Re: DHS Wants Cell Phones to Detect Chemical, Radioactive Material

[Valdis.Kletnieks () vt edu]

On Tue, 05 Jun 2007 10:06:59 CDT, Brian Loe said:

> How do you mean? This seems to me like an EXCELLENT idea! The only
> request I'd make is that when my phone's sensor went off I'd like to
> know about it.

You'll be complaining a lot more that your phone is chirping "Battery Low",
those biochemical sensors DO chew power, you know.....

At a 3% to 4% false positive rate?  Or even 1%?

4% FP is acceptable if you're waving the thing around *expecting* to find
something - it just means that 1 time in 25 you'll evacuate the building when
you didn't have to.  And if you're waving a sensor around, you're almost
certainly thinking about evacuating *anyhow*.

1% FP means that every time you put gas in the car, or walk by a freshly
painted bench, or any number of other things, there's a chance it will go off.
Remember, you can't make it very "check for these 23 chemicals only", because
doing so just means the attacker has to find a 24th chemical.  And once it's
doing wide-band detection, all it takes is one person on the subway with
too much perfume, and every cell in the car throws an alerts.. and then you
do what?  And the guys back at Spook Central do what?

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