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CAPPS II Trials Begin in March
corporal_clegg writes "According to this story on FoxNews, in March Delta Airlines will begin using a federal database that incorporates credit history and bank records in an effort to identify potential security threats. The federal system - CAPPS II (Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System) - will assign a "threat level" to passengers based upon information in the database and other criteria, such as whether the individual is on government watch lists. 'CAPPS II will collect data and rate each passenger's risk potential according to a three-color system: green, yellow, red. When travelers check in, their names will be punched into the system and the boarding passes encrypted with the ranking.' The scary thing is that no one really knows which databases the government will use or how long the records will remain. Slashdot covered this story in September 2002, and it now seems that the first airline is ready to give it a try. In addition to the links in the previous Slashdot article, a good background on CAPPS II can be found here." Actually, the last story we did on passenger profiling was just a week or two ago.
Contrary to popular rumour, millions of dollars have been let in contracts to do the groundwork for TIA. Any USC students out there? Did you know your alma mater is going to help build the surveillance state known as the USA? TIA lives
CAPPS II will collect data and rate each passenger's risk potential
//begin code snippet
if(PassengerEthnicity()=='arab')
{
InitiateSearch();
SetThreatLevel(doom);
};
filter: +3. Hey, look! all the trolls went away!
.... incorporates credit history and bank records in an effort to identify potential security threats.
Oh thats right....poor people are all terrorists.
Just remember if you bounce a check then the terrorists have already won.
ThunderBird. Nuff said.
A couple weeks ago, Congress decided that the Total Information Awareness program could not operate against US citizens.
Today? We are getting a "security" implementation that(purportedly) keeps the information it collects for 50 years. This has been disputed, by the Transportation Department, but it appeared in print, and the retraction was not.
Sad, sad.
Black and grey are both shades of white.
The scary thing about this is:
- We don't know what airports this is going to be run at.
- We don't know what databases are going to be used
- What if some of the information is erroneous? How can we correct our own "profile"?
- Lastly...what does my credit check have to do with whether or not I'm going to blow up a plane?
And then they wonder why almost every single airline in the United States is at or near bankruptcy.
"Killing America in the Name of Security"
If it were really about airline security, they would make a special strip search screening line. So you go through into a little room, they completely search you, not necessarily a strip search but completely search you and your carry on luggage, and let you go. Really, I don't think the government has any right to even know your name. You should be able to fly where ever you want, when ever you want, without being tracked. As long as you pass the security screening before you get onto the plane, what the fuck right does the government have to know anything else about you?
Don't they realize that anything that is publicized is now what a terrorist will most definately avoid? If they are looking for good credit and a history of large amounts of money moving through a bank account or vice versa, then a potential threat, i.e terrorist, will most definately change their habits to remain undetectible. These are not stupid people. If I know what steps an airline is taking to detect whether or not I am a threat, so does EVERYONE else. I know many of you will say that this information is made public so that I know what freedoms are being taken from me and I say that either scenerio is a bad idea. Leave my credit history and bank account information alone and find another way to detect terrorists without telling me how you are going to do it, just don't invade my privacy.
if you haven't done anything, then what do you have to worry about? This kind of profiling will never fly w/the ACLU and the like, though.
Monitoring bank and credit reports will flag questionable purchases like, oh, let's say, 2 tons of fertilizer and a Ryder truck. But what about the ones who don't exhibit that kind of behavior? Credit reports and bank activity aren't going to prevent a hijacker alone, in my opinion.
So we shall soon expect to see the less affluent citizens of this nation prohibited from travelling by airplane? There is simply no way in which the algorithm they use to determine risk could be flawless, and in such a matter, even one false-positive is too much. I always heard jurists refer to the slippery slope, and I had to wonder whether it was true. In the last five years og litigation, there have been an inconceivable number of unconstitutional or unjust laws proposed, and an even more amazing number of them have been passed. We shall finally see whether the slippery slope exists. I sincerely hope that we can return even a small measure of the freedom that this republic is supposed to represent, but I fear that it shall continue only to get worse.
I fear that things will degenerate so greatly, that nothing short of armed insurrection will return it to the path of its founders' intent. I fear that day, because if force becomes necessary, then it is already too late.
Pax Digitalia
Just because you're poor doesn't mean you have a bad credit rating.
