George Maschke

Polygraph or "lie detector" testing has long been discredited from a scientific standpoint. Yet it has been embraced by the United States government for decades, and in 2020 it is the centerpiece of American counterintelligence policy. Employees and contractors of such agencies as the CIA, NSA, FBI, and numerous others are required to undergo pre-employment and recurring polygraph screening. Yet there is no documented instance of routine polygraph screening ever catching a spy. This talk will address how this state of affairs came to be. It will further address polygraphy's scientific shortcomings and why it poses a threat to innocent test takers, and it will explain proven strategies for passing (or beating) a polygraph "test." The talk will also address the U.S. government's recent efforts to suppress the teaching of methods for fooling the polygraph. This topic will be of particular interest to the hacker community because many information technology jobs with the U.S. government and its contractors require that the applicant submit to polygraph screening.