Sterling Investigative Work

THE PERILS OF LABELLING

Life has always been more complicated for the intellectually gifted person than the ordinary individual. Labelling is the ugly side of what psychologists call "ethnocentrism", which is the disdain for mind-sets or cultures that don't mesh well with one's own.

Brilliant individuals who have suffered this form of labelling would be people like Nicolaus Copernicus (16th Century Polish mathematician who furthered Archimedes' research on establishing the fact that the Sun, not the Earth, is the center of our solar system; sadly, he was labelled as insane & died in a certain amount of disgrace), Galileo Galilei (17th Century Italian astronomer who publicized a new system of comet movement & openly supported a purely heliocentric model of our solar system; he spent the last 11 years of his life under house arrest), Abraham Lincoln (19th Century American President, well-known for, among other things, abolishing slavery in the United States & banning racial profiling; he is said to have suffered from clinical depression), Isaac Asimov (20th Century Russian-American biochemist & science fiction writer; some attribute the simplicity of his prose & the asexual themes he generally favored in his stories to the possibility that he was a schizophrenic), Howard Hughes (fearless 20th Century American aviator who died in mysterious circumstances after being rumored to have developed Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder) & John Nash (genius 20th Century American mathematician who was diagnosed with schizophrenia reportedly after studying the events of Hiroshima & Nagasaki).

It is for this reason, that the new trend of "Predictive Policing" is so unsettling a concept, especially to Eastern cultures that are often considered somewhat different & consequently strange to the Western way of thinking. This week's discussion will analyse what exactly is predictive policing, what information sources does it rely on to make "predictions" & whether those sources can be tainted.

PREDICTIVE POLICING DEFINITION

Predictive policing consists of 4 separate functions:
(1) Crimes
(2) Offenders
(3) Perpetrators' identities
(4) Victims' identities

Of the afore-mentioned varieties of this system, the third is the most disconcerting. The idea of being able to accurately identify which random individual is going to commit a crime without letting one's personal opinions of people (based on race, religion, culture, color, nationality, facial characteristics or family background) influence one's judgment, is highly unlikely. Given below is a landmark case study that illustrates the importance of not allowing statistics to blur the fact that, while populations act within roughly definable boundaries, the individual is unique & must be judged purely on his or her own merits.

On Being Sane In Insane Places (David Rosenhan, 1973)

Phase I: The Pseudopatient Experiment

"I told friends, I told my family: 'I can get out when I can get out. That's all. I'll be there for a couple of days & I'll get out.' Nobody knew I'd be there for two months … The only way out was to point out that they're [the psychiatrists] correct. They had said I was insane, 'I am insane; but I am getting better.' That was an affirmation of their view of me." - David Rosenhan in the BBC program "The Trap".

Rosenhan himself & 7 mentally healthy & intellectually gifted associates, called "pseudopatients", attempted to gain admission to psychiatric hospitals by calling for an appointment & feigning auditory hallucinations. The hospital staffs were not informed of the experiment. The pseudopatients included 3 psychologists (including Rosenhan himself), a psychology graduate student in his twenties, 2 doctors (a pediatrician & a psychiatrist), a painter & a housewife. None had any personal or family history of mental illness. They used pseudonyms, & those from the mental health field were given false jobs in a different sector to avoid invoking any special treatment or scrutiny. Other than that, all biographical details were accurately reported.

During initial psychiatric assessment, all 8 claimed to hear voices that sometimes seemed to pronounce the words "Empty", "Hollow", "Bump" & "Thud"; other than that, the pseudopatients said they were absolutely okay. The words were chosen for the lack of any published literature referencing them as symptoms of any psychological ailment. Once admitted, the pseudopatients were instructed to "act normally", reporting that they felt fine & no longer heard voices.

To Rosenhan's astonishment, all of them were admitted, to 12 different psychiatric hospitals across the US, including underfunded rural public hospitals, reputable urban university-run hospitals & one elite private institution. Though each pseudopatient reported identical symptoms, 7 were diagnosed with schizophrenia at public hospitals, & 1 with manic-depressive psychosis at the private hospital. Their stays ranged from 7 to 52 days, with an average of 19 days. All were discharged with a diagnosis of schizophrenia "in remission"...but only after each had signed a written statement admitting that they were insane but were getting better.