But that doesn't even matter - I think instead what this system will be looking for is a person not with good credit, or even bad credit, but very little credit history... that's the kind of person that will make "them" wonder what they are up to.
So what you should really be railing against is that people who aren't good consumers (in that they make use of credit and thus build up a record) will be hassled.
Personally, I'm not sure about this either way... in some ways I like it if it means fewer obviously random and stupid searches like they do now. That might only be because I expect to be targeted for searches less as a result.
A funny side note - I recently took a one-way flight and my girlfriend and I were fully searched multiple times. However, if you think about it - people that purchase one way tickets a few days in advance are probably the last ones to worry about!! Instead, I say, be concerned about the passenger that supposedly has it "so together" that they purchased tickets (round trip or otherwise) months in advance... after all, a real terrorist is not going to leave it to chance that he can get a flight on a certain plane a few days in advance.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
anyone who doesn't want a national identity card has something to hide.
I mean, other than cars, that is. What about train stations? Do they have screening policies that are nearly as strict? Hell, I'd be happy to extend my travel time by a day or more, just so I don't need to worry about having my name run through any number of databases in the vain hopes of finding something and appeasing the herd/masses of their security concerns.
My wife and I both predict that within 10 years (most likely less) it will be required to carry "papers" while you travel, even in your car, not just on a plane or some such. Interstate travel will start to be as arduous as international travel. It's quite sickening, actually...
We can keep the current system in place with searches and questions for (hopefully) the minority of travellers who would't have an id. If you can take the time to get a driver's license once every couple years, you can take the time to get a background check too.
"Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out."
Our way of life, sir? Your way of life may involve sacrificing the ideals of this nation for temporary safety, but mine does not. I would sooner die than see this nation become a police state, and nothing short of that will succeed in preventing violence 100 per cent of the time. If the artificers of this nation had intended for security to come before freedom, then they would not have imposed any restrictions on the courts.
Pax Digitalia
In case you didn't catch it ...
All passengers will be considered a threat.
This is so stupid. Everyone bitches when the 80 year old grandma gets searched, but random is the best.
If there is any "methodology" at all to doing this profiling there is a danger that you would just probe the system till you discover the "right" person to send through.
Keep sending through different kinds off people until you know who you can send that would never get checked.
Random is the way to go.
... how a phrase such as "such as whether the individual is on government watch lists" doesn't scare the hell out of every single person in the US.
Perhaps there's a reason public education sucks so badly besides governmental stupidity... perhaps it's governmental genious to get all these fucking idiots to think crap like this is actually good. To me it's absolutely astonishing that a lot of people think protesting should be outright illegal.. do they not comprehend what that means?! This kind of crap almost makes me want to cry, and thanks to the US's ability to influence most every other country with either wads of money or military power there is no escape... "Brave New World" wasn't a fictional book, it was a god damn prophecy.
This is just so damn scary... I've had a gun put to my head by a nervous wreck of a thief, and I am still more scared about our current political climate than I was about that...
For the most part now I'd rather drive to wherever I'm going then take an intra-continental flight. Security is so insane there, it's not even funny. just the other day a Canadian citizen was sent to India because INS officials thought (for some reason) her passport was invalid.
Not that any of this stuff is even necessary to prevent hijacking (just lock the cabin door, and have passengers fight back), or bombing (use bomb detectors!). Simple, obvious things like that are the way to prevent 9/11 type disasters, not creepy big-brother bullshit.
Its nothing more then a power-grab by totalitarians.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Do you really think Al-Quada wouldn't stick bombs on a little kid if they thought it would have a better chance of getting through?
Whenever you focus your attention on one catagory of people, you make it easier then it could be for another group. All the terrorists have to do is fly their members around a lot, and see who gets checked most often. The ones that don't, carry the bombs and stuff.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Do you really think Al-Quada wouldn't strap bombs on a 5 year old if they thought they would have a better chance of getting through?
Any time you focus more resources on one group, you have less on another. There's no getting around that. All the terrorists need to do is send their agents on lots of flights to see which ones get checked least often, and use them to carry the weapons/bombs.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
My "way of life" isn't the sort of cowardice that gives up privacy in the interests of security. I don't give my phone number to the good folks at Radio Shack. I don't let the police in to my home without a legitimate warrant. Giving up something so personal as my banking records is so entirely contrary to my way of life that I can find no conceivable grounds that your statement should apply.
