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Airport Security vs. Cyborg Steve Mann
CompaniaHill writes: "The New York Times (free reg, etc.) has a story on University of Toronto engineering-professor-turned-cyborg Steve Mann's recent run-in with humorless airport security. Apparently his preplanning and documents were sufficient to get him through the Toronto airport security on his way to St. John's in Newfoundland, but not sufficient to get him through the St. John's airport security on his way home. Two days later, after strip-searches, forced removal of implants and x-raying and other ill-handling of delicate hardware, he returned home in a wheelchair. Mann's lawyer is attempting to recover the cost of the $56,800 in damaged hardware, while his doctors are studying his body's response to the removal of the implants, some of which he has had for over twenty years."
Good Salon article at http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/1999/10/20/cybor g/ if anyone's interested in more...
Welcome to Canada... bend over please.
crazy dynamite monkey
my god! what good are cyborgs if they can't even contend with simple airport security officers?
darth vader would be ashamed!
Just raise the taxes on crack.
For those of you who don't know, Prof. Mann is generally considered to be the "Father" of Wearable computers, having contstructed one of the first ones out of an Apple 2 in the early 80s to portably control his photographic equipment. He is now a professor at the University of Toronto; he also has an informative personal web page.
Hilary Rosen's speech was about her love of money and her desire to roll around naked in a pile of money.
Wow, I can totally cripple someone far more learned than me _and_ make seven dollars an hour! Woo-hoo!
Seriously, though, next time, take another route home. Zeppelin or something.
--saint
I thought that people with metal implants got papers stating what kind of implant and where they are? Even so, that treatment was utter bull; you'd think that at a certain point you would just know that the guy is ok!
;)
Anyway, if he's a cyborg, why not just strap on the optional jet pack and fly there yourself?
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
if anyone read my post a week ago, airport security is simply retarded. they decide they are going to nail someone and they do just that.
me and my girlfriend had to wait for 2 minutes while they chemical tested all of luggage and carry ons, and shoes and purses for explosives. this was because her shoes (complete with metal shoe lace ends) set off the metal detector.
later in the trip tourists are posing with the reserve offices for pictures... i saw this many times. tourists have their arms inches away from machine guns carried by 5 foot tall women and all the airport cares about are my stinky shoes.
then the kicker is the woman on the airplane knitting with HUGE knitting needles.
this guys sensor that opens doors is going to do about as much damage as my stinky shoe. yes, when i fly i want to be safe, and that is why i defend the 'fly naked' campaign.
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
After you _try_ to go through security, civil liberties get weird. You can't walk through with a gun, get caught, and say "oh, never mind, I just won't fly today". By then, there is suspicion of criminal behavior and you are, alas, in the mighty grasp of the underpaid, overworked, bitter security forces. Just walking away is no longer an option.
But don't worry-- they only use their powers against terrorists and bad guys, right?
A.
I think the point was, the guy didn't really have any other way back home. The airline let him through on the initial trip. His problem was with the return trip.
ma, this one event deals with a lot of issues. Overbearing security, not having any authority to review situations like this on a case by case basis, whats happens when some one is unplugged, how being "plugged in" for long periods of time might effect you phsyology.
I hope all the facets of this incident are followed.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
but it's about 450k. http://wearcam.org/steve5.jpg
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
In a related story, Britney Spears announced that she would never perform in Canada again.
That they destroyed his equipment and pulled off is electrodes was wrong, and they should be held accountable for this. No airport security agent should ever be unprofessional like that (which is why I support the federalization program currently in progress in the US). But the guy had to be inspected.
sulli
RTFJ.
Still not satisfied, the guards took him to a private room for a strip-search in which, he said, the electrodes were torn from his skin, causing bleeding, and several pieces of equipment were strewn about the room.
Man, that's not just bitter, that's just savage. I'm really disturbed just reading that. I feel that there is a lawsuit here based not only on equipment damage, but also on humiliation and emotional abuse. I mean, how can they possibly have the right to do that? I understand that you give up some civil liberties when there is suspicion at an airport, but those guards cannot cause you harm for no reason, I cannot believe they'd have that authority.
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I love the way the security guards seem to make a point out of stopping people who obviously ARE NOT threats. Remember the story about the Medal of Honor recipeient a few weeks ago? Why was he searched? How many other more credible threats stroll onto planes while the security guards are busy with Grampa and Grandma? Maybe the security guards "Atta" pay attention to who is walking by them, and not just pick every third person, eh?
"It's not a war on drugs, it's a war on personal freedom. Keep that in mind at all times." Bill Hicks
Yea, they might get weird, but not totally off the map! You don't GIVE UP all civil liberties in that case -- the guards can't rip your clothes off, steal your money, keep your possessions, kick you in the nads, and say "oh, sorry, we thought you had a bomb or were a criminal".
If they suspected he had a bomb, it seems to me that there should have been a process that they followed, not just snapping things off at random! " Gee, what's this?" "Oh, just the power to my...pacemaker! "
But then again, did anyone see the problems the WWII veteran with a *CONGRESSIONAL MEDAL OF HONOR* went through? Pretty much similar -- and this is a medal for which there are 40 living recipients.
Don't these airport security people watch TV? There are only but a few doctors in Starfleet who could successfully re-assimilate a Borg back into society yet these yahoos try to do it on their own, and without the aid of at least an EMH Mark I.
'Same speed C but faster'
Steve Mann SEEKING COMPENSATION - Prof. Steve Mann, a walking experiment in wearable computers, went through a three-day ordeal trying to board an Air Canada plane bound for Toronto.
TEVE MANN, an engineering professor at the University of Toronto, has lived as a cyborg for more than 20 years, wearing a web of wires, computers and electronic sensors that are designed to augment his memory, enhance his vision and keep tabs on his vital signs. Although his wearable computer system sometimes elicited stares, he never encountered any problems going through the security gates at airports.
Last month that changed. Before boarding a Toronto-bound plane at St. John's International Airport in Newfoundland, Dr. Mann says, he went through a three-day ordeal in which he was ultimately strip- searched and injured by security personnel. During the incident, he said, $56,800 worth of his $500,000 equipment was lost or damaged beyond repair, including the eyeglasses that serve as his display screen.
His lawyer in Toronto, Gary Neinstein, sent letters two weeks ago to Air Canada (news/quote), the airport and the Canadian transportation authority arguing that they acted negligently and seeking reimbursement for the damaged equipment so that Dr. Mann could put his wearable computer back together again.
The difficulties that Dr. Mann faced seem related to the tightening of security in airports since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. But he had flown from Toronto to St. John's two days earlier without a hitch.
On that day, Feb. 16, he said, he followed the routine he has used on previous flights. He told the security guards in Toronto that he had already notified the airline about his equipment. He showed them documentation, some of it signed by his doctor, that described the wires and glasses, which he wears every waking minute as part of his internationally renowned research on wearable computers.
He also asked for permission not to put his computer through the X-ray machine because the device is more sensitive than a laptop. He said that the guards examined his equipment and allowed him to board the flight.
But when he tried to board his return flight on Feb. 18, his experience was entirely different. This time, he said, he was told to turn his computer on and off and put it on the X-ray machine. He took his case to Neil Campbell, Air Canada's customer service manager at the St. John's airport, and spent the next two days arranging conversations between his university colleagues and the airline.
The security guards continued to require that he turn his machine on and off and put it through the X-ray machine while also tugging on his wires and electrodes, he said. Still not satisfied, the guards took him to a private room for a strip-search in which, he said, the electrodes were torn from his skin, causing bleeding, and several pieces of equipment were strewn about the room.
Once his system was turned off, turned on again, X-rayed and dismantled, Dr. Mann passed the security check. When he was finally allowed to go home, some pieces of equipment were not returned to him, he said, and his glasses were put in the plane's baggage compartment although he warned that cold temperatures there could ruin them.
Without a fully functional system, he said, he found it difficult to navigate normally. He said he fell at least twice in the airport, once passing out after hitting his head on what he described as a pile of fire extinguishers in his way. He boarded the plane in a wheelchair.
