OT: bitter, cynical political rant (was: Re: Biometrics)

[Bill Campbell]

On Mon, Jun 07, 2004, Bill Vermillion wrote:
>On Mon, Jun 07, 2004 at 01:38:14PM -0400, Jay R. Ashworth thus spoke:
>> On Mon, Jun 07, 2004 at 08:34:55AM -0400, Bill Vermillion wrote:
>> > On Sun, Jun 06, 2004 at 02:45:52PM -0500, Mike Schwartz-PC Support & Services thus spoke:
>> > > > >
>> > > > > How do you think the FBI does things?
>> > 
>> > > > Sloppily, and incredibly inaccurately.
>
>> > >  Witness the U.S. attorney who was recently (hopefully falsely)
>> > > linked to the bombing in Spain based on a partial fingerprint.
>> > > There's not much doubt that he wasn't involved in it, but he's
>> > > still considered under suspicion.
>
>> > Well it was a partial print.
>
>> Gee, then why did the FBI say it was "a guaranteed, 100% accurate
>> match"?
>
>Probably the PR department.  I bet that if you talked with the
>person who did the exact match on a partial - depending off course
>and just how partial it was - they may not have given a "a
>guaranteed 100% accurate match".  
>
>The best rule to follow is never trust anything that is "100%
>guaranteed" "will never fail"  or uses the words "always" or
>"never"
>
>The only thing you can amost always be 100% sure of is that what
>you are told is not 100% accurate.

There was a long article in today's issue of the Seattle Times
about the FBI finger printing work, and one of the main points
was that the people doing the analysis are often poorly trained,
and that the FBI's certification tests are a bad joke (e.g. the
same prints year after year with the same answers :-).

Bill
--
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