Applaud? Of course not. I never applaud those that rob me. To "protect" my way of life by not allowing me to live it?
I consider this effort not only ill-considered with regard to its likely effectiveness and potential for harm to 3rd parties, but additionally for its disregard for the rights of those affected.
the strength of the us goverment was found in comprimise... making a strong central goverment, while makeing limitations on that power. While I tend to lean towards your way of thinking, we do need to have order in our goverment.
Selling software wont make you money, selling a service will.
I've said it a few times before in a few places, but it bears repeating. . .
Homeland passes. Here's what to do. (This post was a little intense sounding, but still, I believe, entirely valid. It's interesting to look back at where we were in November; not just at how the unimaginable happened, but how it now feels normal).
A German Jew on why he didn't get out in time. (This post is REALLY informative; it's a story by a German Jew who explains how he let all the warning signs slip past him and didn't get out before the Nazi axe fell. Read this one! It's gold.)
-Fantastic Lad
Etymological note: Actually it should be biennial flight review. Biannual means twice a year, though it's been perverted to mean both (rendering it ambiguous). This is the kind of thing you talk about when bored and hanging around a hangar.
If you want to stay private, you'll have to get the training but not the rating. I'm a (rusty) CFII/MEII and what's that knocking at the door? I'm sure I'm in some damn national security database.
I refuse to believe anything they're doing would have stopped the 9/11 crowd, except perhaps enforcing existing immigration laws accurately (are they even doing that?).
Stupid people don't think about things unless they are within arms reach. The *possibility* of things happening to them don't occur to them because they have a hard time extrapolating potential futures from current events. The only thing that exists in their world are the things that are happening right *now*. "Do I feel good right now?" Well, some law was passed today, and I still feel okay, so the law must be fine.
I hate to say it, have for a long time avoided thinking about it. But people really are that stupid. Just can't think about anything that's not within arms reach. Anything they're not exactly in the middle of is beyond comprehension. So lacking reason, they resort to whatever primitive analogs are available, such as emotion. "It feels good to know efforts are underway to ensure my safety."
So, it uses my credit history and banking history to decide if I'm allowed to fly? Sounds like airtravel is only for upper-class people, and not for us "commoners"...
:) (Aug 1-3, Las Vegas, for those who don't know).
:)
:)
:)
Transportation officials say a contractor will be picked soon to build the nationwide computer system, which will check such things as credit reports and bank account activity and compare passenger names with those on government watch lists.
So..
For myself:
Credit History: low to moderate
Bank History: recent purchases of gas, guns, or large widthdrawls
Gov't watchlist: FBI - Cybercrimes
I'm going to have a "RED" rating, which means no air travel according to the article... Do you think this will be open for discussion at the terminal?
Lets not even talk about how many travelers won't be going to DefCon next year.
My credit history is a long run of usually breaking even (and sometimes not), and a few years of decent income and fixing past debts.
My bank history is mixed.. I've had some idiots at banks really mess up my attitude towards banks (see my previous rants). So I've had large sums of cash in banks, and then move the cash.
We won't discus why I'd be watched by the feds.
Consider this.. I'm going out of town for a month (like I did around Christmas).. I may take most of the cash out of my bank account (95%+) to have spending cash, since one of the credit bureaus completely hosed my rating and the bank won't issue me one of those handy-dandy Visa debit cards. I don't have a credit card that I could live on for a few days on the road, much less a month.
I do own guns. I have a small collection. I'm a red-blooded American, and that's one of the founding features of America is the right we have to own guns. Imagine George Washington saying "Now that we've become an independant nation, everyone hand over their guns." hahaha.
I'd almost guarantee that I'll flag as yellow or red if I'm going on vacation.
I wonder if trans-oceanic cruises will pick up more sales now.. If you can't fly in America, you sure won't be able to go anywhere but the Americas (North, Central, or South), unless someone else knows a good way to get to Europe, Asia, or Austraila without a plane.
I know it's a 6-8 hour flight across America, or 40+ hours of driving. They're going to be pushing transportation back years if they say any percentage of America can no longer fly.
