A nasty smell

May 25, 2005 3:06 PM

Israeli and US authorities work together on a "human scent bank". Ominously, though, somebody else had that very same idea first.
posted by Skeptic (17 comments total)

What is the equivalent to Godwin for the Stasi? I hear that the United States, Israel and Europe track fingerprints of suspected criminals... just like the Stasi! Seriously, where is the connection, besides insinuation?
posted by blahblahblah at 3:36 PM on May 25, 2005

blahblahblah (the aptly named): The connection is simply that, when I read the news, I couldn't avoid thinking "Hey, that sounds familiar!". Right after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Stasi's human scent collection was often given as the perfect illustration of its controlfreakishness. And it is therefore quite ominous that now people like you get to regard it as a perfectly normal method to track criminals, on a par with fingerprints.

Besides, no matter how you look at it keeping BO jars is seriously creepy, and probably not all that useful, law-enforcement-wise.
posted by Skeptic at 3:47 PM on May 25, 2005

I remember thinking, upon learning that the United States indeed had weapons, "You know, there was another group of people who had weapons, we used to call them Nazis." I also remember thinking that thought upon learning that Americans also had cars, armies, laws, prisons, ten fingers and toes, and lots of other "coincidences" (*wink* *wink* *nudge* *nudge*).

This should be an example of how to frame a post in a omnious shitty undesireable manner.
posted by dios at 3:59 PM on May 25, 2005

blahblahblah, remember: Everybody is a suspect...So just look dumb. It's the best defense.
posted by gorgor_balabala at 3:59 PM on May 25, 2005

The question is, did the Stasi ever develop cryptic (but intriguing!) "'vehicle-stopping' technology"?
I guess the wall would do the trick.
posted by gilgamix at 4:02 PM on May 25, 2005

"Big Brother" as a flag?

I got a question for all your science experts: is there an absolute limit as to how overused a cliche can become?
posted by dios at 4:02 PM on May 25, 2005

dios, if those are the most sophisticated connections you can come up with between Americans and Nazis, well, you're a harmless little furball, aren't you.
posted by gorgor_balabala at 4:06 PM on May 25, 2005

so, blahblah, dios, gilgamix, you guys aren't freaked out at all by this technology? I mean, yeah, maybe there's some Godwin action going on here, but the first link is still interesting, and creepy.

It's a little much to think that law enforcement might keep a piece of information on me whose primary use would be to set a police dog on my scent.
posted by gurple at 4:10 PM on May 25, 2005

Well it IS rather amusing to see dios go apeshit just because someone mentioned the US government was doing something. If this post was supposed to achieve nothing else it seems to have succeeded.

Oh and dios: Stasi = East Germany, hence postwar, hence post-nazi. You seem to need the guidance.
posted by clevershark at 4:12 PM on May 25, 2005

That's considered "going apeshit"?

Wow. I'm sure glad I have a self-imposed rule about not posting to the Metafilter after having a drink... it might get too scary for you.

And I am well aware of the difference between the Stasi and the Nazis. Nevertheless, this is more hysterical bullshit, in the same vein as Godwinism, complete with Big Brother chicken little-ism. But feel free to have a circle jerk about how Bush is single-handedly creating a fascist state by permitting advancement in criminal forensic technology.
posted by dios at 4:22 PM on May 25, 2005

Feel free to live there after you did nothing to stop it.
posted by gorgor_balabala at 4:25 PM on May 25, 2005

Look, it isn't that surveillance technology isn't scary, but this post is nothing but insinuation and is therefore quite sketchy. There are a heck of a lot more invasive technologies being developed for law enforcement (like yesterday's post), and better reasons to worry about "Big Brother," that the announcement that Israel and the US are considering researching how to build a scent bank. This post, however, is low on content and just dripping with heavy-handed implications ("ominously").

The technology for tracking is only going to grow, regardless of how enlightened our government is or is not. The question is one of national policy, and there are much better ways to frame the debate than this post.
posted by blahblahblah at 4:26 PM on May 25, 2005

I'm sure their scent bank would be easily foiled by my weapon of ass destruction.
posted by me & my monkey at 4:45 PM on May 25, 2005

Now, what would really be creative is if someone could come up with some kind of "mechanical hound" that could use these scents to track criminals and miscreants in real time.
posted by weston at 5:25 PM on May 25, 2005

dios: Anything involving the Stasi deserves "Big Brother" as a flag. You don't like it? Tough shit.
posted by Skeptic at 10:15 PM on May 25, 2005

This post is odious. Or is that oh dios? I'm not sure.

So Bush is now guilty of saving farts in a jar. Only thing that bothers me, is what happens if someone drops he collection and it all breaks loose at once? Hmmm?

I'm rather on the side of blahblah on this one. It doesn't sound ominous to me, certainly not like plenty of other things they are trying to make.

As for the mechanical hound, I recall having heard about a machine that could smell people, in use in the Viet Nam war.
posted by Goofyy at 5:48 AM on May 26, 2005

It's a little much to think that law enforcement might keep a piece of information on me whose primary use would be to set a police dog on my scent.

Surely you mean a flying, lethal dart-equipped, police robot.
posted by fshgrl at 8:05 AM on May 26, 2005