"I felt dizzy and disoriented and went downhill from there," he said.
Air Canada said that there was no record that any of Dr. Mann's baggage had been lost and that the Canadian transportation agency, Transport Canada, had required that his belongings be X-rayed. "We don't tell the security firms that there is going to be an exception made," said Nicole Couture-Simard, a spokeswoman for Air Canada. "We don't have that authority."
Transport Canada declined to comment on the case except to say that it was reviewing it.
Considering that even tweezers may be confiscated when a passenger boards a flight these days, the stricter scrutiny that Dr. Mann faced may not seem surprising. But for him, the experience raises the question of how a traveler will fare once wearable computing devices are such fixtures on the body that a person will not be able to part with them.
"We have to make sure we don't go into a police state where travel becomes impossible for certain individuals," Dr. Mann said.
Since losing the use of his vision system and computer memory several weeks ago, he said, he cannot concentrate and is behaving differently. He is now undergoing tests to determine whether his brain has been affected by the sudden detachment from the technology.
Alejandro R. Jahad, director of the University of Toronto's Program in E-Health Innovation, who has worked closely with Dr. Mann, said that scientists now had an opportunity to see what happens when a cyborg is unplugged. "I find this a very fascinating case," he said
Of course, this isn't much compared to the abuse some other people take. Innocent people regularly get sodomized by security who "know" they are drug mules, and verbally abused and humilitated despite being clean. (I call it sodomy, because what else would you call it when someone shoves their fingers up your bodily orifices against your will?)
That said, I wonder if Canada's legal system is as hot on violations of rights as the USA's once was. Somehow I think it's not, and the deterrent effect of lawsuits isn't likely to change the practice.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
This is *not* Kevin Warwick, the British psuedoscience jackass who's been walking around for a few years with an RFID pet tag under his skin.
It is Professor Steve Mann (http://eyetap.org/mann/), one of the first inventors of a *real* wearable, and a downright cool guy. I didn't know he had any implants- does anyone have any more information? I'd imagine his equipment would be a bit more advanced than the snake-oil Warwick's been showing around.
You may want to read a little closer. His wearable computer couldn't go through because it was more sensitive than a laptop. He wasn't carrying a laptop, as far as the article says. His equipment was more sensitive.
I understand them wanting to check him out, and maybe even a strip search is in order, but when they had documentation signed by his doctor stating everything he's said, and they were unwilling to accomodate his requests to speak in person to his doctor or colleagues, yet still will not make an exception... there is a problem. Furthermore, their disregard for sensitivity of his equipment is a travesty. He may very well be suffering serious problems now because some $10/hour monkey didn't know when to quit.
Every once in a while I like to masturbate a new word into my vocabulary, even if I don't know what it means.
To be so completely integrated into one's computers - it must be a godlike feeling, to have all that data available at will. And then to lose all that power, all that data and insulation from the day-to-day world - no wonder Mann feels crippled. I remember reading that people who depend heavily on electronic organizers to store contact info have a harder time remembering phone numbers and addresses, and I know that my spelling skills have deteriorated slightly since I started relying more on spellcheck.
I know this is something that's not really going to sound right, but "rape" is the best word I can think of to describe this. Where the hell were this guys lawyers? How could the security dudes not realize what an incredib;e achievement Mann's gear is? I repeat: that poor bastard.
I'm the stranger...posting to
glad to see someone else sees the other side here. how can they validate the doctot's papers? how can they know it's not a bomb? many make the point these security gaurds are generally dubm. and they are. too dumb to tell the difference between a wearable computing aparatus and something potentially dangerous. imagine that. personally I hope they're always more careful than smart...
we speak the way we breathe --Fugazi
What about Kevin Warwick? I imagine he'll never be flying again, either.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
Some airport security people are pretty dumb -- but I just can't picture one dumb enough to let a Sith Lord board!
I think the breathless police-state tone of this story is going a wee bit overboard.
From reading the New York Times article, it doesn't sound like Mann had any "implants" "forcibly removed". It sounds like they tore electrodes off his body. In other words, they pulled tape off his skin, and it caused bleeding. Unpleasant, sure, but it's not like they strapped him down and used a drill to extract chips from his brain. More like they pulled off a Band-Aid too fast.
The reason that he ended up in a wheelchair was that since he no longer had his cyborg navigation gear, he supposedly got confused while walking around the airport and hit his head on a pile of fire extinguishers. I don't even know where to start with that one.
Now, clearly what happened sucks, because $56,000 of gear was lost or damaged. Clearly he should be repaid, and probably security was rude to him. But I don't think it's all that shocking, given that here's a guy, covered in wires and batteries, getting on a plane post 9/11.
In my opinion, the truly interesting part of this article is that once his technological aids were removed, this guy ceased to be able to complete basic tasks like walking. This has significant ramifications for wearable computing. Is it augmented reality? Or is it a crutch without which he can't function?
Monkeytreats
and pulled off is electrodes was wrong,
Based on this one comment I could claim Mann is a pretty lousy hardware designer.
What he did was the equivalent of soldering the keyboard to the motherboard. Couldn't he have at least forseen having to one-day disconnect and had instead used a micro molex connector or something?
Duh.
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
Now, I don't think he/she misread the post, though he may have worded his/her response badly.
The question is, what could there be in a computer system that would be sensitive to X-rays...
Maybe flash memory is potentially vulnerable, but laptops contain that... can't think of much else...
They REMOVED STUFF FROM HIS BODY!?
Why didn't he just take a boat back or something? Did they not allow him to simply leave?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Nevermind. They closed the loophole.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
No we're not hearing the only side of the story. The article quotes the airline, and they claim no responsibility. I fail to see how you're questiong NY Times, but want to hear it directly from the airport, who's going to have their lawyer give you the standard "no comment" response.
You're not going to hear from the guys who actually did this, unless it's as a dark silhouette with a disguised voice on Dateline in a few months. I'm not waiting until then to make my decision on which side is right.
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But I don't think it's all that shocking, given that here's a guy, covered in wires and batteries, getting on a plane post 9/11.
The world post-9/11 is no different from the world pre-9/11, except perhaps for the fact that people are willing to accept any old damn thing in the name of security. After all, The World Is Dangerous, And We Might Die!!!
I guess the Terrorist trump card just got its value doubled. I find it laughable that this game has to be played at all.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
Since losing the use of his vision system and computer memory several weeks ago, he said, he cannot concentrate and is behaving differently.
"they" have seem similar occurrences in individuals that often use PDA to jot down things in that some individuals tend become dependant on the technology. I am sure this case is making for an interesting study, but I am more curious on learning more about some of the devices he has wired himself into and how he uses them. So far this is probably the best link I have found detailing the technologies he is using.
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
Let me ask you this question. Who in their RIGHT MIND would travel to St. John's, Nfld. to perform a terrorist act there?
I mean, these guys are from a godforsaken desert full of rocks, but come on. There's no way they'd even bother with St. John's.
I think Canada's got another think coming if it thinks it's under any threat from anyone.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
STEVE MANN, an engineering professor at the University of Toronto, has lived as a cyborg for more than 20 years, wearing a web of wires, computers and electronic sensors that are designed to augment his memory, enhance his vision and keep tabs on his vital signs.
:)
Jeez, I wonder what his wife thinks of all this?
Oh, wait...
Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?
I don't think making fun of this guy is appropriate. It is not funny that he fell down and hurt himself. Making cracks about his mental state after after the stripsearch is hardly mature either.
If you depend on glasses to see, and the airport confiscates them because they're metal, you wouldn't find it so funny if you tripped over something and hit your head.
"Derp de derp."
Augmented vision (camera & hud glasses)
Handheld chording keyboard
Any mic/headphone setup
Wireless/cellular hookup
Without his input/output devices, he would have lost access to his memory enhancement programs (smart conversation tags to lookup keywords, replay stored audio, etc.), vision enhancement programs (recording, environment reconstruction, text overlay), and probably all of his sending/receiving capability.
