New brain scan exposes liars/'World's first' spam system trial

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http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,11542531%255E13762,00.html

New brain scan exposes liars

By Maggie Fox in Washington

November 30, 2004

 

SCANS show the brains of people who are lying look very different from those

of people who are telling the truth, a US study has found.

 

Tests using functional magnetic resonance imaging, fMRI, not only shed light

on what went on when people lied, but might also provide new technology for

lie-detecting, the researchers said today.

 

" There may be unique areas in the brain involved in deception that can be

measured with fMRI, " said Dr Scott Faro, director of the Functional Brain

Imaging Centre at Temple University School of Medicine in Philadelphia.

 

" There may be unique areas in the brain involved in truth-telling. "

 

Dr Faro and his colleagues tested 10 volunteers.

 

Six were asked to shoot a toy gun and then lie and say they did not do it.

Three others who watched told the truth about what happened. One volunteer

dropped out of the study.

While giving their " testimony " , the volunteers were hooked up to a

conventional polygraph and also had their brain activity monitored using

fMRI. It used a strong magnet to provide a real-time picture of brain

activity.

 

There were clear differences between the liars and the truth-tellers, Dr

Faro's team told a meeting in Chicago of the Radiological Society of North

America.

 

" We found a total of seven areas of activation in the deception (group), " he

said. " We found four areas of activity in the truth-telling arm. "

 

Overall, it seemed to take more brain effort to tell the lie than to tell

the truth, Dr Faro found.

 

Lying caused activity in the frontal part of the brain - the medial inferior

and pre-central areas - as well as the hippocampus and middle temporal

regions and the limbic areas.

 

Some of those areas were involved in emotional responses, Dr Faro said.

 

During a truthful response, the fMRI showed activation of parts of the

brain's frontal lobe, temporal lobe and cingulate gyrus.

 

Dr Faro said the study was small and limited. Volunteers were not asked to

try especially hard to deceive the equipment, he said - noting that it had

been documented that some people could fool a polygraph using various

techniques.

 

Using fMRI as a lie detector was expensive, but it might be worthwhile in

some cases - such as trying to question a terrorism suspect, or in a

high-profile corporate crime case, Dr Faro said.

 

Reuters

 

 

 

 

 

'World's first' spam system trial

Staff writers

December 1, 2004

 

http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,11554066%255E15306,00.html

 

THE communications regulator has teamed with ISP Pacific Internet to run

what it claims to be a world's first spam reporting trial.

 

Announcing the trial, acting Australian Communications Authority (ACA)

chairman Alan Horsley said the initiative would help the ACA " identify the

biggest and worst spammers with just one click " .

 

The trial will allow Pacific Internet users to report spam via either the

ACA's website or a Microsoft Outlook plug-in developed by software company

Spammatters.

 

" When they receive spam, these customers will be able to use the software to

forward it directly to the ACA's forensics database system for collection,

research, analysis and action, " Mr Horsley said.

 

The database would automatically extract information from messages,

including the header and message body, which would allow them to be used as

evidence in court, he said. " The database system reduces the need for manual

spam investigations and is able to process and analyse very large amounts of

spam. "

 

 

 

 

The ACA said several major spammers based in Australia had been shut down as

a result of the Spam Act, 2003, which came into effect in April. The Act

provides for penalties of up to $1.1 million per day for repeat offenders.

 

Australian IT