worse if you start dealing with people that deliberately pollute the source of information with a lot of random stuff that's not even intended to be taken seriously.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Pslytely Psycho on Friday July 10 2015, @01:20PM
"And it gets worse if you start dealing with people that deliberately pollute the source of information with a lot of random stuff that's not even intended to be taken seriously. "
Hmm, I'm having trouble finding anything on the internet that DOESN'T fit that description. Maybe they should do a test run on a few political sites, it could be helpful to know which politicians were telling the truth....(even more fun run it on a religious forum....it should produce a result similar to this:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlMegqgGORY [Liars Paradox])
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 10 2015, @02:02PM
That's too easy. Everyone can program that:
(Score: 2) by tibman on Friday July 10 2015, @06:54PM
It really should be accessible to the public though.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 10 2015, @10:30PM
Public
bool isLying(Politician p)
{
If (lips.moving)
return true;
Else
return true;
}
(Score: 2) by tibman on Saturday July 11 2015, @01:33AM
Accessing p.lips.moving could result in a null reference exception and throw instead of returning a proper boolean response. (assuming that lips is a property of p and not a variable of an outer scope)
Laymans: If the politician didn't have lips then this would crash : )
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Friday July 10 2015, @03:15PM
That's a lot better than the polygraph. Of course in the early days of the polygraph they claimed an over 90% indication of guilt/lying.
"It is easier to fool someone than it is to convince them that they have been fooled" Mark Twain
(Score: 2, Insightful) by OwMyBrain on Friday July 10 2015, @12:24PM
"The permanent confrontation with a verifiable truth will turn us into overly cautious, calculating, and suspicious people."
Too Late.
(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Friday July 10 2015, @01:00PM
Says who? What's your interest in this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 10 2015, @01:53PM
ahh I see what you did there :P
(Score: 2) by K_benzoate on Friday July 10 2015, @04:05PM
Alternatively, we might just accept that everyone has mistakes and transgressions in their past. A new social contract could emerge based on a synthesis of the "glass houses" aphorism and Mutually Assured Destruction theory. That is, I refrain from digging through your past in search of gossip to use against you, because I know you can turn around and do the same thing to me. We both end up worse off because we can't cooperate and work doesn't get done. There are interesting game theoretical concerns at work here, it wouldn't surprise me if these new situations reduced--in the general case--to problems that are already well understood (see: Nash equilibrium, evolutionary stable strategies).
Or out of petty spite we could take the path of scorched Earth; a Götterdämmerung for human digital society. It only takes a couple reprobates with nothing to lose, or no concern for the consequences, to get the party started.
Actually I see a viable third alternative: abandon identity entirely. Look at what's achievable through anonymous voluntary cooperation. Many FLOSS projects operate this way. Anonymous imageboards have rich and diverse cultures. Even Soylentnews is (mostly) anonymous and seems to work well enough as a forum. All the more reason why privacy and security need to be protected now.
Climate change is real and primarily caused by human activity.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Friday July 10 2015, @06:57PM
This is what i hope for. Less negative judgements from hyprocrites.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by NullPtr on Friday July 10 2015, @07:41PM
What's going to happen, as more and more people are confronted with evidence of things they did when they were younger, is that there's going to be an acceptance that these things happen, and people are going to become more tolerant of them. You're going to get politicians and the like literally saying "oh, fuck off, I was 18, I don't care about that any more" and people are going to just shrug and say "fair enough".
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 10 2015, @12:29PM
> The permanent confrontation with a verifiable truth
Hardly. Web search results are another data point but they are only as good as whoever created them. We have all heard the horror stories about piss-poor data accuracy just because there is no qualty assurance and errors propagate. These things might be good enough for trivial questions, but someone making an effort to deceive can find ways to actively bolster their deception with faked information online too. Anyone who has read Vernor Vinge's Hugo winning A Fire Upon the Deep [wikipedia.org] will remember the phrase "Net of a Million Lies."
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Friday July 10 2015, @03:23PM
Then there now is PhotoShop and other image editing programs.
"It is easier to fool someone than it is to convince them that they have been fooled" Mark Twain
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Pslytely Psycho on Friday July 10 2015, @01:00PM
"Just like you can Google a fact to end an argument,"
Just try that on a political or religious forum and tell me how that goes....
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Friday July 10 2015, @01:55PM
It's worse than that:
1. Google and other search engines have been known to get things wrong. Especially when a group who wants to promote a lie has access to a lot of money to spend on SEO.
2. Search engines only find what you want to find. It is not infrequent for somebody with predisposed false beliefs to find professional-looking websites that correspond to that belief. For an example of this, look up "vaccines autism": As of this writing, while most of the top results say "no, vaccines do not cause autism", 2 support the now thoroughly discredited idea. And those 2 start off by announcing that the CDC and doctors and all the others are lying, which means that a parent who's decided that vaccines cause autism because Jenny McCarthy is hot will focus on that link.
