
The Lie Generator: Inside the Black Mirror World of Polygraph Job Screenings - rms
https://www.wired.com/story/inside-polygraph-job-screening-black-mirror/
======
wamsachel
I once was gassing up at a station, and for whatever reason the card reader on
the pump wasn't charging, but would let me pump gas anyways. So me, and
everyone else who'd used that pump that day, received a phone call from the
police telling me to go pay for the gas. I figured it was just an honest
mistake and didn't think anything of it.

Fast forward a bit, to where I am undergoing a polygraph examination for the
NSA. The exam made me uncomfortable and nervous, but I thought everything was
going well. Except for when my interviewer came back and told me I was showing
sensitivity towards the hiding crimes question. WTF? And when they do this,
they're just giving you enough rope to see if you hang yourself with it. But I
had no idea why (or even _if_ ) I was showing sensitivity to this question.

They called me in for a 2nd polygraph, this time I didn't show sensitivity to
hiding crimes, and I figured I was good to go.

No. I get called into a 3rd exam (each exam was separated by a couple months,
mind you). This time the interviewer told me "You did better at the hiding
crimes question than I thought you would" W.T.F.?!?! The interviewer then left
the room and came back with a manilla folder, from which he procures a piece
paper which he reads that I had a suspected larceny charge back at home. I
honestly had no idea what he was talking about until I remembered the gas
station incident. But after I try telling him about it, he tells me that he
doesn't believe me and that he thinks I stole that gas. This leaves me
extremely flustered and the rest of the polygraph was a train wreck.

3 strikes and I'm out, my conditional employment with them was terminated.

What irks me the most though, is that when I got back home I retrieved the
larceny report from the court house, and in that document the whole story was
laid out and my account of the situation was corroborated. So what the hell?
Why throw me through such a ringer?

Fuck the polygraph.

~~~
escherplex
_...received a phone call from the police telling me to go pay for the gas. I
figured it was just an honest mistake and didn 't think anything of it_

So, given that you paid-up for the gas when requested, you didn't _intend to
permanently deprive the owner of it_ which suggests that technically it wasn't
larceny and could have been sloughed-off as a misunderstanding. Given you were
dealing with an NSA interview, sounds like they were playing a psychological
setup game to determine how calmly you would respond under pressure in the
context of an intimidating polygraph test. Seems like they weren't too
thrilled with the responses they elicited. Would you really want to work for
an organization that plays those sort of mind games?

~~~
wamsachel
>Would you really want to work for an organization that plays those sort of
mind games? reply

No, I don't anymore. But at the time I was excited for the opportunity

~~~
wolco
You dodged a bullet.

------
honkycat
It was my understanding that polygraph tests were mostly useless and just a
way to claim someone is lying through clever use of pseudoscience

~~~
meowface
They're not useless, but yes, they are a form of trickery. It's a
psychological technique that tries to make people who are lying or hiding
things more likely to be nervous and more likely to confess (or be led down a
line of questioning which eventually reveals new information).

The actual results from the machine are pretty much just a red herring, but
that doesn't necessarily mean the machines have no valid uses. If use of a
polygraph has helped tricked even one criminal into (truthfully) confessing or
scared away even one person with malicious intent, then they're useful.

I wouldn't want a polygraph to be used for evidence in court, but I would want
them to be used if I were interviewing for FBI/CIA/NSA. (But I definitely
wouldn't want them to be used for firefighter and parademic positions.) I know
it's a bit paradoxical that they can be both useful and a sham, but I think
that's how law enforcement views them, too. This article presents a lot of
issues with how they're used, but I wouldn't expect them to be phased out for
a very long time (unless someone makes a version that actually has more
scientific validity).

~~~
dcuthbertson
Polygraphs should nevern be used. An administrator can interpret the results
any way they see fit. It's a perfect avenue for bigotry and other unfair
hiring practices. It has no place in society.

~~~
meowface
Again, it's not about the results. But I agree it shouldn't be used for
hiring, except for extremely sensitive positions.

~~~
lovich
Its not about the results and that lets the person running the test interpret
things anyway they want. We have seen time, and time again that this leads to
all sorts of discrimination that is both against our society's morals and not
actually useful as filtering people as well the person doing the
discriminating thinks.

------
nimbius
True story: we hired a guy who failed his polygraph to work in the _motor
pool_ for a local municipality. the test was required because he would be
working on police cars and fire trucks.

six years later and hes still working for us, we get an order from that same
municipality to overhaul the intercoolers on nearly two dozen cop cars. I
called up the pool manager and asked about the polygraph, and his response was
they use outside contractors to get around the fact they have _no_ certified
mechanics.

------
headcanon
I was looking for a statement by the "other side", someone in government who
could give a justification as to why they're being used.

Is it simply because its the "standard" now, and bureaucrats don't want to
stick their neck out by getting rid of it? Is the fact that it is a machine
that has been around for awhile, regardless of efficacy, give people that much
comfort? Or are enough people really that misinformed?

Its a bit like marijuana legalization coverage - its rare to find arguments
for maintaining the status quo as opposed to getting rid of it.

