Read Online Executive Treason by Gary H. Grossman - Free Book Online

programmer delivered, and that’s what made him Roarke’s go-to geek. Now the agent was back at Parson’s door.
    “You realize we’d both be better off if you’d give me something reasonable to work with.”
    “Sorry, but…”
    “Photographs, Roarke. Photographs. Just once. Real pictures. Ever hear of film? Or maybe I can introduce you to a remarkable invention called a digital camera. Sony. Minolta, even Kodak’s got it. Four, five, six megapixels. Amazing things.”
    Roarke knew this would go on for awhile. It was simply the cost of doing business with such a talent.
    “What was I thinking?” Roarke sarcastically asked. “I’ll go out, find, and capture Depp. Then I’ll ask him to stand still for a second and say ‘cheese.’ Shouldn’t be a problem. After that I’ll pat him on the back and say ‘thanks’ and ‘oh, by the way, you can go back to killing important people now.’ Then I’ll post a real picture of him and see if I can track him down again. But wait. If I knew who he was and where he was, why would I be here?” It was time to re-ask his question. “What the fuck are you looking for?”
    “All right,” Parsons said shaking his head. “Using biometric technology designed to ID a person from distinguishing facial traits, the computer is trying to determine if there are any signatures common to each sketch.”
    “In other words?” Roarke asked, hoping to get a clearer description.
    “Measuring characteristics, like the distance between the eyes, the dimensions of the nose, the angle of the jaw. Ferret’s struggling to interpret data to create a template. Based solely on the multiple images, created by different people, the chances are slim that we’ll get an accurate portrait. But since you ask, we’re looking for face-to-face analogies. Are the eyes similar enough? The bridge of the nose? The lips? Teeth? The things that are hardest to cosmetically change. The program is processing distinct facial regions, encoding parameters from the rectified images, and attempting to establish a norm.”
    “And it works?”
    “Sometimes.”
    “Oh, great.”
    “Well, that’s the truth. I’d say Ferret works pretty well provided the materials at hand are good.”
    “Like a photograph?”
    “Even then, it’s no slam dunk,” Touch allowed. “It’s best when the subject’s face occupies the whole image. Unless they’re holding a number in front of their chest, you tell me how many bad guys will pose for the camera?”
    “Back to my point. I got it.”
    “No, you don’t. Not yet,” the FBI expert complained. “Ferret recognizes the improbability of that. It’s programmed to examine more complex images and sort out the extraneous, re-focusing on potential faces within any given field. Using a neural network-based face location system, it locates possible faces within an un-composed image.”
    “Then it works,” Roarke said, hopefully.
    “Depends on your definition of works,” Parsons snorted through a laugh. “One of the first major applications was Super Bowl XXXV back in 2001. Everyone entering got their punnum’s scanned. Mind you, no one realized it was happening. But the FRT cameras clicked away as they went through the turnstiles. The digital pictures were fed to computers, which looked for possible matches with known criminals. Note that I said criminals. Boy, we live in a different world now,” Parsons added as an aside. “Anyway, the software flagged nineteen individuals. Some were just petty thieves. It picked out a ticket scalper or two. Most of the rest were just false positives.”
    “False positives?” Roarke needed some help with the explanation.
    “Yeah. Falsely matching innocent people with database photos of perps. And then there’s the problem of the reverse-false negatives.”
    “Not catching people even when the picture is in the system?”
    “Bingo. That answer your question about it working?”
    “Sort of. But it is an aid.”
    Parsons nodded