And of course, a lot of very important lies cannot be settled by Google: "Put in this extra time, that will reflect well in your next performance review", "That's your baby", "I saw him change lanes unsafely, pulled him over, and then smelled pot in the vehicle", "I can't contribute to child support or alimony", "This stock is ready to go gangbusters and become the next Google", and so forth. They're all about the specific situation, and Google has no information readily available that can prove or disprove any of them.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Friday July 10 2015, @02:29PM
Yes indeed, so very many issues have no definitive right or wrong, how would this program cope with shades of grey.
BTW, Donner Party? Phhhht, Vote Cthulhu/Dagon 2016, why vote for the lesser of two evils? (-:
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 10 2015, @01:10PM
"The research shows the way lies are really uncovered is by comparing what someone is saying to the evidence," says Tim Levine
No shit, sherlock...
Someone, give mr Levine a PhD, quickly!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Pslytely Psycho on Friday July 10 2015, @02:01PM
" lying may soon become a lost art "
The end of all political and religious organizations worldwide. All of our cultures are based upon one lie or another. And they have a millennium of practice at using facts and accurate statistics to lie.
And since when did 'facts' dissuade people? Politicians routinely lie, and yet even when solid evidence to the contrary is presented, it is considered false, or faked, a notable example would be the Obama birth certificate debate. Even when they got what they asked for, it was immediately declared to be a fake because it did not support their false allegations, and no amount of evidence can convince them otherwise.
A program like this will just be assumed/accused of being wrong regardless of how accurate it is. So, the end of lying? Not fucking likely.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 10 2015, @04:03PM
A program like this will just be assumed/accused of being wrong regardless of how accurate it is
Unless it is politically convenient.
"I did not have sexual relations with that woman" Most of us would consider a blow job sexual relations but apparently he didnt...
Your bias is democrat. I can live with that. But what if the other side was right about what they were asking for? Does it mater to follow the rules? Or are they just guidelines until someone decides they are rules?
Sometimes 'facts' are not facts but beliefs or ambiguous. Sort of like 'this statement is true. the previous statement is false'. It is not exactly a fact.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Friday July 10 2015, @04:58PM
"Your bias is democrat."
No, my bias is moderate to slightly liberal. At this point in history it is probably best represented by the Democratic party, but show me a Republican with good ideas and I would jump ship in a hurry. I truly miss the days when both parties consisted of liberals and conservatives. That allowed them to compromise and work together much more than they do now. (yes, I am old)
"But what if the other side was right about what they were asking for? Does it mater to follow the rules? Or are they just guidelines until someone decides they are rules?"
As far as the birthers go, if they were right that would be another thing, but they weren't and they still argue about it in the face of facts (and yet, they don't mind Cruz was born in Canada, go figure).
""I did not have sexual relations with that woman" Most of us would consider a blow job sexual relations but apparently he didnt..."
Clinton was a total gas. I still can't convince my wife a BJ isn't sex, Slick Willie was a decent president, but I would of respected an honest answer a lot more than the lame attempts to justify it, and man, they were lame.
I judge presidents by how well I have prospered under them. Making Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr, Clinton, and Obama all decent. Extremism on either side is counter-productive and harmful. We need a socially liberal, fiscally conservative candidate. (When I was but a young lad, we called them moderates) But a REAL fiscal conservative, ALL of the fiscal conservatives I have ever seen talk small government and vote big government. So might as well vote Dem, at least they don't pretend to be for smaller government.
My biggest beef with conservatives was the overt pledge to oppose anything Obama proposed regardless of if it helped the country or not. Ideology over intelligence. (except TPP and Fast Track apparently, where they voted in lockstep to give Obama MORE power after seven years of complaining he wielded power like a dictator. WTF?)
Cthulhu/Dagon 2016 Why vote for the lesser of two evils.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 10 2015, @10:12PM
...if you like NAFTA and exported jobs and a weakened economy and the increased influence of the FIRE sector. [wikipedia.org]
Perot's single-issue campaign had the right agenda for its time.
I judge presidents by how well I have prospered under them.
Must be nice to be you.
Too bad about all those USAians who had good-paying manufacturing jobs when Clinton came in and didn't when he cycled out.
.
s/would of/would've
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Friday July 10 2015, @05:55PM
It will become something available only to the rich and powerful, who can flood TV networks with their own version and hire propaganda experts to frame their lies so that the victims will want to believe them. They are routinely getting away with it now. Pick your own favorite examples.
Meanwhile, the lies to evade unjust laws ("I've never heard of the Underground Railroad, and this man's a freeman anyway!") will become impossible.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Freeman on Friday July 10 2015, @02:04PM
I'll believe it when the media starts telling the truth. It's easy to lie. All you have to do is not care about who or what you are lying about. I'm sure most people could lie to your face and tell you that a blue pen is actually red. Good luck getting some algorithm to check whether someone is lying without some actual evidence.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday July 10 2015, @06:19PM
Ob. George Costanza: "Remember, it's not a lie if YOU believe it."