~~~
bilbo0s
Lots of technology doesn't work, but we're still going to use it. Sometimes
because it's better than nothing. Sometimes because no one gets fired for
using <insert standard technology here>. And sometimes just because the
politicians owe favors to their corporate handlers.

Lie detectors, Sea Wolf submarines, facial recognition software, etc etc etc.
Many security technologies lie on the spectrum from "impractical" to out and
out "doesn't work". But we just have to get comfortable with them, because
they aren't going away.

~~~
s73v3r_
That's a rather defeatist attitude to take.

------
Lazare
The continued use of polygraph "tests", as if they have any validity
whatsoever, is honestly a scandal.

~~~
lostlogin
They have been in the news recently in relation to the current Supreme Court
fiasco. Why are they they a thing? Who likes them?

~~~
Lazare
Well, they don't have any particular _accuracy_ , but they do allow the
operator to generate whatever result they like in a usefully opaque manner.

The linked article discusses a large number of cases of racial bias. Obviously
if you _want_ to be biased in your hiring, but you want to hide it, a
polygraph is very convenient way to manufacture some cover. (Alternatively of
course, some of the police departments may have had no such intention, and
merely been the victim of biased polygraph operators.)

As for the recent Supreme Court fiasco, incidents 35 years in the past rarely
turn up much hard evidence. A polygraph is, again, a very useful way to
manufacture something that looks _like_ evidence. (And that's true regardless
of the truth of Ford's claims. Just because polygraph results are _fake_
doesn't mean they aren't accurate sometimes!)

In short:

> Who likes them?

The people who commission them, because they can get the results they want,
and the people who operate them, because it's a pretty well paying job.

------
pixl97
[https://antipolygraph.org/](https://antipolygraph.org/)

The lie behind the lie detector.

~~~
stickfigure
Ignore the cheesy web design, the PDF book is a _fascinating_ read and goes
into the detail of how polygraphs work. They're a bit more complicated than
"oh your heart rate goes up", and yes they're complete BS.

------
arminiusreturns
Getting boxed is always about who gives the test, which also includes what and
how questions are asked. That's why you would always prefer some old salty
crusty bastard who can see through bullshit vs some young FNG who thinks he's
saving the world one box at a time, which is where stories of fully qualified
people getting dropped mostly come from.

------
nraynaud
In France in the 90's there was an obsession with analysing the handwriting of
applicants, the same kind of bunk science. As far as I know it's gone now (I
guess nobody applies with a hand-written letter).

------
mindcrime
Polygraphs are pseudo-scientific nonsense with no actual validity. Why would
anybody use that as part of a job screening?

~~~
crooked-v
It gives employers a way to "scientifically" justify their hiring practices
against discrimination lawsuits.

~~~
dvtrn
IANAL but what's to prevent the litigating party from immediately filing a
Daubert motion against an employer who tries to say they used the polygraph to
'scientifically' disqualify a prospective job seeker-since you can't just hand
a polygraph machine to any on-staff HR rep and go "No go see if Bob here
_really_ graduated from MIT like he says", and the wealth of research telling
us how problematic results can be?

~~~
crooked-v
> IANAL but what's to prevent the litigating party from immediately filing

Not having the money to do so.

~~~
dvtrn
Heh, okay that's a fair and valid counterpoint, but entertain the
hypothetical-I'm genuinely curious how that could play out if someone took a
prospective employer to court following a polygraph that disqualifies them
from further interviews.

~~~
mc32
Probably DQing yourself from future employment consideration.

Prospective employers don’t prefer litigious candidates. (seemingly regardless
of merit).

~~~
dvtrn
My apologies, I was hoping from the context here that my "how would it play
out" question would have implied "how would it play out _in court_ " since the
comment that originally got my curiosity pumping spoke directly to
hypothetical discrimination lawsuits.

------
pippy
I'm surprised a 1930's era pseudoscience is still hanging around professional
law enforcement circles. The optimist in me hopes it's a clever ruse to screen
people who simply aren't team fit. The pessimist tells me they're the caliber
of people who also think calling in a psychic to help with murder cases.

Modern fMRI technologies can tell if people are fabricating stories. There's
actual science behind them.

~~~
yayana
> Modern fMRI technologies can tell if people are fabricating stories. There's
> actual science behind them

I think there was some actual science behind the polygraph too, but just
having actual science on poorly informed/motivated participants isn't really
enough for tech that will have long term adversaries.

I can't recall if 1/3 or 2/3 of myth busters staff could beat the fMRI once
prepared and motivated.

Initial experiments on disinterested subjects given no information about past
experiments may have legitimately been about the same for both fMRI and
polygraph (at the respective times when participants could have had no
information)..

~~~
wongarsu
Apparently in 3 tries Mythbusters managed to fool the fMRI lie test once. They
didn't experiment much with different techniques, I would fully expect success
rates to get much worse than that as people get more time to find good
techniques for beating the test.

