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American Morning
Interview with Bradley Horowitz
Aired April 05, 2003 - 09:23 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Joining us from San Francisco to explain the techniques used in determining whether such tapes are authentic, Bradley Horowitz, founder of Virage, a biometric and voice recognition company.
Good morning to you, sir. Thanks for being here.
BRADLEY HOROWITZ, FOUNDER, VIRAGE INC.: Thank you. Good morning.
COLLINS: This is incredibly interesting stuff. If you would could you take a minute to walk us through the process? What exactly is involved here?
HOROWITZ: Well, in analyzing these tapes, they are interested, first of all, in who is on the tape, as well as when was it recorded, and where was it recorded. And technology can be applied toward the first question, who is actually there? So the field of biometrics is concerned with using characteristics, such as a person's voice, a person's face, a person's fingerprint to validate that a person is who they claim to be.
So that's the first step, is to do a technical analysis. This technical analysis will be one prong, and in addition, they'll rely on cultural analyses. They will analyze the content and the semantics of what the speaker is saying.
The ambient conditions, so in the recent tapes of Saddam walking through a crowd, or someone purporting to be Saddam, they're looking for ambient clues -- the weather, what are people wearing, does it look like people are out in 100 degree heat? What is he wearing? Is it consistent what we've seen him do in wartime in previous scenarios? So...
COLLINS: And Bradley, in particular, the tape we are seeing now, I know that we had talked a little bit about the black smoke that you see in the background, which makes us believe that quite possibly it could be a current tape.
But I think one of the challenges, I would imagine, anyway, one of the challenges for you would be, he's not speaking. And I know that when this particular individual speaks, it's very hard to fake their own voice, I mean, for someone else to fake a voice, right?
HOROWITZ: That's exactly right. And an impersonator, someone who mimics someone's voice, often does sleight-of-hand, or sleight-of- ear, with the phrasing and the intonation and the mannerisms and things like that. But a person's voice, the actual spectral characteristics, is much like a fingerprint. And we can analyze that with a computer to determine whether or not that speaker is genuine or not to some degree of accuracy.
COLLINS: So how long does it take to do one of these tests, and how accurate are they?
HOROWITZ: Well, the technical analysis is actually pretty quick. You can run the content through a system, and get an answer with a degree of accuracy relatively quickly. The more complicated part is this cultural analysis that takes into account all kinds of factors.
And I don't want to underestimate the value of getting somebody who actually has seen Saddam in person and sat with him and heard his voice. We, as human beings, tend to be very adept at identifying other people. In fact, babies, it's one of the first cognitive skills that they develop, is the ability to recognize their mother.
So bringing in analysts who actually have domain knowledge of that individual is also an important but, unfortunately, time- consuming task in assessing this content.
COLLINS: All right, very interesting stuff. Bradley Horowitz, founder of Virage Biometrics, thanks so much for being with us this morning.
HOROWITZ: Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired April 5, 2003 - 09:23 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Joining us from San Francisco to explain the techniques used in determining whether such tapes are authentic, Bradley Horowitz, founder of Virage, a biometric and voice recognition company.
Good morning to you, sir. Thanks for being here.
BRADLEY HOROWITZ, FOUNDER, VIRAGE INC.: Thank you. Good morning.
COLLINS: This is incredibly interesting stuff. If you would could you take a minute to walk us through the process? What exactly is involved here?
HOROWITZ: Well, in analyzing these tapes, they are interested, first of all, in who is on the tape, as well as when was it recorded, and where was it recorded. And technology can be applied toward the first question, who is actually there? So the field of biometrics is concerned with using characteristics, such as a person's voice, a person's face, a person's fingerprint to validate that a person is who they claim to be.
So that's the first step, is to do a technical analysis. This technical analysis will be one prong, and in addition, they'll rely on cultural analyses. They will analyze the content and the semantics of what the speaker is saying.
The ambient conditions, so in the recent tapes of Saddam walking through a crowd, or someone purporting to be Saddam, they're looking for ambient clues -- the weather, what are people wearing, does it look like people are out in 100 degree heat? What is he wearing? Is it consistent what we've seen him do in wartime in previous scenarios? So...
COLLINS: And Bradley, in particular, the tape we are seeing now, I know that we had talked a little bit about the black smoke that you see in the background, which makes us believe that quite possibly it could be a current tape.
But I think one of the challenges, I would imagine, anyway, one of the challenges for you would be, he's not speaking. And I know that when this particular individual speaks, it's very hard to fake their own voice, I mean, for someone else to fake a voice, right?
HOROWITZ: That's exactly right. And an impersonator, someone who mimics someone's voice, often does sleight-of-hand, or sleight-of- ear, with the phrasing and the intonation and the mannerisms and things like that. But a person's voice, the actual spectral characteristics, is much like a fingerprint. And we can analyze that with a computer to determine whether or not that speaker is genuine or not to some degree of accuracy.
COLLINS: So how long does it take to do one of these tests, and how accurate are they?
HOROWITZ: Well, the technical analysis is actually pretty quick. You can run the content through a system, and get an answer with a degree of accuracy relatively quickly. The more complicated part is this cultural analysis that takes into account all kinds of factors.
And I don't want to underestimate the value of getting somebody who actually has seen Saddam in person and sat with him and heard his voice. We, as human beings, tend to be very adept at identifying other people. In fact, babies, it's one of the first cognitive skills that they develop, is the ability to recognize their mother.
So bringing in analysts who actually have domain knowledge of that individual is also an important but, unfortunately, time- consuming task in assessing this content.
COLLINS: All right, very interesting stuff. Bradley Horowitz, founder of Virage Biometrics, thanks so much for being with us this morning.
HOROWITZ: Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