I pray that he backed up his rig before he flew. All the data he accumulated/uploaded while in Newfoundland is probably toast. (Why the hell was he in Newfoundland anyways? Was he speaking or just visiting?)
In one fell swoop they cut him off from his augmented memory and processing, and then threw his visual system for a loop, hence the need for a wheelchair. Oh, and of course, they trashed some very expensive, hard to replace, custom equipment. Not nice. I'd hate to think what might have happened if Mann had needed vital implants (heartrate regulator, insulin, etc.) that would have summarily been stripped along with the rest of his hardware.
Man his "late 90s" pic makes him look like a dork. If he's going to go all crypto-cyborg he really needs to use better shades.
Anyway, he's obviously a dangerous spy. Just look, in the first image, he's waring a t-shirt with a MAP OF CHINA what more evidence do you need!?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
"I've got a web server on my body. The I.P. address of my body is 128.100.10.122."
And the link, it seems as though my traceroute dies somewhere in Newfoundland.
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
He did play by the rules.
The rules are: Unless they have a damn good reason to do otherwise, the authorities are to leave you alone.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
It's about control.
It's both control of the passengers (You *will* drop your trousers and paint your arse green!) and control of the drelbs who run the security checkpoints (follow *every* rule *exactly* or you're fired!) Security- related professions are magnets for rule-bound control freaks.
Most of the stuff is ridiculous. "Turn the laptop on and off". Tweezers. Fingernail clippers. Very little about security and a whole lot about "I'm in charge and you're not!"
Control freaks at play.
Welcome to the Turing Tarpit, where everything is possible but nothing interesting is easy.
With the possible exception of the X-ray issue, I point out that the bomb/drug-sniffing equipment is there for precisely that eventuality.
Let's give the drooling fucknozzle behind the counter the benefit of the doubt for a moment and think about what would have been reasonable.
At most, they should have stripped him to check where all the wires/electrodes went, and run the sniffer over each electrode to make sure nothing naughty was concealed beneath the electrode, nor anything else that didn't get X-Rayed.
Upon finding no explosives and no drugs, they should have let him put his clothes on and travel.
All of which is beside the point, which is that the goon should have started by reading the goddamn papers Prof. Mann was carrying, that authorized him to carry the gear on the flight.
(...and called his supervisor when he realized he couldn't understand the words with more than one syllable, and let the supervisor make the call.)
Don't blame poor "aaaaa". Likely, NYT noticed that he was logging in 10,000 times within the space of an 6 hours, and got suspicious.
You might remember this one: Congressman Dingell (who has a metal hip) gets strip-searched. Looks like it happened on January 5, 2002.
At least they didn't try to carve it out. On the other hand, he probably got preferential treatment 'cause he's a high-and-mighty elected official. (Yeah, right.)
<joke> I guess the people manning that particular security station voted for his opponent... </joke>
"...America's great minds of today, teaching America's great minds of tomorrow. Poor bastards." -- A Beautiful Min
here's an editorial on that incident from the Washington times:
5 .h tm
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20020202-3287461
Seems that the airport security weren't even aware of what the CMH was.
Well at least the INS managed to get Mohammed Atta his student visa.
From a personal point of view, however, I've not particularly noticed any inconvenience from heightened airport security, and I live in NYC.
Frankly, I think this airport security frenzy is a great illustration of closing the barn door after the horse has run off.
evanchik.net
Given that he accessed everything through his wearable, and that his HUD was quarter VGA (240x180?), he probably designed his site for that medium, which explains the big text and scarcity of graphics. Add that to the fact that he probably wrote the code for his site on his wearable, and this is what you get.
Try using lynx to visit the site, and tell us if it still seems confusing.
Two years ago Steve Mann had a very similar run-in with AirCanada, they being very hostile towards him bringing his equipment on-board, and damaging some of his equipment in the process.
His detailed description with photos is at Air Canada Irresponsibility.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
He just happened to have shot his country's best hope for a medal in the marathon that time.
Ther black man was training in the streets of Pretoria. Of course being black in South Africa, he couldn't afford treadmills and other equipment which would have kept him off the streets and away from attracting the wrong kind of attention.
The cop's justification: "He was running. He had to be running from something."
NOTHING was ever done about the cop or the situation that cost the country a possible Olympic medal, never minbd that somebody DIED for NOTHING!
Steve Mann is lucky that they didn't try high-voltage electrocution to see if the implants were really in there deep.
There is nothing as stupid and as dangerous as an armed petty-bureaucrat. They are our version of officious tyrany (Pol Pot, Bin Laden, Hitler, Stalin, Hussein, [your favorite despot here,]) but without money, opportunity or charisma. But they share the motivation.
Is there intelligent life on earth?
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
As a member of the wearable computing mailing list for over two years, and a Canadian I am personaly outraged! I will be sending a letter to Air Canada, aswell as Transport Canada. This is wholy un-called for in an enlightened society. Personaly owning some home-brew wearable stuff myself I can attest to the fragility of such pieces of technology. In the quest for smaller and lighter structural integraty get put in the back seat. THOSE BASTARDS!
I didn't see anything about removal of implants in the article. Electrodes were pulled off of his body (supposedly causing bleeding). THat's hardly the removal of implants.
instead used a micro molex connector or something?
Yeah sure, he should have done that. Then they would have said "Whats that in your skin?"
RIP, out come the connectors. The point is, by reading the article, if they really don't have the authority to grant any exemptions then they sure as hell don't have the authority to strip search or harm anyone who hasn't put up any physical resistance. I mean, what reason could they have for detaining him without allowing him to speak with his doctor or colleuges?
Were they afraid he was going to goto the phone and blow someone up? Or shoot someone? If he was going todo that he would have blown up or shot the guards long before they strip searched him.
As the spokesperson pointed out, this has nothing to do with the airline. The first step in addressing this is identifying the parties involved - probably the airport, and maybe a private security firm.
Quite possible he did, but if they wanted to remove everything metal off him, then that means every sensor and every bit of wire.
Grab.
He obviously could remove it, since he put it through the X-ray. Apparently, they yanked on the wires coming out of his body anyway, like pulling on the PS2 socket with pliers after disconnecting the keyboard.
__
Do ya feel happy-go-lucky, punk?
In one fell swoop they cut him off from his augmented memory and processing, and then threw his visual system for a loop, hence the need for a wheelchair.
I'm a graduate student at the University of Toronto, and interact with Prof. Mann on an intermittent basis (did a project under him a few years back, meet him in the lab whenever I'm borrowing his soldering equipment).
He can see fine without his HUD. It's not a complete visual transformation overlay - it's a wearable computer display, functionally equivalent to most of the other wearable displays you can buy. He's been working on information-overlay projects for years, many of them successful, but to say that he has "vital" vision-enhancement programs running at all times is a drastic overstatement.
Likewise, "augmented memory" consists of him either teleconferencing with someone or doing a Google lookup. He's perfectly capable of finding his way through this university, or an airport, without augmentation.
Use common sense, people. If he was disoriented, I'd suspect it to be the result of a many-hour delay with inadequate food/water or of an overly-zealous search as opposed to loss of any electronics.
The article is short. Registration is long
...but not while the evil days come not.
Ira Howard, please phone home!
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
Does this guy EVER take a SHOWER?!?!?!
-Russ
Me
Despite the claims in the slashdot blurb, Mann does not have any implants. The NYTimes story mentions that electrodes were removed from his skin. These are the same as those sticky things they attach when someone gets an EKG or polygraph test, and are presumably used by Mann to measure physiological things like heart rate or skin conductance. Mann claims that when they were removed he bled -- kind of like ripping off a really sticky band-aid...
Somehow I doubt this guy was sticking wires in his body and wearing a $500,000 computer system to get chicks. He'd be much better off buying a Porsche.
"Derp de derp."
What if a person required such tools in order to move, breathe, or even think? Would this not be the equivalent to destroying an experimental respirator which has already been O.K.'ed by a doctor?
