What is Digg?Sponsored by Dragon Age: Origins
Follow the Dragon Age: Origins development team on Twitter view!
twitter.com/DragonAge - EA presents BioWare's new dark fantasy epic Dragon Age: Origins. '9/10' from Game Informer.
36 Comments
- kennybain, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"...and they're adding 5,000 a day. I find that disturbing."
Actually, that breaks down to 100 people per state per day. That's not that many when you think about it. You would be surprised to know what will get you in that database. A couple of years ago my wife and I went through a state sponsored foster parenting program. During the background checking process, they fingerprinted us. In reading the fine print, I saw that our prints would be sent to the FBI and retained. So even though neither of us have ever been in trouble with the law (well, I have one speeding ticket) - both of us have prints on file in that database. - mediaphile, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"I have to question how accurate this is, and how long it will be before it gets tested in court. Fingerprint images only really need to be 2 bits, and why not use jpeg2000?"
well according to TFA, it's more accurate than what they've got right now. that was the whole point of the article.
as for jpeg2000, they haven't even adopted it as a standard yet, and so far it only offers a 20% increase in compression efficiency over standard jpeg. standard jpeg is a 5:1 ratio, whereas the new fbi format is 15:1. another problem with jpeg2000 is that the way it gets compressed by using wavelets tends to blur out high contrast edges, which is exactly what the fbi needs in order to read the fingerprints accurately. dont get me wrong, jpeg2000 sounds like a good improvement over standard jpeg, but it's not even close to the accuracy that the fbi is looking for. - bryan314, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The 50 million isn't just criminals. The armed forces, government workers, law enforcement, teachers, banks, and other areas take fingerprints also.
- pmsyyz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I would think any kind of lossy compression would be bad for this purpose. Is WSQ lossly or lossless? I would have just gone with PNG for lossless compression.
- ericpp, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Here's the actual paper from the ACM Library:
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1068338&coll=ACM&dl=ACM&CFID=54054359&CFTOKEN=28555197 - khelmir, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1and remember that EVERYONE who is a foriener that goes into the US gets 2 of thier fingers taken on record for the duration of thier stay
- eigh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1ok so taht means i can store 5 times as much porn on my computer now? sweet.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I, for one, welcome our new American overlords.
- snowboarder, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0So when is the everyday browser going to support this nifty new image compression? Bandwidth is kind of costly these days.
- Dracos, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I have to question how accurate this is, and how long it will be before it gets tested in court. Fingerprint images only really need to be 2 bits, and why not use jpeg2000?
- neocitron, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0now they just need a "spotlight feature" to find the person in question's print...
- bsoric, on 10/12/2007, -0/+050,000,000? Are there really that many criminals in the world? Maybe they should start deleting some of the ones whose owners have died already.
- Singee15, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Do they have cool fingerprint matching programs like the ones in CSI!?
- etaylor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0You don't have to be a criminal for them to have your fingerprints...
- shinynew, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"So when is the everyday browser going to support this nifty new image compression? Bandwidth is kind of costly these days."
so then use bittorrent or 7z all your files or make a browser that will open up 7z files and open a html file inside and revolutionize the web : ) - sohlemac, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I work at a nuke plant, that's how the FBI got my prints. Required background checks of all people on site every 5 years.
- MaSC, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Anyhoo, 50 million ain't that much
- MaSC, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Ack, I just saw : 'They've got 50,000,000 SETs of fingerprints to store,'
Sorry bsoric.... I'm an idiot - MaSC, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0-50,000,000? Are there really that many criminals in the world? Maybe they should start deleting some of the ones whose owners have died already.-
You know you have 10 finger prints don't you?
:) - cquinnd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"We were little hellions, but it didn't justified us getting finger printed."
The justification is to be able to identify children in the case of
child abduction. The question should be what happened to those prints
once you grew up. - hitbyatrain, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Hook 'Em Horns
- dtatom, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I remember the days when I did genetic programming in college. When I did it my program attempted to find the line of fit of a data set. Generally 50 to 500 generations of a population of 10 to 20 was required to find an acceptable answer. The strange thing about genetic programing, as with nature, is that it doesn't always stay at the correct answer. There were situations when the exact line of best fit was found early in the life cycle but by the late in the cycle the answer was completely wrong. Since the algorithms are random by nature their success rate can also be random; unless the environment is setup to only allow positive progress (progress toward the solution). Even that is not a guarantee because sometimes the program might take a path that, though at the time is better then any other path, will never lead to the correct answer.
