[Phys-L] Re: OT FISA and Fishing Expeditions from NSA

[Brian Whatcott <betwys1@SBCGLOBAL.NET>]

Bob asked an  interesting question:  uncontrolled mass phone-scanning -
[what is the] relation to physics?

Here you go!
Visualize ten thousand phone calls in progress to and from foreign parts.

Vizualize a bunch of political extremists who want to commit mayhem
on some American  asset and will talk about the conspiracy.

How would an engineer, or possibly even a physicist go about winnowing
such a verbal torrent?    Recognizing key words and/or phrases is evidently
  the modality needed.

It was thirty long years ago, at a [then] high-tech seminar
concerning some new
products that Digital Equipment (DEC) wished to promote, that we set up
  a demonstration of voice recognition equipment.     This seemed
like a natural
avenue for rapid development - then.   But this field has been more difficult
than you might have guessed.   Finally you are seeing some commercial and
some military applications.
  To avoid the Christmas tree impression that a fighter's control
stick can give,
the option of controlling systems on voice commands is appealing - a pilot has
only so many hands!
And upscale cars are starting to feature voice controlled systems too.

Both these applications have a possible advantage - the possibility
of training
the voice recognition algorithm for the voice quirks they face.

But the NSA has other problems - an immense variety of voices, accents,
  even languages.   It is certain that a human ear is the very best option.
How to filter ten thousand conversations down to the fifty or one
hundred listeners that may be on hand?

That's the secret part.    Catching sibilants might have appeal:
consider the word  "explosive"
(Ooh! a sibilant and a plosive!)   or "bomb" a labial  or plosive or
  whatever - you get the general idea.

How about a neural network? feed with sonogram elements
and train across many, many accents,  it seems like a viable approach.
You could possibly think of some smarter ways yet?   It might be a help.
It was amazing how open-sourcing sped the robustness and cunning
of software, for example....
  On the other hand, said terrorists who expect their calls to be
  monitored, in Arabic, Vietnamese, Russian or English might agree to avoid
conspicuous words in favor of code.
Bomb would become apple-pie: explosives become cinammon and so on.
(Oh darn! Have I given the game away?)

Sincerely

Brian (political diatribologist?) Whatcott

At 02:48 PM 12/23/2005, you wrote:
> Way OT! Simple political diatribe. Relation to Physics? :-(
>
> Merry Christmas anyway!
>
> Bob at PC
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Forum for Physics Educators [mailto:PHYS-L@list1.ucc.nau.edu] On
> Behalf Of Brian Whatcott
> Sent: Friday, December 23, 2005 1:50 AM
> To: PHYS-L@LISTS.NAU.EDU
> Subject: OT FISA and Fishing Expeditions from NSA
>
> This Washington Post article notes one FISA court judge has resigned -
> others are questioning the legal basis of broad-band fishing on
>  satellite-borne  phone calls.
>
>
> <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/21/AR2005122102326_pf.html>
>
> Impeachable?


Brian Whatcott    Altus OK    Eureka!
_______________________________________________
Phys-L mailing list
Phys-L@electron.physics.buffalo.edu
https://www.physics.buffalo.edu/mailman/listinfo/phys-l