Detect a lie over the internet

[Plex]

Have you ever wondered if someone you are chatting to is telling the truth? New lie detector software from high-tech powerhouse Israel says it can show you � across the internet.

"We tested it with the (former US president Bill) Clinton speech about his relationship with his intern Monica Lewinsky," said Zvi Marom, head of the company behind the product.

"When he says 'I have never had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky', the lie detector's needle jumps through the roof," said the founder and CEO of BATM Advanced Communications, a high-tech firm in an industrial park on the outskirts of Netanya on Israel's northern coast.

Since signing a deal in December with internet telephony giant Skype, the company's server has crashed five times after tens of thousands of web users rushed to download the lie detector, offered for free.

"This is a really neat application, and the kind of thing we want to see more of," said a statement from Paul Amery, director of the Skype Developer programme.

The six employees of BATM subsidiary KishKish (www.kishkish.com), in Israel and Bulgaria, developed the add-on, which has an interface resembling a real polygraph, complete with monitors and needles.

It is one of many new applications for internet telephony, which is rapidly becoming one of the most popular methods of communication.

The lie detector monitors in real time the stress levels in a speaker's voice.

"In the end, the voice is the biggest manifesto of what we think," said Marom.

Voice stress analysis, or VSA, is a disputed technology that attempts to measure stress levels by observing the amplitude of tremors in a person's voice. The Israeli military is often cited as a major user of this technology.

A user of the internet lie detector needs to talk for 15 seconds to calibrate his or her voice, then sound waves start to peak if stress levels are high, a light flashes from green to red and a needle jumps to the end of a scale.

Unfazed

Despite little evidence to prove that lie-detecting machines work, let alone over the internet, KishKish and Skype clients remain unfazed.

Employees spend hours responding to emails and forums from thousands of users across the world, and they brush off criticism on their web forum from people having trouble using the tool.

"If you just make something up for the sake of it, it won't work because you won't be stressed," explained Alex Rosenbaum (35), head of development at KishKish.

The company said it tested the tool on an insurance company that reported it was more than 90 percent accurate. It also said it had requests from police services to adapt the software, and even offers from former Russian spies to help develop it.

"I get a lot of emails about people wanting to carry out professional interviews over Skype, but we say you should check with your legal authorities," Rosenbaum said.

The lie detector warns users when they are being monitored to avoid legal problems, he added.

Working with Skype for more than a year, KishKish has developed a number of add-ons for internet telephone services, including an answering machine, contacts book and Short Message Service (SMS), but none has been as popular as the lie detector.

KishKish sees the project as a further attempt to stretch the possibilities of internet communications, and for now � like many internet start ups � it offers the product for free.

"We're trying to play in the right area and build the correct business model for the future," said Rosenbaum.

Workers at the small office, in a landscape of palm tree-lined roads, shopping malls and beachside apartments, spend many hours playing with ideas for a range of new products.

The next one they plan to release is a "Love-o-meter", designed to detect emotional interest levels across the web.

"They'll like it in France," Marom predicted.

Source: http://cooltech.iafrica.com/features/561676.htm