HOW-TO: Spot a Liar

If you're involved in investigations or ever have need to know if someone is deceiving you, then learning to spot a liar and their "tells" is paramount to your success.  "Tells" are those things in which we all do when telling a lie. Deception was man's first camouflage against other human enemies.  Just like camoflage, deception can be detected if you know what you're looking for.  I HIGHLY recommend watching the video below by Pamela Meyer, a lie detection expert.

According to her site, "Pamela Meyer is founder and CEO of Simpatico Networks, a leading private label social networking company that owns and operates online social networks. She holds an MBA from Harvard, an MA in Public Policy from Claremont Graduate School, and is a Certified Fraud Examiner. She has extensive training in the use of visual clues and psychology to detect deception."

Judging from this video, when they say a woman's intuition is almost always spot-on, I'm inclined to believe they may not be too off.

Click here to obtain a copy of her latest book - Liespotting: Proven Techniques to Detect.

What happens online - NEVER stays there....

Pay VERY close attention to what I have to say:

1. The information you see below is not stored on our site and is only visible to you.  I found this site while looking for resources on background check (mostly locating skips).
2. The information was allocated using information (i.e. torrent files you downloaded, IP address) your computer provided when you, someone in your home, or someone who gained access to your WiFi network downloaded those files.
3. I am publishing this tool with the hope people will gain a better insight into how their activities can and are being monitored on the Web via information they provide sometimes unknowingly.
4. There is a removal tool.  However, it only removes your information from their site.  I HIGHLY, HIGHLY, HIGHLY suggest you use it and never have a need for it again.

Pretty cool app from the folks at Homeland Security

Found a pretty nifty tool from the folks at the Department of Homeland Security.  It's a service called SelfCheck.  It's similar to the E-Verify service US employers use to verify your employment eligibility.  It pulls data from US credit agencies and your Passport file to ask identity related questions.  From there, it verifies your eligibility against what I presume other databases (aka "watchlists") and makes it determination.  According to it, I'm "good-to-go".  Note to any companies or agencies I've applied to: That means you CAN hire me.

Self Check is a voluntary, fast, free and simple service that allows you to check your employment eligibility in the United States. If any mismatches are found between the information you provide and your Department of Homeland Security or Social Security Administration records, Self Check will inform you of how to correct those mismatches.

As a side note, you need to be in a location that participates in the service.  Here's some more info on that:

USCIS is releasing the Self Check service in phases. At this point the service is offered only to users that maintain an address in Arizona, California, Colorado, the District of Colombia, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia, or Washington. The availability of Self Check will be limited for the initial launch as the service is tested and improved upon based on the outcomes of the initial implementation. 

HOW-TO: Build and Beat a Polygraph

During Defcon 2010, a talk was given on how to build a lie detector and "beat" it.  I've been enthralled by the idea of lie detectors for some time.  My curiosity has always been whether the simple notion of having a scientific manner of detecting deception is psycho-semantic enough to arouse certain deception "indicators" that can be picked up by the machine.  In plain English, I'm curious to whether people fail these tests purely because they know a machine is actively looking for any signs of deception and there is no way to know what questions may be asked so they unconsciously allow themselves to be caught by it.  If anyone has any ideas, feel free to shoot them my way.