cheese-sandwich detector enlisted in War on Terror
 

Technology on Trial It's very bad luck for USA Today that on the very same day they reported the profound failing of the FBI's digital and computer analysis systems in the Madrid bombings, they published a column suggesting that just such technologies could prevent such attacks in future. Uncritical gee-whizz columns about new technology are nothing new, but this one by Kevin Maney could be the most ill-timed of its kind.

As we reported this week, the Spanish authorities discovered a bag of explosives, with a set of fingerprints, a week before the Madrid bombings in March that killed almost 200 people and injured 1,800 more. Unable to find a fingerprint match, they appealed to the FBI who promptly found a "100 per cent" match, and arrested an Oregon lawyer and ex-US serviceman. So convinced were agents they had their man, they persuaded the Spanish authorities to look no further. In fact, the FBI's suspect had nothing to do with the bombings.


If the Feds had examined the original fingerprint - rather than a poor digital copy - they would not have believed it was "100 per cent positive" and, perhaps, the horror might have been averted. The FBI was further convinced by a computer-generated network profile that placed former Army officer Brandon Mayfield at the center of the conspiracy. Mayfield had converted to Islam in the 1980s and represented a man in a child custody case who was later sentenced on terror charges.

Both pieces of digital evidence fall apart when human judgement is introduced. For example, Mayfield had never been to Spain. However, the FBI regarded the machine logic with superior intelligence to its own human detective skills and intuitions. Of course, since computers don't have any intelligence, and don't perform any magic, they should be used with great circumspection. One of the least controversial declarations is Nicholas "Does IT Matter?" Carr's new books is that "as the strategic value of the technology fades, the skill with which it is used on a day-to-day basis may well become even more important to a company's success."

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