Don't get me wrong, NOT searching would leave the possibility for a person claiming to be sick to be used as a bomb - but to RIP electrodes from a person's skin is reactionary, cruel, if not downright monsterous.
They could have just denied him access to the plane instead.
Ryan Fenton
And my point is that we don't *know* what exactly comprises his setup, so we can't be saying that it shouldn't be x-rayed. Laptop, sure. Stick it through. But stuff that's controlling a man's body?
Every once in a while I like to masturbate a new word into my vocabulary, even if I don't know what it means.
Well, you just pass all your expieremental equipment through the X-Ray machine - it shouldn't cause problems...
Sheesh - I try to avoid things that might even remotely cause problems.
This seems like a reasonable request for expieremental 1-off equipment.
Cheers!
I just saw a 90 minute film on Steve Mann called Cyberman at SXSW in Austin, basically he has for about 20 years now hooked up a camera and video screen to his glasses. I believe his setup can now zoom, playback and bring up a crude command line prompt, he also has a single hand keyboard for input, and yes he walks around with this all the time. He also has renegade antennas setup around his city to stream video from his head to the web.
However a few times they showed him going into retailers like walmart and gap with a consumer video camera (just to start shit). When an employee asks him to not bring the video camera in, he starts being a little smart ass about it. like "Well don't you have video cameras in here, why can you video tape me and I can't video tape you", "What if I told you that my glasses we're a video camera, would that be ok?". generally not agreeing with the store and making a jackass out of himself.
I also saw him take off his glasses constantly, he would slip them off to do something, then put them back to walk around (then look around like a space cadet ), but it did not seem that he was in any way disoriented without his gear. So I don't buy that all of a sudden once his stuff was busted up by the security guards (which we're just trying to do there freakin job) that he started bumping into things, or at least not more then normally.
I think what happened at the airport is that for "I'm cyberman" reasons he opted to keep his gear on, got shit from the security guards, proceeded to be a complete smartass while thinking, "if they fuck with me, I have it all on film", but when they broke his gear and is alibi that's when he really god pissed. I'm sure he was already expecting shit, but maybe hoping he could have covert footage of it to show the 8 o-clock news as well.
-Jon
this is my sig.
a couple of days ago i watched the nature of things special on Steve Mann. they have a website about him with lots of pictures and information.
There's a picture of the ProComp and some elctrodes on one of Mann's myriad sites (wearcam.org, wearcomp.com which seems to be down, eyetap.org, U. Toronto EECS, CBC)
Biosensors used in the author's "smart clothing" apparatus include ProComp ECG, EEG, respiration, and sweat sensor built into a Jantzen bathing suit. Upon arriving home, late at night, one is generally too hot from just climbing the stairs, etc., so when first going to sleep, the underwear tells the heater to turn off, but after a couple of hours sleeping, when one's metabolism slows down, the underwear senses the resulting changes in one's body temperature/conductivity, and turns up the heat. Our clothing of the future may some day be interoperable and interconnected, so that it keeps track of our physical condition and allows us to decrypt this information for evaluation by a doctor or other professional of our choosing. Further description of the "smart underwear" prototype, and anecdotes on the author's experience designing, building, and using it is appears in [Mann96b].
It's curious that this page puts an emphasis on personal safety, suggesting that heartrate vs. footsteps could indicate a subject was in distress and that a network of cyborgs could protect each other.
Another of Mann's interests is surveillance. His investigation into the horror that the watchers feel when watched back is interesting, but it always seems to involve a certain amount of confrontation (see his videos if you don't believe me). Did the security personnel know he had cameras in his sunglasses & how did they react when they found out?
OK...
I think this is terrible... and I certainly do NOT know my rights here.
But couldn't Mr Mann just turn around and leave the airport? I would think this would be MUCH better than being dismantled. The only reason I could think of is that maybe he had to leave on an emergency.
If they DID force him to take his implants out, wouldn't this also quality as a kind of kidnapping? I mean they take you into a room against your will.
When this happens can a person just say "no thanks... I will just pass on taking this flight and contact my lawyer."
Kevin
When judging this matter it would pay to remember that most security people are probably just average Joes and probably never even heard of this guy before.
They had an obligation to verify his claims and to check that some guy who turns up in a "wired" state isn't just another crazy terrorist.
That they knew nothing about the technology or the way it was being used probably explains why the incident was so problematic.
But hey, this is a post Sept-11 environment and if you turn up at an airport, wired up like a Christmas tree, then you're going to have to expect that you're going to draw the unwelcomed attention of security.
Just imagine if they'd took his claims at face value and it turned out that he had five pounds of C4 up his backside, wired to a detonator under his tongue, controlled by a timer in his cool dark glasses.
Better safe than sorry.
Unfortunately, unless we want to replace those brawny security guys with ComSci PhDs then this kind of thing will happen.
I wonder exactly how cooperative the guy was, or whether he might perhaps have been a little arrogant or outraged that his word and documentation had been challenged? Remember -- he's the one who'd just spent hours in the cramped confinement of a commercial flight and that makes most of us a bit snotty sometimes.
I did a some web searching and haven't found what exactly is implanted into Steve Mann's body.
Anyone know what sensors he has implanted?
Sounds odd...
No, when they get Federalized, we HOPE that the end result isn't the winner of the cheapest bid.
The airlines want cheap security. So, you get cheap workers. As long as the airlines are doing the work, and paying the wages, the pressure is to keep wages down. Low wages, poor workers, high turn-over (You know that turn-over was really high 100%+ for airline security staff last year don't you?)
See
Pay is low, and turnover high-- 500% at one
airport-- and their training is often minimal. Federal inspectors have repeatedly been able to easily get weapons and potential bombs past them. (This is from a PBS study done before 9/11/2000)
The old security system was a race to the bottom. Airlines didn't really care about security. They just wanted us to feel better.
The new system might not be better, but for different reasons. Personally, I think it will be, but that's just my opinion.
The personnel they can command will be better, and the ability to fire workers that don't perform will be better. Generally, treat your workforce better - get better performance.
I'm sorry, but once you start concealing things that you can't have X-rayed, with hardware inside your body, all security bets are off -- and there's no reason why airport security should take your word for what you're concealing.
What's to stop someone from having a bomb implanted, then six months later blowing it up on a plane?
Oh, he had a note form his doctor... no terrorist could ever get one of those. I feel kinda bad for the guy, but he mostly brought the situation upon himself.
At very least, he needs to make special arrangements with airport security at every point along his trip to obtain some type of special pass.
Then, there's also the imposition upon other travelers like myself. How much does it cost to have people trying to make "special arrangements", wasting security personnel's time, etc. We all pay for nonsense like that with increased ticket prices. The more I think about it, the less I feel sorry for the guy.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
"But hey, maybe he could combine his idea and NanoGators, and have a Porsche implanted..."
Haha!! Maybe get an Autobot Tatoo also? *G*
"Derp de derp."
Back in 1999 when I was very active in wearable computing I remember Steve and a few of the "old timers" were contemplating what would happen? Steve mentioned that he was sure that he had became dependant(sp?) on the technology but was unsure of what effects it might have with a sudden severing..
I guess this is the unexpected research part of that discussion so long ago... Thad Starner is america's cyborg, but to a much lesser extent (from what I recall.. it may have changed now) I would love to hear his insight to this.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
First off, airport security guards aren't the most intelligent form of life on this planet. If they were they wouldn't be working a $7/hour job.
Secondly, Mann, with wires sticking out of him and such, might have looked like a walking bomb to these people. If someone can hide C4 in his shoe, but get busted because of some detonator wires, someone else could just fake a computer, only in the "battery" pack on his hip stick a big block of C4.
What, a detonator? No, those are my LCD glasses...
Someone with something more than a room-temperature IQ could have checked with the proper people and avoided this whole thing.
Still, would you have rather had this happen, or have some whacko posing as a "cyborg" board a 747 and blow it to bits in the middle of the Atlantic? Where the security guard's actions correct? No.