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Friday July 10 2015, @07:17PM
There's one large political discussion site with a policy of banning anyone who quotes a fact checker.
Or look at the climate change issue. One talking point was about solar output. Now, the satellite measurements of actual solar output from 1978 onward are on the web available to anyone who can type "total solar irradiance" into a search box. That didn't stop the person next to me at the gas station from having a bumper sticker on his pickup saying "GLOBAL WARMING: IT'S THE SUN STUPID". What do you think would have happened if I'd tried to show him the graphs?
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday July 13 2015, @02:50PM
Depends on where you are and, if he has a shotgun in the window of his pickup.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ledow on Friday July 10 2015, @04:26PM
A) "Lie detection" is bollocks and is not even close to being admissible in court (except in the US, the morons!) - so taking any action based on "lie detection" is really just a way to get yourself into trouble. Yes, this includes polygraphs and all the other scaremongering rubbish about facial recognition etc.
B) This is the reason that I keep all emails, record things as helpdesk tickets, and generally demand things are emailed or - quite literally - they never happened as far as I'm concerned. All those vendor promises evaporate in the face of demanding an email saying so.
Lying about a crime is one thing, however, that's incredibly stupid.
But everyday lying in work is one of those inevitable things that you have to put up with. From "Oh, but I reported this to you last week" (Really? Where's the helpdesk ticket? None? Oh, so you didn't follow the proper problem-reporting policy? Strange, then, that nothing was done about it. P.S. I have emails from you before, during and after the claimed report and none of them mention a thing, strange that.) right up to "But it's your job to do so" (Actually, here's my contract, my job description, my clarification where I asked who was responsible for this - and that if it were me, I'd want it reflected in a new contract / payscale - and notes from various people above telling me that they'll find out and tell me).
Record everything. Because the one you don't record is the one that comes back to bite you on your backside through no fault of your own.
I've had a previous employer accuse me directly of taking far too much time off. We went through the official paperwork with various high-level people, found out I had never actually taken my full holiday entitlement throughout my entire employment and was actually owed something like 8 weeks over the various years (even with a large margin of error where I allowed recorded half-days and lates to count as entire days off - because I always knew I was going to win and didn't need to micro-record such things). And there was never any mention that I couldn't carry it over from year-to-year. Strange, that, that they hoist themselves on their own paperwork - when they finally dug out my contract to confirm the above, they also had to confirm that my notice period was... much less than 8 weeks. Bye!
I've had people say that they are experiencing IT problems, but no record of them, and in fact records to the contrary going back YEARS. Even down to private additions to my own tickets with time, date, quote, and test results that they never knew about whenever I heard a whisper that they were spreading rumours that something didn't work. Don't mind you reporting problems, but don't make up crap just to then accuse me of not doing my job, especially just to avoid work, or to cover up not doing your own job!
Conversely, I've had people try to tell me that they've used this system all the time and done this and that and logged on and tested this for me. Strange that the login logs, the profile last-modified date, or even just the last device check-in date etc. actually indicate that that's rubbish. One tried to get away with saying the "new" computers didn't work, but had never actually even tried to turn one on in over six months. And, yes, I know they weren't just faulty and not recording because I went out of my way to check on a regular basis - and all my power-on's and logins were there in the event logs, even failed logins, even offline logins, etc.
I've had suppliers supply hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of equipment only to miss out huge and expensive vital components. Shame that my emails (that I religiously kept and tagged) specifically mention them being included so that, months later, when it comes to a head and the CEO and CFO are invited to a recorded meeting with my bosses, that I can pull out any number of timestamped and replied-to emails, quotes, invoices, etc. that CLEARLY STATE that component is included, but was never delivered and they then cannot continue deny knowing anything about it. That one cost them the project, the costs of the missing equipment, the entire contract and any future orders from us.
There's a reason that I keep EVERY email. Deleting email is quite wasteful in these days of TBs of storage. Keeping it not only proves your case more often than not, but also provides honesty in your own responses - I can't bullshit about what I've said myself in an email any more than other people can! (It also greatly aids spam-filters to have such a large base of emails to work from, I feel).
Honestly, lying when there's even a remote possibility of being found out is not only stupid, but potentially career-suicide as well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 10 2015, @05:44PM
Not because i think lying is great, but it also means the end of good stories. Fisherman won't have caught fish "THIS BIG" anymore.
There is some value in obfuscation in social life.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Friday July 10 2015, @06:58PM
Then let it be the start of good but true stories : )
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 1) by NullPtr on Friday July 10 2015, @07:39PM
It just means you're going to find more/older lies.