Ports consider devices to detect stowaways

NORFOLK -- Even with the door of the shipping container cracked open, no one could tell if a person was hiding inside.

No one except maybe Howard Sidman. Standing in the yard of Norfolk International Terminals on Friday, he held a device shaped like a large handgun with an antenna sticking out from the barrel.

Sidman pointed the antenna at one port police officer as he walked around the back of the container. If the antenna picked up a human signal from inside the large metal box, while the officer passed behind the box, the antenna would stay fixed on that point and stop following the direction of the officer.

Officer Stephen Brown appeared around the opposite side of the container. But the antenna remained focused somewhere in the center of it.

Port police pulled open the door. Another of their own, Sgt. Clinton Tucker, stepped out.

Sidman, doing a demonstration of his LifeGuard technology for the Virginia Port Authority, breathed a sigh of relief. Earlier presentations had failed to find the exact location of the hidden man in a series of containers or turned up a false positive reading.

``You err toward searching too many containers, instead of not enough containers,'' said Sidman, president of DKL International Inc. of Vienna.

With the threat of terrorism looming, port security officials are scrambling to find the most effective equipment to preserve safety. The possibility of a dangerous stowaway in a shipping container came to light in October, when inspectors at an Italian port found a suspected member of a terrorist group hiding in a container bound for Canada and equipped with conveniences such as a toilet, food and laptop computer.

Robert R. Merhige III, deputy executive director of the Virginia Port Authority, hears constant pitches from companies seeking to sell the port their products. Those that sound promising he studies more closely and, sometimes, invites to see in action.

The LifeGuard device detects the electrical impulses emitted by the human heart. It can read through solid objects, such as shipping container walls, or as far as about a third of a mile in open air.

The device costs $10,000 to $20,000, depending on accessories, and has a 90 percent accuracy rate, Sidman said. He has demonstrated the technology for the Port Authority of New York/New Jersey as well.

Merhige said he would talk to DKL's clients, federal agencies and state officials and would need the approval of the port authority board of commissioners before spending limited security funds on any product. Port officials probably wouldn't target every incoming container, just those that the U.S. Customs Service identified as suspicious, he said. They could then do the LifeGuard scan as soon as the container comes off the ship.

A terrorist inside a container is a concern for port officials, but not as great a fear as a ``dirty bomb,'' a traditional bomb packed with radioactive materials, or a nuclear bomb, Merhige said. The port continues to work on technology to address those dangers.

It is still testing radiation sensors mounted on port container cranes. Within weeks, Merhige said, the port authority plans to install a stationary system that can detect radiation coming from containers as they pass by it on trucks or railroad cars.

DKL International, founded in 1996, first targeted LifeGuard at search-and-rescue teams. ``The lost child in the woods, was what our thought was,'' Sidman said.

The company expanded the technology to search disaster areas, such as earthquake sites and the Quecreek Coal Mine where rescuers saved nine trapped miners in July. Belgian and Japanese officials have bought LifeGuard to detect illegal immigrants trying to sneak into their countries inside truck trailers and container ships, Sidman said.

Two days after the terrorist attacks, rescue workers at the World Trade Center in New York City called in DKL, hoping LifeGuard would help them find survivors. That afternoon, they focused on an area where they thought a missing fire chief might have been buried.

LifeGuard picked up a signal there, Sidman said. Rescue workers rushed in, uncovered some rubble and banged a sledge hammer three times against a steel beam.

They heard three faint taps in response. They dug through the day, continuing to bang and hear responses, until the taps stopped. When they pulled out the fire chief, they learned he had died within the previous few hours.

DielectroKinetic Laboratories (DKL) brought out its LifeGuard, with models ranging from $6,000 to $14,000.

DKL claimed its device could identify a human heartbeat 500 yards away, through concrete, earth, or water. The DKL LifeGuard was tested by Sandia Labs in April, 1998. The device failed to perform any better than expected by chance. In October 1998 Sandia took a DKL LifeGuard apart and found that the electronic components could not possibly function as advertised.

It's a con.

http://skepdic.com/refuge/graphics/model3.gif

From the Sandia NL site

Murray says the DOE request was related to his responsibilities as project leader for Sandia's and DOE's entry-control project. "We work in the area of access control, and other departments in our center deal with intrusion-detection sensors," he said.

The device tested consists essentially of a black rectangular box about 3 inches tall, 1 inch thick, and 8 inches long. When a handle that comes out the box is used, the box swings freely. There's also an antenna, a small laser similar to those in lecture pointers, and a red LED light. There are some electronics inside.

The Sandians first established a formal test protocol, then conducted the test March 20 in a remote Sandia area on Kirtland Air Force Base. Five large plastic packing crates were set up in a line at 30-ft. intervals. The goal was to see if a test operator, using the instrument, could detect someone concealed inside only one of the five crates. The operator was provided by the DielectroKinetic Laboratories and was a high-ranking member of its management.

The test was double-blind and random. Neither the instrument operator nor the three Sandia investigators knew which crate contained the human test subject until after the test results were tabulated.

The test set-up manager used a sealed, randomly generated test schedule to direct the test target (the human) into one of the five containers. Using the device, the test operator then attempted to determine which container the human was in. The DKL operator "scanned" the crates from a distance of 50 feet, well within its stated capabilities.

First, a baseline evaluation was done to see if the instrument appeared to be "operating correctly." The operator and the investigators were all allowed to see which container the human test subject entered.

Under this noncontrolled condition -- when the instrument operator already knew which crate contained the human -- he was quickly successful 10 times in 10 trials. The same was true, of course, for everyone else present.

All subsequent tests were controlled. The test operator did not see which crate the test subject entered. Nor did the Sandia investigators. No one learned the full results until the entire set of tests was completed.

A one-in-five probability of success
For each trial, one human test target was inside one of the five crates. The operator had a one-in-five probability of success by chance alone. Under these conditions, say the Sandians, the test operator began taking a much longer time to "scan" the crates.

The tests were spread over about four-and-one-half hours of set-up and test time. The DKL operator had just six successes in 25 trials.

A third test series was similar but a little more complicated. Multiple human targets could be randomly hidden in crates. But, again, the results were consistent with random chance.

The Sandians say the test operator offered several rationalizations for the difficulty of detecting the test subject and for the chance test results under controlled conditions. He said, for example, that the "sharp edges" of the crate were distorting the field and were interfering with the detection. However, the Sandia investigators point out that the manufacturer's published capabilities for the device include statements such as "penetrates all forms of camouflaging" and "no known countermeasures."

Although the empirical test was the core of the analysis, the Sandia team also briefly examined DKL product literature about the advertised physics behind its operation. The product literature says the instrument antenna detects the electrical field generated by the beating human heart, but the Sandian team found the idea put forth for that process "clearly wrong."

The Sandians point out that the heart beats at a rate of 1.2 to 2.0 hertz and the wavelength of two hertz is 93,150 miles. "The 15-inch antenna on the LifeGuard is entirely inadequate for receiving signals of that wavelength," they report.

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