"Upon attaching the waterblock to my penis, I began to notice that I know nothing about computers." -- JRockway
>
> Face rec, face rec!
Yeah, that's Steve.
As long as we're on the subject - it's one of the supreme ironies that Steve's tech, hooked into a large database and facial recognition system, could have improved security. (I have a hunch Steve would be loath to sell his ideas to these bastards now.)
No auto-scanning face-recognition cameras - just a guy wearing cool shades who looks at you, and your name pops up in front of his face.
When your face comes up clean, you get a "Welcome to America."
When Charles Manson tries it, the screener gets "Armed and dangerous. SWAT team notified. Ask him about the weather and stall him for another 30 seconds." Chucky doesn't know what hits him.
When Joe Sixpack tries it, the screener gets "10 outstanding warrants. Hand over to secondary inspectors immediately."
When an 80-year-old general tries it, the screener gets "Hey, asshole, don't you recognize a Medal of Honor when you see one? Let him through!" flashed onto his screen.
(Of course, when Mohammed Atta tries it, the screener gets "INS says he's a student at flight school who hasn't collected his visa notification yet, so let him on!", but that's not the fault of the wearable computer and augumented memory system, it's the fault of INS - the only organization capable of making airline security drones look like geniuses.)
Why, exactly?
Do you honestly believe the current over-the-top level of airport security is useful or necessary?
We had too much idiotic airport security before 9/11 and it didn't do a damn thing; what's going on now is a matter of closing the barn doors after the cows have gone. It doesn't make any of us safer against terrorists, it just makes a few people feel better to see that the authorities are "doing something". It's all for show.
I would pay at least $10 more per ticket to fly on an airline that didn't have any airport "security" at all. I would much prefer the security of knowing I could arrive fifteen minutes before the plane leaves and still make my flight to the security of knowing my fellow passengers have been harrassed and annoyed and degraded and forced to wait behind lines and answer useless questions.
Mann is the canary in this coal mine. His experiences should tell us we've gone too far and it's time to let the pendulum swing the other way for a bit. Let's start by getting rid of the "did you pack your bags/has anyone unknown to you" questions and the requirement to show a picture ID...
I play Nerd-Folk!
From how he looks in the pictures, maybe they were afraid he was going to assimilate the plane?
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Power-tripping rent-a-cops?
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Not to be a conspiracy theorist but why not, couldn't he have a doctor in on it and have some sort of device in the laptop? I dunno seems like an easy enough thing to do.
basically never ever make exceptions, not when 6 thousand people's lifes are at stake
... and I have a computers lecture right before Professor Mann's course (check it out at http://wearcam.org/ece1766.htm) in the same room.
Hence I see Steve Mann, usually on a weekly basis.
All you Slashdot'ers will be relieved to know that he is still using his wearable computer, his display glasses still work, etc.
I personally have doubts about this article for three reasons:
A) The issue has shown up in a NY times article, yet I haven't heard about it from any of my campus news sources OR the Toronto Star (www.thestar.ca)
B) I've never seen Professor Mann wearing electrodes as mentioned in the article, and can see no reason as to why he would (his system is not biometric, to my knowledge he uses a sort of keypad as well as visual feedback of his eyes to interface with it)
C) Even though Professor Mann wears his device most of the time, my computers professor (who I believe knows him personally) has seen Professor Mann remove his device without disability.
I've emailed my computers professor to see if he knows any more about this story, I'll reply if I find out any more.
--
Eamon McDermott
ENGSCI 0T5
ERTW$$
What about pace makers? Aren't x-rays a little dangerous around pace makers? I can imagine the conversation:
Idiot guard: "We need you to pass through the x-ray machine."
Pacemaker implantee: "I can't. I have a pace maker."
IG: "I'm sorry, but we have to have you pass through the x-ray machine."
PI: "You don't seem to understand: if I go through there, I COULD DIE!"
IG: "We really don't care. Please pass through the x-ray machine."
[PI passes through]
PI: "...Uggg! Oh god! *THUMP*"
IG: "....Ummmm...shit! Does this mean I'm fired?"
Boss: "You're fired!"
Zodiac Survey
They better get used to the fact that sooner rather than later, people are going to start implanting all sorts of things into their bodies. It may be a bomb, it may be something harmless. But in the name of security, they cannot rip the stuff out of your body.
There has to be a way to securely identify the implant to the authorities. Maybe a serial number that is unique to the item, given by the manufacturer and then stored on a databse somewhere. Then, when walking through a scanner, it can sing like a canary about it's legitimacy.
Hell, pacemakers and implantable defibrillators already do this -- you hold an interrogator to the pacer and it gives up the manufacturer's name, serial number, mode, and cardiac rhythm data that it has stored.
There must be a secure and private way that this can be made to work on a large scale.
Not to disagree entirely with your post, or to offend you in any way, but what exactly makes you think that the gov't. wouldn't just go for the lowest bid as well? Its well known that they don't *have* to, but neither do corporations. The incentive to go with the lowest bid is still the same on either side of the fence. Fixed budget means that the less is spent on the security personnel, the more gets spent on the administrators. Over the past 6-8 months I've gotten a bit jaded, so I have to say: if you're not linin' your pockets, you're not livin' the dream. Unfortunate, but true.
"Seems that the airport security weren't even aware of what the CMH was."
Like the person in that Washington Post Op-Ed piece, I have serious problems with security people that don't know what the Congressional Medal of Honor is or the difference between a fake and live ammo.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
No. Not even then.
If you're interested in gaining control of an airliner, the last thing you want to do is attract the attention of security personnel. As such, you have to look normal. Since Prof. Mann looked anything but normal, there's a fairly low probability that he's a hazard to air travel safety (although one could legitimately question the RFI radiated by his equipment if it couldn't safely take an X-ray). A quick check of his ID -- hell, even a quick Web search on his name -- would have quickly confirmed that the man was absolutely no trouble at all.
Prof. Mann was detained not for being a potential threat, but because he questioned The Rules.
Believe me, the guy you want to keep off the plane doesn't look or act like Mann. The Bad Guys will be appear very normal. That's why Congressmen are being detained and strip-searched in airports, because they're acting normal; very suspicious these days.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Idiot guard: "We need you to pass through the x-ray machine."
It's a metal detector - not an x-ray machine.
Congratulations, you just qualified for a job as an airport security screener.
If I were Dr Mann and anyone was insisting that they do to him or start to do duch a thing, I would simply have left the airport and found another way home. I mean that sounds Orwellian; was he being detained? Could he have simply left, especially when they were starting to literally injure him? Is Newfoundland surrounded by a security force field that only airplanes can get through?
What am I missing here?
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Hell, they checked my laptop case coming and going when I went to Houston from Dallas out of Love field. (Clue: Love Field and Intercontinental both are _small_ airports, usually used for commuter flights in and out of Dallas and Houston- they normally don't rate a hand-held bomb detector unit...)
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
My guess is what happened is that Hoss got annoyed at the rent-a-cops, and the rent-a-cops used this as an excuse to delay him.
There are two sides to the story, and we are just hearing one of them. The rent-a-cops probably were assholes, but my guess is that Hoss probably got unnecessarily huffy as well.
evanchik.net
Letters from doctors and airlines mean nothing. Their pieces of paper that are easily forged.
No rational security guard or "manager" doing their jobs would have the knowledge or authority to make the kind of exceptions to security procedures that this guy expected.
I am highly concerned he was let through Pearson security so easily. Ripped from his skin? Disoriented and couldn't walk straight? Half a million dollars of equipment? Whatever. Cyborg? If it is that bad, he should not have been flying, not without a Transport Canada ruling, like are needed for other highly exceptional circumstances.
Give me a break. The "article" as well as the Slashdot lead in all sound *HIGHLY* one sided.
I give this side of the story a credibility rating of 2 out of 10, and the possibility that Professor Steve Mann is a pompous jackass a 7 out of 10. That the people in St. Johns did their job as we've requested them to do? 8 out of 10, losing points for putting his video glasses in with the baggage and not keeping track of his possessions.