Despite openly taking written notes on the behavior of the staff & genuine patients, none of the pseudopatients were identified as impostors by the hospital staff, although many of the psychiatric patients correctly identified them as such. In the first 3 hospitalizations, 35 of the total of 118 patients clearly stated that they knew the pseudopatients were sane, with some suggesting that the patients were researchers or investigative journalists. Written records indicated that the staff simply labelled the pseudopatients' behavior as symptoms of mental illness. For example, a nurse labelled the note-taking of one pseudopatient as "writing behavior" & passed it off as pathological. Hospital records re-interpreted the pseudopatients' normal biographies to fit what was expected of schizophrenics at that time.

The purpose of the experiment was to see whether the pseudopatients could get the hospital to release them, without outside assistance (though a lawyer was on call for when it became clear that the pseudopatients would never be voluntarily released). Once admitted & diagnosed, they were unable to obtain their release until they agreed - in writing - with the psychiatrists that they were insane & took the prescribed antipsychotic medications. In order to avoid harm from the drugs, they secretly flushed them down the toilet. However, this had to be done very carefully, because non-compliance was generally responded to with physical abuse.

Rosenhan & his associates reported extreme dehumanization & severe invasion of privacy while hospitalized. Their possessions were searched randomly & often, & they were even observed while using the toilet. The staff often callously discussed patients in their presence as though they were not there or were too intellectually deficient to understand or mind. They eschewed direct interaction with patients except when strictly necessary to perform official duties. Some attendants indulged in verbal & physical abuse of patients when unsupervised. The dehumanization was so acceptable an approach that a group of bored patients waiting outside the cafeteria for lunch early 1 day, were described by a doctor to his students to be experiencing "oral-acquisitive" psychiatric symptoms!

Phase II: The Non-Existent Impostor Experiment

After word of Phase I got out, Rosenhan contacted a well-known research & teaching hospital which claimed that similar errors could not be made at that institution. He arranged with the faculty that during a 3-month time span, 1 or more pseudopatients would gain admission & the staff must rate every incoming patient as to the likelihood that they were Rosenhan's volunteers. Out of 193 patients, 41 were unequivocally "identified" as impostors & a further 42 were considered suspect. In reality, Rosenhan had sent nobody & all patients suspected as impostors by the hospital staff were ordinary patients.

Rosenhan's announcement after the 3 months were over that he had sent nobody to the institution led to a significant reduction in the number of admissions to the hospital, suggesting that psychiatrists had been over-admitting before Rosenhan's experiment was conducted.

CRIMINAL ACTIVITY IS A COMMODITY

Except for the fact that criminal activity is harmful to the innocent & consequently illegal, it is identical to any other business. Therefore, rather than playing Big Brother & making the lives of random human beings miserable, it is far more efficient to simply monitor the commerce in the tools & equipment necessary for any specific crime. Listed below, are some of the basic security measures applied globally & ways to trick them. If any party wishes to commit or conceal a crime, the first thing to be done is to purchase the goods or services that will help them "game the system". The information source for each variety of fraud is listed alongside the title to demonstrate why an honest & competent investigator doesn't need a computer to point him in the direction of the "guilty" party.

Fake Fingerprints (www.wikihow.com)

Method 1:

1. Get a fingerprint mark on a putty-like material. Putty, Play-doh, or modelling clay are all good options, as long as they are clean & new. Roll a small piece of your chosen material into a ball, & press the finger you wish to imitate into the putty. (A hot, flattened piece of paraffin wax will leave a better impression, but only after 5 or 10 minutes of pressing.)

2. Refrigerate or freeze the putty. This will keep the impression of the fingerprint as hard as possible while you work with it. Different materials & brands will react differently to cold, & may not be usable as putty afterwards - but that's fine for this purpose.

3. Make extra-thick gelatin. Boil a small pot of water, then add an equal amount of gelatin powder by volume. Stir constantly for several minutes, dissolving as much of the powder as you can. Let the mixture cool.

4. Microwave the gelatin. Once the gelatin has cooled to a thick gel, melt it in the microwave, then let cool to a gel again. Microwave repeatedly until the gelatin has no bubbles, & when a drop acts thick & rubbery.

