Tag Archives: simon a cole

The Double Loop Podcast Discusses Research From the Self-Styled “Inventor of Cross-Fingerprint Recognition”

(Part of the biometric product marketing expert series)

Apologies in advance, but if you’re NOT interested in fingerprints, you’ll want to skip over this Bredemarket identity/biometrics post, my THIRD one about fingerprint uniqueness and/or similarity or whatever because the difference between uniqueness and similarity really isn’t important, is it?

Yes, one more post about the study whose principal author was Gabe Guo, the self-styled “inventor of cross-fingerprint recognition.”

From https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabeguo/.

In case you missed it

In case you missed my previous writings on this topic:

But don’t miss this

Well, two other people have weighed in on the paper: Glenn Langenburg and Eric Ray, co-presenters on the Double Loop Podcast. (“Double loop” is a fingerprint thing.)

From https://doublelooppodcast.com/about-us/.

So who are Langenburg and Ray? You can read their full biographies here, but both of them are certified latent print examiners. This certification, administered by the International Association for Identification, is designed to ensure that the certified person is knowledgeable about both latent (crime scene) fingerprints and known fingerprints, and how to determine whether or not two prints come from the same person. If someone is going to testify in court about fingerprint comparison, this certification is recognized as a way to designate someone as an expert on the subject, as opposed to a college undergraduate. (As of today, the list of IAI certified latent print examiners as of December 2023 can be found here in PDF form.)

Podcast episode 264 dives into the Columbia study in detail, including what the study said, what it didn’t say, and what the publicity for the study said that doesn’t match the study.

Eric and Glenn respond to the recent allegations that a computer science undergraduate at Columbia University, using Artificial Intelligence, has “proven that fingerprints aren’t unique” or at least…that’s how the media is mischaracterizing a new published paper by Guo, et al. The guys dissect the actual publication (“Unveiling intra-person fingerprint similarity via deep contrastive learning” in Science Advances, 2024 by Gabe Guo, et al.). They state very clearly what the paper actually does show, which is a far cry from the headlines and even public dissemination originating from Columbia University and the author. The guys talk about some of the important limitations of the study and how limited the application is to real forensic investigations. They then explore some of the media and social media outlets that have clearly misunderstood this paper and seem to have little understanding of forensic science. Finally, Eric and Glenn look at some quotes and comments from knowledgeable sources who also have recognized the flaws in the paper, the authors’ exaggerations, and lack of understanding of the value of their findings.

From https://doublelooppodcast.com/2024/01/fingerprints-proven-by-ai-to-not-be-unique-episode-264/.

Yes, the episode is over an hour long, but if you want to hear a good discussion of the paper that goes beyond the headlines, I strongly recommend that you listen to it.

TL;DR

If you’re in a TL;DR frame of mind, I’ll just offer one tidbit: “uniqueness” and “similarity” are not identical. Frankly, they’re not even similar.

Will Ferrell and Chad Smith, or maybe vice versa. Fair use. From https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/will-ferrell-chad-smith-red-hot-benefit-chili-peppers-6898348/, originally from NBC.

Words matter, or the latest from Simon A. Cole

I’m going to stop talking about writing text for a bit and look at the latest goings-on in the forensic world. Why? After seeing a recent LinkedIn post from Itiel Dror, I began wondering what Simon A. Cole was doing these days.

Cole is probably most famous for his book Suspect Identities, which (among other things) questioned the way in which fingerprint evidence was presented as irrefutable. Cole’s book was published in 2001, and in the following years, additional questions on fingerprint conclusions (such as the contradictory conclusions in the Brandon Mayfield case) culminated in the 2009 release of a landmark report from the National Academy of Sciences, Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward. Among other things, this report changed the way in which forensic scientists expressed their conclusions.

Which brings us back to the question of what Simon A. Cole is doing these days.

OK, I lied. I DIDN’T stop talking about writing text. Because Cole’s forensic studies are all about the words that are used when talking about forensic conclusions.

Earlier this year, Cole co-authored a paper entitled “How Can a Forensic Result Be a ‘Decision’? A Critical Analysis of Ongoing Reforms of Forensic Reporting Formats for Federal Examiners.” As the beginning of the abstract to this paper reveals, Cole and his co-author Alex Biedermann believe that the choice of words is very important.

The decade since the publication of the 2009 National Research Council report on forensic science has seen the increasing use of a new word to describe forensic results. What were once called “facts,” “determinations,” “conclusions,” or “opinions,” are increasingly described as “decisions.”

Cole’s and Biedermann’s paper looks at that one word, “decisions,” from both a lay perspective and a scientific perspective. It also looks at other words that could be used, such as “interpretation” and “findings.” In the conclusion, the paper leans toward the latter.

…we tend to think that “findings” is the most appropriate of all the reporting terms floating around. “Findings” does the best job of conveying—to the expert and customer alike—that the report concerns the evidence alone. Not the evidence combined with other evidence. And, not the evidence combined with preferences. “Findings” helps more clearly distinguish between the analysis of the evidence and the inference to be drawn from that analysis. And, “findings” is commonly used in other fields of science to describe the analysis of (empirical) evidence.

The whole discussion might seem like a bunch of quibbling, but if I’m in court being charged with a murder I didn’t commit, it makes a huge difference to me whether a fingerprint comparison is reported as a “fact,” a “likelihood ratio,” a “decision,” a “finding”…or an “interpretation”…or an “opinion.” That list of possible words covers the entire spectrum.

Even if you’re not a forensic examiner (and I’m not), this precision in word choice is admirable. Especially when the life or death of a person is potentially at stake.