[https://mythresults.com/episode93](https://mythresults.com/episode93)

~~~
lostlogin
It wouldn’t be hard to make the scan uninterpretable either, which is a
seperate failure mode.

------
mikestew
Boy, they sure didn't open with a case I could be sympathetic with. Lied to
the state police, lied when applying to a city PD, but _this_ time, oh, this
time he's telling the truth!

My guess is, word gets around, and "inconsistencies" is just the excuse they
need. I'm not saying it makes it right, because next it's going to mere
coincidence that a black woman had "inconsistencies" when applying. But in
this case, I might be willing to let it go.

~~~
crooked-v
> He had first applied to the Connecticut State Police and was failed for
> deception about occasional marijuana use as a minor. He then tried again
> with a police department in New Britain, where a polygraph test showed him
> lying about his criminal and sexual history.

> This time he had failed the New Haven polygraph for something cryptically
> called “inconsistencies.” “[But] I’m not hiding anything,” he said at the
> hearing. “I was being straight and honest and I’ve never been in trouble
> with the law. I’m not lying about anything.”

His argument seems to be that all of the polygraph tests were consistently
wrong and that he didn't do any of those things. This is consistent with later
comments by other people in the article:

> While undergoing a polygraph examination for a position at an FBI field
> office in New Haven in 2010, a black man was told that his recollection of
> using marijuana only a few times in high school was showing as deceptive,
> and that he should change his answer. Later, he wrote: “I was convinced that
> [the examiner] may have made an assumption, based on a stereotype about
> African Americans and drug use, and used that stereotype to profile me. I
> also realized that what [he] was asking of me would reflect negatively
> either way—if I didn’t change my answer I was being deceptive, and if I did
> change my answer I was lying on my application.”

~~~
mikestew
Yeah, I read it several times, and it still came out to me as addressing only
the final application. But now that you point it out, it seems more likely to
address all applications.

Regardless, that's about as far as I got because my two personal experiences
with polygraphs tells me they're about on the same level as dowsing rods.
"Have you ever used marijuana?"

"No", he said, higher than a kite having smoked a bowl an hour before the
test. It was asked both times, passed both times.

~~~
leetcrew
what kind of job hooks you up to a polygraph to ask if you've used marijuana
and doesn't bother to give you a gc/ms screen?

~~~
mikestew
The kind where 30 years ago peeing in a cup wasn’t nearly the industry it is
now, and therefore not as affordable or available at all. That’s what kind.
But that also kinnnda wasn’t the point of the story.

------
kbos87
Across lie detectors, forensic testing, and every similar discipline there
should be frequent blind auditing by a neutral third party, and the results
should be made available to the public.

~~~
nraynaud
I don't see how that would change things. The TSA got 97% failure rate in
independent testing, did you see any change at the airport?

------
jackpirate
Obligatory link to [http://antipolygraph.org](http://antipolygraph.org), which
provides detailed research on why the polygraph is ineffective, details on how
to defeat the polygraph, manuals used to train polygraph investigators, and
many other juicy tidbits.

------
Covzire
I wonder what the correlation is between high neuroticism and failing a
polygraph.

------
your-nanny
Might as well use divining rods.

------
s73v3r_
And here I thought having to do FizzBuzz for two different interviewers was
onerous.

~~~
mirceal
I hope this is a joke

~~~
maxxxxx
I think that's pretty obvious.

~~~
monocasa
I've had people get visibly angry with me that I'd dare suggest that they do
fizzbuzz.

~~~
paulie_a
Because it is an incredibly stupid test.

~~~
monocasa
That senior devs with decades of experience fail.

I've literally seen someone who supposedly wrote firmware for the space
shuttle fail fizzbuzz.

~~~
paulie_a
If the candidate was verifiably a NASA engineer the person half assed it
probably just didn't care. I'm surprised that person just didnt respond with a
very intricate set of functions that resulted in a middle finger. That's
honestly insulting to use that as a test for a senior. Clearly there was no
vetting process prior to a coding evaluation and the hiring process needs a
lot of work.

~~~
monocasa
They worked for one of NASA's contractors, not NASA itself.

Have you been involved in the hiring process? Most of the people actively
looking for work don't have a job for a reason. It's not 'insulting' to see if
you can even vaguely do the job in an interview.

There's only so much vetting you can do before the 'can you vaguely code your
way out of a wet paper bag' step.

Also: you didnt used to work in Boulder recently, did you?

~~~
paulie_a
Yes I have been involved in that process at multiple companies. If they were
in for an actual onsite interview the only thing I cared about was how they
effectively they communicate and their thought process to a problem. Vetting
isn't hard, the phone screen should have already done that well before a
single line of code is written.

No I have never worked in Boulder.

~~~
monocasa
You literally can't tell until they write code. Having done hundreds of
interviews, that's the clearest take away I have.

The candidates you're trying to avoid are really good at passing a phone
screen since they have a lot of experience at it, constantly looking for jobs.

~~~
paulie_a
You literally can tell by asking a couple questions and letting them run on.
You can smell bullshit over the phone pretty quickly.

