fwd: Canadian gov't eavesdropping

[wisej]

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On Wed, 2 Feb 1994, Mike Markley wrote:

> | From: Eli Brandt  <netmail!ebrandt at jarthur.Claremont.EDU>

> | > HIGH-TECH SNOOP GADGET.  A super-secret branch of the Canadian Security
> | > Intelligence Service has awarded three contracts to a Montreal firm to mak
e
> | > equipment that can quickly isolate key words and phrases from millions of
> | > airborne phone, fax, radio signals and other transmissions. The hardware
> | > has the "Orwellian potential to sweep through ... and keep records of all
> | > conversations," said one CSIS critic.  (CTV National News, 01/31/94 11:00
> | > pm).
> |
> | Dunno how feasible this kind of keyword recognition presently is,
> | but here's another reason to encrypt.
>
> I'd be curious to see how they are going to do voice recognition on
> random conversations. Unless I am very sadly out of date you need to
> teach the pattern matcher individual voices.
>
You'd be surprised.  For example, Plaintalk, a system extension bundled with the
AV-series macintoshes, does voice recognition based solely on phonemes.  
Although it is not perfect yet, I can personally attest to having walked up to a
model on display in a store, tried a few simple commands by voice, and had no 
problem with recognition.  The technology _is_ there.

				Jim Wise
				wisej at acf4.nyu.edu
				jaw7254 at acfcluster.nyu.edu
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