The reason September 11th worked out the way it did was that people have been taught to give the nice terrorists what they want when they take over the plane- before then, everyone was under the line of thinking that eventually it will all work out and if you don't provoke the terrorists you're less likely to get hurt/killed in the situation.
Problem is, this was never the case to begin with and people have all been largely lucky up to this point. As it has always been, but people didn't realize it until the 11th was that the moment an agressor takes over a plane/ship/etc. and holds you hostage, your life is forfeit and you must win it back either by your actions or someone else must win it back for you. With this in mind, I do not believe that people will placidly sit still with agressors with knives or even handguns. They can nail a few but they're going to be beaten to a bloody pulp by the rest.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
...I had to put up with the humiliation of having my brain forcibly removed. After all - it's a lethal weapon. I can design bombs with it, I can think unpatriotic thoughts, I can even memorize tunes that have a copyright. My brain was a terrible thing and it ought to have been removed. Everyone else should submit to having their brains removed too and the world will be a much better place. Except politicans of course - there's no need to have their brains removed.
-- SIGFPE
Of course, one could conceivably acquire those parts, pack them with explosives, and board the plane pretending to have an artificial heart.
Dyolf Knip
For some reason, I can picture the other side as...well, incompetent.
"Well, we saw this guy in line, with really thick sunglasses and refused to let his bags be X-Rayed. Frank noticed some wires running down the back of his neck, and Geez, I thought this guy might have a few sticks of dynamite under that jacket. So we took him into a room, where he refused to cooperate, and put on airs that he had special equipment that we couldn't touch. A friend of his signed a piece of paper saying don't touch it. Well, we had to check the darn thing so he didn't threaten the plane"
Unless the NG guys are carrying M1 Garands, they don't have any clips on their person at all. They might have a magazine or two if they are shouldering an Armalite or a Colt. Sorry to nitpick, but calling a mag a clip is like fingernails on the blackboard of my mind.
BTW, the "guards" I've seen at San Diego, Reno, Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Portland airports were all similarly unarmed. A smart group of terrorists would storm the airport with baseball bats, pepper spray and M16 and 92F/1911A1 magazines...
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
Geez, I can't believe some people. If the bullet was drilled through, and on someone's keychain, how can they confiscate that?
Maybe they're afraid you'll plug the hole, and add it into your "smuggled somewhere we probably missed" gun.
I think that far and away, when the security responsibility and cost lies with the airlines, the temptation is too strong...
:)
When the Gvmt runs the security program, but it's paid for by the airlines, then the tendency to go real cheap isn't there.
This is an area that the airlines have shown themselves to be unworthy. Will the Gvmt do better? Time will tell.
The result may be no better, but at least the conflict of interest isn't there.
You and I are both jaded - I find the whole political (rep and dems) to be TOTALLY SCUMMY and the hope I used to have that the small guy might get a break has been totally lost.
[Sigh]
Cheers!
You forget, this is Canada. You have no rights.
The only reason it's not a playground for fascist
butchers is that they're all acting like Doug and
Dave MacKenzie.
Now in the U.S., you'd get the twice the brutality,
but you would have the comfort of knowing that it
was illegal, although of course no court in the land
would give a flying wahoo about that.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
Whenever we purchase a plane ticket each of us has the opportunity to decide whether we think the value of the services being offered to us is worth its cost. What I'm saying is that in my personal utility function this business of lining up to be xrayed and interrogated and searched has no value at all; it only serves to make plane travel take an hour longer than it otherwise would. So just as I might be willing to pay $10 more to save an hour off my travel time by taking a faster flight, I'd be willing pay $10 to save an hour by accepting a faster (but less "secure") check-in process.
Some other /. poster said it best at the time of the event:
No amount of inconvenience will give you the security you desire.
Forcing people to turn on their computers doesn't protect us against smart people with bombs in the spare battery compartment, sending people through a metal detector doesn't protect us against smart people with sharp ceramic or glass or obsidian or plastic objects, and everybody knows this. And I for one am sick of all this nonsense. We should stop pretending that the solution to a failed strategy is more of the same.
Nope, from now on I want to fly the Unfriendly Skies. And if somebody tries to take my plane, we'll all have our own knives and guns aboard to stop them in their tracks. Who's with me?
I play Nerd-Folk!
> carte blanche
It's called "innocent until proven guilty". In the
U.S. we have a tradition that this is an inherent
human right, not a priviledge granted by the
goverment, revokable as expedient. Of course that
tradition does not exist in Canada, historical
british statesmen such as Wilberforce notwithstanding.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
I can personally speak to the stupidity of airline security. I travel frequently (weekly), and know the routine, take off all metal, put it in my bag, take my laptop out, let them run it all through the xray machine and go about my buissness. Well the Xray "technician", I use that term very loosely I think crackhead (from the looks of her) working the Xray system would be a more apt description, saw something odd (probably drug induced hallucinations) and Xray'd my laptop for about 5 minutes, then they had me turn it on and off and Xray'd it again. Suffice to say it destroyed the system. I don't get it, I am a white male in my early 20's, clean cut etc etc. I by no means fit any profile of a terrorist (which so far have all been Middle Eastern Men, ages 18-40). Oh well, airport security is not effective and will not do anything in the future other then annoy people, cause delays and destroy delicate equipment.
How small could an explosive powerful enough to destroy an airplane be made? There are a number of ways to hide it in a human body if it's fairly small. Swallowing it or jamming it up your ass come to mind.
Dyolf Knip
I was not trying to start a flame war. I just felt sorry for this guy, and I posted that. Period. I am sorry my post offended you - if you could explain what made it offensive, I could avoid such transgressions in the future.
I'm the stranger...posting to
Any passenger on your plane could have a pound of C4 stuffed up his ass, and security would never know it.
There is no airport security. The loopholes are endless. XRaying laptops is just blatantly stupid make-work. The entire frigging performance is insulting: it's a show targeting the gullible, who are supposed to believe that it makes a difference.
What really blows me away is that anyone believes it.
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
How would federalization help?
Yes, I support having Federal inspectors. But the government's response has been:
"You, you and you. Congrats, you're now a federal worker!"
That doesn't help! It's the same exact people, now getting benefits from a different tier/branch
AFAIK, you cannot be forced into having something X-Rayed. Instead, you can request that your belongings be hand-inspected, which arouses suspicion and causes delays. the most common occurrance is Photographers, as X-Rays kill film.
I'd say it's a hardware problem caused by his Canadaware.
Dyolf Knip
Well, it's a shame the security personnel weren't cyborgs, they could have done a web search on the spot. Well, maybe in a few years.
You might want to see someone about that hoplophobia of yours.
I play Nerd-Folk!
In other words, Kevin Warwick is a pseudoscience publicity hack.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
The Parent Post is offtopic but iterating this through replies to the parent is redundant.
heuristic algorithm seeks stochastic relationship
Actually, you can look at the events of the airline bailout more thoroughly. Sure, the reward that you talk about seems just like that - free money. But, it looks more to be like a subsidy. We can compare it to past farmer-gov relationships. The government doesn't want the market flooded with an excess of products, otherwise the price of the products will drop out due to the extreme surplus of supply, and various farmers will go broke - which we don't want under certain circumstances because not all farmers may produce all products (as well as other reasons). So they (the gov) pay the farmers to either not produce a certain amount of a certain product for a given time period, or they buy already produced products and store them or allow them to go to waste. In this case, the gov just bought $15 billion worth of plane ticets, and the airlines didn't produce the flights (a service here, but keeping the product mentality going is more pleasing). As well, I am sure the airlines wouldn't have minded at all to not receive the bailout as long as the amount of scheduled flights remained the same. The amount of money lost far exceeded the bailout that the airlines received, so the net reward gained was still negative (the attacks can be considered a reward here - just kind of like getting underwear for Christmas is a present, heh).
The solution really seems quite simple, and it's definitely not the one they chose:
Don't allow him to board the plane yet, get him to stay for some days until management can confirm his documentation (call the universities, for example), then personally oversee his boarding the plane a couple of days later, after a reasonable, non-intrusive search.
