In this article from Wired, Sharon Weinberger discusses "mind-reading" technology that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security hopes to use to identify terrorists.
The DHS is interested in Semantic Stimuli Response Measurements Technology (SSRM TEK), which has been developed at the Psychotechnology Research Institute in Moscow.
SSRM Tek is a software package which can, according to those who developed it, measure peoples' responses to subliminal messages presented to them in a computer game. Terrorists' responses to scrambled images (of, say Osama bin Laden or the World Trade Center) are apparently different to those of innocent people.
The software, which comes with an apparatus that is mounted on the head, is being marketed as Mindreader 2.0. Earlier this year, the DHS announced that it will contract an American company called SRS Technologies to be the sole provider of Mindreader 2.0, and to conduct the first U.S government-sponsored tests of the product.
In her article, Weinberger discusses the background of the mind-reading technology, including its use by the Soviets during the invasion of Afghanistan, and other "mind-control" techniques developed by the Psychotechnology Research Institute.
Something I found particularly amusing was how the U.S. military came to discover the technology - via former science fiction writers turned Pentagon consultants Chris and Janet Morris, who attended a KGB-sponsored conference in Moscow in 1991, where the late Igor Smirnov, founder of the Psychotechnology Research Institute presented his work on mind control. (Smirnov's widow, Elena Rusalkina, now heads the institute.)
Mind-reading remains squarely within the realm of science fiction, and most probably always will. But it is not the first dubious method used by the U.S. government to gather intelligence about its enemies. During the Cold War, for example, the Pentagon employed psychics as "remote viewers" to obtain information about Soviet military targets.
Comments
Gah! Anybody want to take any bets as to how many orders of magnitude there are between this thing's false positive rate and the actual proportion of terrorists in the population?
Posted by: Dunc | September 20, 2007 10:19 AM
"including its use by the Soviets during the invasion of Afghanistan"
Yes, and we all know how succesful it was!
Congratulations to the Russian team, for having found people gullible enough to buy their gadget! I think they needed the cash rather badly. Perhaps they will use it to finance some real research?
Posted by: Christophe Thill | September 20, 2007 10:32 AM
I thought it was a different SF author, David Brin, who came up with that. In Sundiver, they test people for naughtiness by following the movements of their eyes when they watch certain things.
Check out the last few paragraphs here.
Posted by: pough | September 20, 2007 11:40 AM
Have you seen the scrambled image? I have no idea what to make of it.
Where is the peer-reviewed research on this? Oh, right, it's all done in secrecy.
This thing is a dowsing rod with a power supply.
Posted by: Watt de Fawke | September 20, 2007 11:51 AM
Posted by: Tegumai Bopsulai, FCD | September 20, 2007 11:57 AM
This is the tribulation my friends.
Posted by: Simon | September 20, 2007 4:16 PM
In general, it's a scientific research, and it's a big question how it will work on practice.
Posted by: Russian Translator | October 8, 2007 6:15 AM
Tyrell: "Is this to be an empathy test? Capillary dilation of the so-called blush response? Fluctuation of the pupil. Involuntary dilation of the iris... "
Deckard: "We call it Voight-Kampff for short. "
Posted by: Andy | January 22, 2008 3:12 PM
The "Psychotechnology Research Institute" link now (January 2008) gets redirected to a Russian ISP's homepage. I guess that means the Pentagon have now paid whoever it was....
Posted by: Ian Kemmish | January 23, 2008 7:13 AM
yes i know regarding subliminal messages ,they are powerful & normally people like games ,they have maximum concentration on the game with out any thought ,but is it possible to have it ,in this manner
Posted by: bsnabi | January 31, 2008 2:46 AM
Don't forget the army's previous experimentation with goat-killing psychics.
Personally I would have hoped to have an army that didn't believe in magic, but there you go, you have to work with the army you've got......
Posted by: Luna_the_cat | January 31, 2008 6:51 AM
Probably as usefull as a polygraph when you already know who you want to arrest.
Posted by: rpsms | January 31, 2008 11:09 AM
That's not a bug. It's a feature.
Posted by: Grammar RWA | January 31, 2008 11:25 PM
Apparently not satisfied with getting their worldviews from saturday morning cartoons, the Bush administration and the present military command are now combing popular video games for strategic suggestions.
Posted by: Azkyroth | February 1, 2008 12:09 AM
Don't worry, I'm sure someone will explain that it works through quantum mechanics, and detects the chakras and auras of the terrorists.
Sounds like somebody has a brother who sells these things, and decided to help his family by making the DHS pay for their new home.
Posted by: Badger3k | February 1, 2008 1:07 AM