This types of programs, though interesting and necessary, bring up a lot of questions. How do we trust the results? Who is responsible if the results are not accurate? What is the fallout when the results are inaccurate? For me the answers were: I had the original line, the C language (random function) and the computer's RTC/oscillator manufacturer, and GPA. - slowspin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Doesn't everyone love "evolutionary" algorithms? I know I do.
- oepapel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0" A lawyer would have it thrown out because a computer did the compression without human intervention to confirm the compression."
So you you personally "intervene" and "confirm" each image every time you make a JPG?
If you are instead referring to the algorithm, it can still be confirmed whether it was computer generated or human generated. Instead of having a programmer write the code, they took common algorithm blocks and placed parameters on them and then let the computer assemble them like lego in different arrangements and by modifying the parameters, the computer generates a new algorithm after several generations using a positive feedback loop. This algorithm is now fixed and can be verified and analysed just like any other algorithm. It just wasn't generated by a human. - martinj, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Fingerprint images are larger than 2bits. Minutiae for two fingerprints is 200bytes. A full tenprint record, with WSQ compression of each fingerprint image, is about 750Kbytes.
- martinj, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0This will never hold up in court. A lawyer would have it thrown out because a computer did the compression without human intervention to confirm the compression.
Also, WSQ is being used for 500ppi fingerprint images. JPEG2000 is going to be used for 1000ppi fingerprint images.
What you see on CSI is Motorola (Printrak) equipment; but what see on the screen is fake Hollywood magic. You can't search 50,000,000 fingerprint images in 2 seconds. Also, there are in between steps, Tenprint QC and Search Results Verification. Without these human intervention steps, results would be thrown out in court.
BTW, the USVIST program (foreigners who prints are captured in Customs) does not search the FBI database. It only searches it's own day forward database. So, in reality it is useless. - geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0-Fingerprint images are larger than 2bits. Minutiae for two fingerprints is 200bytes. A full tenprint record, with WSQ compression of each fingerprint image, is about 750Kbytes-
(damn I wish Digg had threading). Anyways, 2-bits refer to how many colors the image has; on/off. One doesn't need color to store a fingerprint.
Secondly, genetic algorithm compression has been tried a hundred times, and it almost always gets turned down because of some kind of restriction (colors don't match up right, crisp lines become jaggy or blurry, etc). It's good that the FBI has found a home for it, but I wonder how its validity will stand up in court. Will there be manditory checking of each fingerprint to the original, uncompressed copy? - funderbolt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"You know you have 10 finger prints don't you?"
It is unfair to generalize that everyone has 10 fingers. What about people with 11 fingers? What about those one arm bandits, do THEY have 10 digits? You insensitive clod! - cymrich, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0doesn't your everyday avid porn collector run into this problem after about a month of getting broadband? maybe they should survey porn sites...
- funderbolt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0The police got my finger prints when I was in Kindergarten. They got the whole class's prints because the police officers visited our class.
We were little hellions, but it didn't justified us getting finger printed. - cool4u2view, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Jpeg2000 is a wonderful format, yes it is a standard, and some of you *cough*mediaphile*cough* need to brush up a little on your jpeg2000 info. Licensing has also changed on some open source jpeg2000 decoders so there is really no reason it is not in browsers today. I guess the state of browser incompatibility is a product of the misinformed.
- Trepan, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1I bet they'd love to have fingerprints of everyone in the world.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0They've got 50,000,000 sets of fingerprints to store, and they're adding 5,000 a day.
I find that disturbing. - jnorris441, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Welcome to the 90's I guess?
- salmonmoose, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0"ok so taht means i can store 5 times as much porn on my computer now? sweet."
Only if you have a finger fetish ;)
(yes I know how stupid that is but I couldn't resist) - funderbolt, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0In FBI fingerprint database, the image copies YOU! When it copies the quality gets BETTER!
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is