Don't they have to do something like this when someone with special needs of medical attention/equipment needs to travel anyway?
If the guy happens to be famous enough to appear on the media, you might want to pay for the hotel and new airplane ticket just like when the airlines resell your ticket. But that's strictly a PR move.
Most likely, he takes charge of the extra expense on his trip, security takes charge of the extra expense of making a couple of phone calls and personally overseeing him for 20 minutes when he finally boards the plane.
No strip search, no destroyed equipment, little wasted time for other passengers and most likely no lawsuits.
Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, everything else follows...
Someone could also carry on a pack of matches and some nonmetal baloons fitted to his or her body filled with gasoline. There are limitless ways bad people can do bad things. It isn't naive so much as stupid if we expect highschool flunkies to make it safe to fly.
I think I'll stick to the train when I have to travel. Slower, but cheaper and I like it. No anal probes are needed either.
I was under the impression that one can't collect punitive damages in civil suits in Canada. I distinctly remember a case where a woman who suffered severe emotional trauma was awarded the cost of her psychiatric visits, and no more.
Besides, there are no rights in Canada... there is something called the "Notwithstanding Clause" in the 1982 patriated constitution. It basically says "these are your rights unless the government decides otherwise". The twisted reasoning was that, in a democracy, the (appointed) judiciary should not interpret the law, only the elected representatives should (ultimately). So, when the Supreme Court of Canada declared a law mandating unilingual French commercial signs in Quebec illegal, the government immediatly passed a law overulling that decision.
Neither can a lawyer take a case on a contingency basis, so,,, no $$$, no justice. The reasoning is that this eliminates "ambulance chasers".
Having lived in the U.S. (legally) since 1997, this Canadian still prefers the way the U.S. does (or at least is supposed to do) things, warts, DMCA, Patriot Act, and all (though I do think civil liberties are going to hell here).
You could've hired me.
I don't know about Canada, but my understanding is that in the United States, FAA regulations require only that airport security personnel must hand-inspect *film* and *cameras* if requested.
Many larger photographic shops can sell you a luggage tag with the FAA regulation printed on it, which can come in handy when you run into idiot security personnel who flat out refuse to hand-inspect anything or flatly demand that their x-ray machine is safe and that you must have your film x-rayed. (Most x-ray machines *are* safe, but a few aren't, you can't trust the signs on them, and some film seems mysteriously more sensitive.)
All things considered, however, I think before taking anything Steve Mann says seriously we should hear a report on him from someone from the MIT wearable computers group. The many people I've met from the group do not speak of him in warm fuzzy terms, to put it extremely mildly.
The danger is that once they're in the air system, they're in. They could take a plane from there to somewhere a lot more sensitive. The current air travel system is only as secure as the crummiest podunk airport in the country. (I realize this was in canada, but the same principle holds.)
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
For God's sake! When's the last time you took a stroll in reality!? This "pure" information didn't just fall out of the sky onto your screen. Who do you think paid the reporter or bought the bandwidth that created this "pure" information?
Besides, it doesn't cost money. You register, it goes into a cookie, you never think about it again. I'd register once a week for NYT on the web -- it's one of the best information sources around.
The selfish arrogance of people he really makes me sick. People are happy to sit around and read free news, beat off to free porn, and complain about people who are doing their jobs in the military and other places while the dumbass fucks who've probably never had to worry about anything serious in their lives (myself included) stuff potato chips and wonder why there isn't a $6/hour employee to wipe the crumbs off his monitor so he can see the free pure information better and continue to complain about people who are a hell of a lot more worthwhile to society than they are.
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
THIS GUY IS NOT A CYBORG!
There, I feel better. Imagine my excitement when I read this article implying there was a human being who is a cyborg. I was intently interested in what incredible technology must have gone into him in the form of these "implants," and what horrible condition (thinking of Stephen Hawking) he must be in that he cannot function without them.
Folks, wearing an X10 webcam on your face does not make you a cyborg. And I'm mad that someone got my excitement up.
Read the comments, read the article, and do some google searching. This guy would like to attract a lot of attention -- and sure, wearable computing is a great thing. But he doesn't have implants, and he is not a cyborg.
I wear glasses to enhance my vision. That doesn't make me a cyborg. This guy wears a webcam over his eye to enhance his vision. And he thinks that's such a spectacular thing, he's named the concept "The EyeTap principle", apparently thinking it's just incredibly original. What a concept! Carrying around a camera and showing what you see to the world! Get real.
I'd give anything to see the note from his doctor. As his "implants" were nothing more than sticky electrodes like a heart patient might wear in the hospital (giving readouts about as exciting as coke machines and Christmas trees attached to the net, I'm sure), what possible medical explanation could be given that he requires these things on his person. They are possessions, not body parts. Maybe his experiment might be interrupted and the equipment damaged, but there is no medical need here, and thus a note from a doctor is nothing more than an attempt to be special and have people bend the rules.
I sound excessively negative here, but I'm a little bit mad at the grandstanding and sensationalism of this person. I note the article claims he's never had any problems like this before (a verbatim quote he gave to the media I'm sure), but his website claims he had similar problems in 2000. I guess the problems weren't so bad he'd vow never to fly Air Canada again.
One more time, and say it with me (you'll feel better, too): STEVE MANN IS NOT A CYBORG.
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How about a page that doesn't require any login at all?
The story, sans login. This can be replicated for every single NYT story on Slashdot or any other site via this page.
The professionalism and training of real law enforcement officers is far beyond what you'd find with security guards.
Well, I'm not too impressed with the police forces of our nation - trained they generally are - professional? only some - and the bad ones taint the whole force. (Not to mention, it seems the good cops never want to hunt down the bad ones, and end up protecting them - to their own detriment.)
That said, the rent-a-cop's are lots worse, though we don't usually have the rent-a-cops shooting mentally ill people because they were a "threat" to the officer!
Frankly, it seems to really hinge on staff at the top that want results. Look at the post-office. In all my dealings with them in the last 15 years or so, it's gotten lots better. I believe that this is largely because of an individual at or near the top that wants the job done right. He demands good performance from those directly under him, and they do the same, and so on until you reach the employees at the bottom. It's a law I follow - see crap at the employee level? Give the company one chance to fix it. If you don't get much response, you can be sure it's straight from the top. Find another vendor...
Well wait and see how the new airport security works. With Herr Ashcroft at the helm, I'm worried about how things will work. There doesn't seem to be a bunch of accountability in any of the justice department arms, and I suspect there will be little here too. (On a side note, it's funny how we keep giving law enforcement more and more power - but never seem to add the responsibility to go with it. I.E. You get additional powers for wire-tap (pen and trace) but if we find you used it wrong, you loose your job, and you'll never work in law enforcement in the US again - ANYWHERE! Until the consequenses of bad behavior cost the people who do it heavily, we'll continue to see law-enforecement abuse. Heck, if I could get away with it, I'd probably be guilty too...)
Cheers!
St. John's is just shy of 100K people, with a sister city right next door pushing that to abot 130-150K. It's also the provincial capital. And this is not a rural airport, it's an international hub (being physically closest to Europe still counts for something, b'ys.) While he certainly wouldn't have the exposure he has in Toronto, we're not talking backwater hicks, either. Factor in that it is still a small enough place that a visit from him would constitute local celebrity news, and you've got a better than even chance that his presence was known.
"No airport security agent should ever be unprofessional like that (which is why I support the federalization program currently in progress in the US). But the guy had to be inspected. "
No. Federalization has nothing to do with professionalism. It will simply make the matter worse. Against a private company screener you could stand a fair chance to recover damages, against the Federal Government your toast.
Government screeners know they are immune to most things a private company employee would have to worry about, and they willingly use the threat of the law (Read : the whole GOVERNMENT) to exploit those who must pass through their lines. How many stories have you read about sleeping "professional federal agents" or having metal detectors unplugged while operated by "professional federal agents"? I have seen many, and they come each week.
