May 23, 2007
From Fingerprints to Facial Recognition
It is common today for a crime scene investigator to collect fingerprint evidence. The first publication about the potential use of fingerprints as a means to identify an individual was in 1823 by a professor from Breslau University. In 1892 Sir Francis Galton published a detailed statistical model of fingerprint analysis and identification and encouraged its use in forensic science in his book Finger Prints. In the same year, 1892, Juan Vucetich, an Argentinean police investigator, made the first use of fingerprints to solve a crime. Vucetich, who had studied Galton's Pattern types for a year, successfully proved that Ms. Francisca Rojas was guilty in a murder after he presented a bloody fingerprint from the Crime scene that tied her to the crime. Since then, using fingerprints as evidence in courts become commonplace.
DNA analysis has become one of the most important tools for human identification since Francis Galton developed the use of fingerprints for that purpose. In 1989, the National Research Council formed the Committee on DNA Technology in Forensic Science to study this new technique. The Israeli Shin Bet started using DNA analysis in 1994 to identify suicide bombers in Israel. Using DNA led the Israelis to terror cells and suicide bombers' infrastructure in Gaza and the West Bank.
Facial recognition is a tool that is also being utilized. During 1964 and 1965, Bledsoe, along with Helen Chan and Charles Bisson, worked on using the computer to recognize human faces (Bledsoe 1966a, 1966b; Bledsoe and Chan 1965). He was proud of this work, but because the funding was provided by an unnamed intelligence agency that did not allow much publicity, little of the work was published. Given a large database of images (in effect, a book of mug shots), the problem was to select from the database a small set of records such that one of the image records matched the photograph. The success of the method could be measured in terms of the ratio of the answer list to the number of records in the database, for example the FBI holds today millions of fingerprints records in its database and helps the agency to identify criminals within seconds, on the other hand police department and other law enforcement agencies have hundreds of thousands of criminals photos that can be used as a data base for the facial recognition tool. In recent years the research for this technology made some progress and it's been used as a PREVENTIVE tool using it in airports, multiplexes, and other public places to detect presence of criminals or terrorists among crowd.
The difference between using facial recognition and the two other tools is that fingerprints and DNA analysis used to identify the criminal or the victim after the crime happened. Facial recognition will identify the criminal before a crime is committed. Thus the technique becomes proactive rather than reactive. It is certainly better to stop the crime before it happens. This will save lives, not to mention assets. Facial recognition systems can help to identify pedophiles in schools, protect jewelry stores, prevent the access of unwanted personnel to workplaces, identify shoplifter in department stores, and more.
The key word is PREVENTION. Stop the criminal before a crime is committed.
April 27, 2007
One More Thing About the VT Massacre
The media coverage of the tragic shootings at Virginia Tech touched on a slew of topics; the murderer's motivations, the victims, gun control laws, and the law enforcement reaction.
The media failed to mention that since the Columbine High School shootings on April 20, 1999, there has been nothing done to address protocol for first responding to an incident or emergency. I still have in my mind the pictures of police officers hiding behind trees and waiting while the shootings were going on inside the school. In the Virginia Tech shooting, there was a two hour gap between the first shootings and the next. Why was law enforcement so slow to react?
Any place where large numbers of people converge should have emergency plans established to deal with the unthinkable. Not just school campuses, but also malls, sports venues, theaters, etc. First responders should have maximum information about the site and a means by which accurate communication can be provided about an emergency situation. Law enforcement should establish well-trained units that will be able to respond within minutes to any incident in any part of the city. Time is crucial here as a shooting incident should not last more than 5-10 minutes before law enforcement takes down the attacker/s. Most of the students were killed within 9 minutes. The shooter was able to get off 170 rounds in this time.
Law enforcement needs to address their response time and methods now. Don't wait until the next attack!
April 24, 2007
Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards.
What is the impact for my facility?
The answer to that question depends on your current security posture. If your facility has completed a Security Vulnerability Assessment (SVA), a completed Security Site Plan (SSP) that has been fully implemented or at least being implemented then you are extremely well positioned for this new rule. Those of you who have not are in for a rude awakening.
Some chemical plants have come under the jurisdiction of the Coast Guards Maritime Security regulations and therefore have undergone close scrutiny of their site security plan. But until the enactment of DHS Appropriations Act of 2007 . section 550, the federal government did not have the authority to regulate the security of most chemical facilities. Now they do! Be advised they are serious.
This entire process will begin once the list of "Chemicals of Interest" also know as "Appendix A to part 27" has been finalized, most likely by June 2007. However the "final rule" has been enacted and will become effective June 8, 2007! Once the chemicals of interest have been finalized all facilities nationwide will have 60 days to complete step one "the top-screen process". This is the beginning of a month's long process of compliance, assessment, documentation and in the end implementation. You may need help from an outside consultant to pull it all together.