5. Pour the gelatin onto the fingerprint mold. Once the gelatin is rubbery & bubble-free, melt it one final time, then pour the hot, liquid gelatin into the fingerprint mold you made from putty.

6. Freeze the putty. Put the putty & gelatin into the freezer. Within a few minutes, the gelatin should harden into a solid, rubbery substance. Peel the gelatin carefully off the putty. You now have a fake fingertip, with the impression of a real fingerprint marked on the surface.

Method 2:

1. This method can make a much more accurate fingerprint, & does not require an impression in putty, but it requires specialized equipment. Do not attempt this unless you have access to these tools, including a high-quality scanner or camera, & a printed circuit board (PCB). An overhead transparency can be used instead of the PCB, but this is less effective.

2. Dust to find fingerprints. This method can create a fake fingerprint from nothing more than a fingerprint left on a touchscreen, a doorknob, or another dry, glossy surface. To locate these, you can dust a surface with crushed, powdered graphite from mechanical pencil lead, or use a fingerprinting kit with a black powder. (A white surface will work best with this method.)

3. Take a high quality scan or photograph. For best results, photograph or scan the fingerprint with a quality of at least 2400 dpi. Load the resulting image into a computer with photo editing software.

4. Invert the image's direction & color. Use the photo editing software to "flip" the image from left to right, creating its mirror image. Reverse the color of the image as well, so the raised fingerprint is white & the background of the image is black.

5. Transfer this to a printed circuit board or overhead transparency. For best results, print out your fingerprint onto tracing paper, then use a UV etching machine to transfer the fingerprint onto a printed circuit board (PCB). If you do not have access to these materials, you can try the less effective method of printing out the fingerprint directly onto an overhead transparency sheet.

6. Make your fake finger from graphite & wood glue. The fingerprint image on the PCB or overhead transparency is actually slightly raised, & can be used to make a fake fingertip. To do this, cover the image with graphite powder, then smear it with a thin layer of white wood glue or light-colored latex milk. (A small dash of glycerine in the wood glue will make it slightly more moist & workable, creating a more effective material.)

7. Remove the dried glue fingerprint. Once the wood glue has dried, carefully peel it off the surface beneath & take a look at your new fingerprint. You can even trim this to fingertip size, then use theatrical glue to attach it to your own finger.

Fake Iris Scans (www.wired.com)

Back in 2012, academics found a way to recreate iris images that match digital iris codes that are stored in databases & used by iris-recognition systems to identify people. The replica images, they say, can trick commercial iris-recognition systems into believing they’re real images & could help someone thwart identification at border crossings or gain entry to secure facilities protected by biometric systems.

The work goes a step beyond previous work on iris-recognition systems. Previously, researchers have been able to create wholly synthetic iris images that had all of the characteristics of real iris images - but weren't connected to real people. The images were able to trick iris-recognition systems into thinking they were real irises, though they couldn't be used to impersonate a real person. But this is the first time anyone has essentially reverse-engineered iris codes to create iris images that closely match the eye images of real subjects, creating the possibility of stealing someone’s identity through his or her iris.

“The idea is to generate the iris image, & once you have the image you can actually print it & show it to the recognition system, & it will say ‘okay, this is the [right] guy,'” says Javier Galbally, who conducted the research with colleagues at the Biometric Recognition Group-ATVS, at the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, & researchers at West Virginia University.

Fake Facial Recognition (www.dailydot.com)

CV Dazzle offers a number of looks to fool facial recognition services. The site recommends avoiding make-up enhancers, which accent key features, partially obscuring one eye, & developing an asymmetrical look with your hair style.

Graphic designer Simone C. Niquille has created an art project that tests the limitations of facial recognition software. She designed a series of shirts called “RealFace Glamoflage” specifically to help Internet users evade facial recognition technology.

Japan’s National Institute of Informatics is working on developing a pair of glasses that can prevent facial recognition.

Howie Woo can help you create non-recognizable expressions with a blank mask & a handful of facial features.

Artists in Berlin suggest that tilting your head to one side will slow down facial recognition, & recommend doing that to avoid embarrassing party pictures on Facebook.