Don't fall for that bullshit line from the DNC, Professionalism DOES NOT EQUAL Federalism. If this was such a good idea then why don't the European countries support federalized airport security? Simple : Accountability.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
None, so it's lucky that they didn't do that:
You (and the moderators) fail the cluecheck. Looks to me like Captain Cyborg here is equally as guilty in the stubberness stakes, and is now happily milking this for publicity. It's an interesting story, but don't read things into it that aren't there.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Handheld? Why handheld?
Every airport I've gone through in recent months has a system to do explosive residue 'tracing'. They take a little gauze patch held by a little wand and wipe it on the laptop case, the attache handle, my shoes and anything else that might have come into contact with bomb-making material (exactly what that includes, I don't know).
Then they put the gauze patch in a machine that makes a little 'beep' and blinks a green light if you are ok. (I assume if a red light and a buzzer sounds, your laptop is going to get a visit from the bomb disposal squad.)
The handheld stuff would presumably be useful for faster screening of many more items/passengers as the system I've seen takes a lot of time. I wonder how much of this was was because Mann was indignant and uncooperative because they didn't just read his papers and let him through?
That "explosive" trace detector must detect traces of nitrate -- that's about the only thing that is common to all common explosives. One trouble is that nitrates also have many non-explosive uses. Walk across a lawn after it's fertilized and your shoes will beep the detector -- that's the likely reason for an incident in San Francisco recently, where they closed the airport after the moron in charge of the machine let the suspect shoes get away. Playing cards will leave nitrate traces on your hands.
And still, it's not going to detect all explosives. NO3 is the usual oxidizer for explosives, but there are other possible oxidizers. The sniffers will catch commercial and military explosives, and probably anything a Tim McVeigh could cook up on his own, but I'm pretty sure my high school chemistry teacher could have made a batch of nitrogen-free explosive if he wanted to. I might even be able to do it myself, if I didn't mind a rather high risk of blowing up the kitchen and myself... A terrorist group with arab oil money could certainly afford a better lab than that high school, and if they could send men to flight school to learn to fly jumbos (but not to land and take off!), they wouldn't have any trouble at all getting a few of their guys into a chemistry major at a US college...
On the other hand, apparently Reid (the "shoe bomber") first attracted suspicion by 'acting weird', at least, if the reports are to be believed.
Determined, competent highjackers will, indeed, act normal. But security also has to be worried about whackos who think the Nebuloids from Planet Zeppo want them to fly a commercial airliner to Uranus.
Apparently the security guards were rude, and perhaps unnecessarily rough. But Dr. Mann had to expect some attention and concern. It also sounds like there were some bureaucratic problems that prevented the guards from being notified.
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Uh, who's DAVE MacKenzie? Perhaps you meant Bob? Take off, eh?
Whether Mann is a jackass or not is irrelevant. People have legal rights to be jackasses, and their legal rights are not impaired by being jackasses. Being a jackass does not grant security personnel license to commit battery or otherwise violate the laws that normally apply.
Security may have needed to examine Mann prior to allowing him to board, but that does not mean they had to pull devices off his body. They could have asked or required him to remove the devices. Pulling a device that is a attached to a person from a person is clearly not part of a normal search and hence cannot be deemed to have been consented to by the person as the result of prior implicit or explicit consent to a general search. Therefore separate permission is clearly required. In the absence of such permission, removing a device from the body of a person constitutes battery.
Coincidentally, last month I wrote to the Manchester, New Hampshire, airport authority and to the security company inquiring about the new sign saying FAA regulation requires laptops to be X-rayed. I asked what reason they had to believe this would not damage laptops and who would be liable if it did. Neither party has answered. Past studies may have shown components are unlikely to be affected by typical airport X-ray screening, but components keep shrinking, so who says the conclusion is still valid?
I doubt X-raying laptops is useful anyway. From what I was able to observe, the laptop shows up on the X-ray display as a black rectangle or a grey rectangle with black rectangles in it. It appears to be no evidence would be visible about the presence of blades (since sharpness is not visible in the cross-section) or what is behind the black rectangles.
The fact remains that if I was a terrorist trying to cause maximum chaos -- I sure wouldn't bother with anything remotely near the airport. Why go through the hassle? Everyone has a heightened sense of awareness about the whole thing - and you have to spend all that time training to learn to fly the plane, before you're even ready to do anything with it.
Why not look into sabotaging trucks carrying hazardous chemicals, or blowing up an arena or stadium during a huge concert or ball-game, or derailing trains, or any slew of other relatively unprotected means of transport and venues that are out there?
You're inherently "unsafe" any time you venture out in public. The airport is no different than any other place, other than the fear people have of getting on planes. (If they crash, you're nearly certain to die.)
I'm more concerned with the possibility of a mechanical failure than some wacko hijaacking the plane. At least I have the possibility of stopping a hijaacker. I don't forsee being able to climb out on the wing and do a quick engine repair before the plane crashes....
Uh huh. So, when the KKK "desperately needs" to put "niggers" in "their" place, it should be easy to create a law that permits this?
Application of the notwithstanding clause has reduced Canada, and particularly Quebec, to the land of mob rule.
Far better to have a set of "inalianable" rights, that while not really absolute, are damn hard to officially take away. The public's apathy or inability to assert those right, is, of course, another problem.
You could've hired me.
I understand them wanting to check him out, and maybe even a strip search is in order, but when they had documentation signed by his doctor stating everything he's said, and they were unwilling to accomodate his requests to speak in person to his doctor or colleagues, yet still will not make an exception... there is a problem.
Well, exactly how are they going to authenticate the doctor's message? Or know that the doctor is to be trusted? Should you be able to get a bunch of gear onto an airliner uninspected by posing as a cyborg?
The bottom line is that, for now, if you want to be a cyborg, air travel is going to be inconvenient.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
And also points out the utter stupidity of mass transit systems; a terrorist, upon seeing the mass of security around the airport, isn't going to think to himself "Gee, I'll take the train. They don't even do baggage checks!"
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When you get down to it, most guns are not the best weapon to have on an airplane.
Pressurized cabins don't like bullet holes. it's such a cramped crowded space that firing a gun will justy as likely hit a bystander as a hijacker.
The 9-11 hijackings succeeded because noone on the planes expected the hijackers to be suicidal.
A sharp mind is ultimately more dangerous than any weapon.
Let's face it, just as a thought experiment, it's not too hard to figure out a way for a hijacker to use an armed passenger for his own benefit, or at least to effectively neutralize him.
I am not claiming that we are defenseless against terrorists. My ultimate point is that it is adaptibility and quick situational thinking, not bureaucratized procedures, that will prove most effective against terrorists.
evanchik.net
Iduno how much traveling is being done by Abiocor patients. Don't they only last a few months? And wouldn't the stress of pressure change fuck them up a little? I know I'd take greyhound in the unlikely event that I was doing any traveling.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
(Clue: Love Field and Intercontinental both are _small_ airports, usually used for commuter flights in and out of Dallas and Houston- they normally don't rate a hand-held bomb detector unit...)
No, sorry, you're clueless. (Sorry for the ad hominem, but you have to admit you set yourself up for that one...)
Houston Intercontinental(IAH) is NOT a small airport (you probably meant Hobby (HOU), the "old" airport, still quite active, but much smaller than IAH): IAH is Continental Airlines home hub and the 17th busiest airport in the *world* by passenger count and 13th by traffic. Love Field in Dallas is no slouch, either: it's the home base for Southwest Airlines (the only airline making significant money at the moment) and would be far busier if it weren't for meddlesome federal rules limiting the use of this really convenient in-town airport to avoid "hurting" the regional behemoth. In fact, Love and Hobby are such success stories, and so well liked and used by travellers, that several years ago, the FAA started insisting that whenever a new regional behemoth is opened, the old airport must be *destroyed* and rendered unusable, even for general aviation (private planes). Denver and Austin are examples of cities that have suffered mightily because of this, and are forced to live with ridiculously expensive white elephant airports that might as well be in another county...
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