I'm really getting mad at all the "terrorist profiling" stories in the news. It's like no one can think clearly any more. Not only does profiling not work, it actually opens up a huge security hole. The only arguments I hear in the news media against profiling are all based on some lame political correctness angle. That's not the point! The fact is profiling is worse than completely random searches at catching the bad guy. Why can't the media grasp this?
Here's an MIT student paper explaining why this is so. The paper is padded quite a bit (reminded me of some things I wrote back in school) with a lot of unnecessary math to make it seem more complex than it is. But the main idea is right on. If you use a profiling algorithm (like: stop all arab men) then it is trivial for your enemy to defeat this (don't send arab looking men.) D'uh.
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Here's an MIT student paper explaining why this is so. The paper is padded quite a bit (reminded me of some things I wrote back in school) with a lot of unnecessary math to make it seem more complex than it is. But the main idea is right on. If you use a profiling algorithm (like: stop all arab men) then it is trivial for your enemy to defeat this (don't send arab looking men.) D'uh.
- jim 8-12-2002 9:33 pm