Maybe they're just trying to make up for the bucks that the US Federal Gov't has been loosing into Amtrak every year.
I frequently talk to someone in Russia, and he really relates the happenings in America to the old Soviet controls over it's people.. Even down to the name "Homeland Security".
Maybe I should just make up a few extra sets of papers. One I travel with. One I get hotels with, and then one that's really me.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
America is no longer the country it once was. We are living under a totalitarian regime. Do you really think this bullshit, "threat assessment" is going to really improve air travel safety? The obvious answere is no. They are just going to keep searching dark skinned people, just like the have been since the Reichstag, I mean World Trade Center went down.
CAPPS is not meant to prevent terrorism. It is meant to keep dissidents under control, and if possible out of our country. It is also meant to justify the massive amounts of information that the government is now compiling on every one of us.
This is part of an obvious trend of policies that eliminate privacy and freedom. Fun activity: Next time the terrorist threat level goes from yellow to orange watch C-Span to learn about what new laws the Big Brother has planned to make us safer. There is a direct correlation between the "terror alert color" and how Orwellian government proposals get. Last time it was orange, Bush told us that we had to attack Iraq because they support terror, subtlely implying that by attacking Iraq we would reduce our terrorist threat.
Our president claims that invading a middleastern country will reduce our threat of terrorism. CAPPS is not about terrorism, just like Iraq is not about terrorism, just like (fill in the blank) is not about terrorism. Wake up and smell the government.
By the way, did anyone else see the news story about how hacked Direct TV cards support terrorism? Nothing supports terrorism more than paying your taxes.
Do me a favor and double it!
That the little kid is unlikely to be trained to fly the plane into anything. Isn't that who they are really trying to catch? Oh yeah, them and the shoe bombers - also hard to teach a little kid to set fire to his shoes. Thank you shoe bomber for making sure I have to have good socks on every time I travel by air.
Some random searches are good, sure - but not at the level they are at which is impeding travel for everyone with no benefit that I can discern (do you really think someone couldn't get just about anything through if they really wanted to?). Frankly I would be fine with putting an impervious shield between the pilots and the passengers, and letting us cattle (even the first class cattle) take their chances with nothing more than the metal detectors at the security screening areas they have now and no more near-strip searches. Anyone that tries to take over a plane now is going to meet with stiff resistance from every passenger on the plane now that we all "know" what happens to planes that get hijacked, so I think pretty much all of the searches for things like boxcutters are the very definition of pointlessness.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Because it leaks information, giving you an oracle you can test against.
b arti/
This article, http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue7_10/chakra
demonstrates how:
"Abstract
Carnival Booth: An Algorithm for Defeating the Computer-Assisted Passenger Screening System by Samidh Chakrabarti and Aaron Strauss.
To improve the efficiency of airport security screening, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) deployed the Computer Assisted Passenger Screening system (CAPS) in 1999. CAPS attempts to identify potential terrorists through the use of profiles so that security personnel can focus the bulk of their attention on high-risk individuals. In this paper, we show that since CAPS uses profiles to select passengers for increased scrutiny, it is actually less secure than systems that employ random searches. In particular, we present an algorithm called Carnival Booth that demonstrates how a terrorist cell can defeat the CAPS system. Using a combination of statistical analysis and computer simulation, we evaluate the efficacy of Carnival Booth and illustrate that CAPS is an ineffective security measure. Based on these findings, we argue that CAPS should not be legally permissible since it does not satisfy court-interpreted exemptions to the U.S. Constitution's Fourth Amendment. Finally, based both on our analysis of CAPS and historical case studies, we provide policy recommendations on how to improve air security."
You don't do that for privacy - you do it so that the system of "OK", "suspicious", and "terminate" works.
And does it work, if used in place of more substantial security? El Al, as you mentioned, really does have good security. Yes, it's expensive; yes, it would be very difficult to scale to the volume we need. But we need to decide how much we care about security -- and, if we care enough to do it right, replace "feel good" measures that violate privacy with little effect in favor of measures that actually work. I object quite strongly to gratuitous gathering of information -- but less so to actual security measures (like placing all luggage in decompression chambers prior to loading).
Additionally, I simply can't conceive of an algorithm for detecting terrorists so selective that it will flag only 1 in every 10^6 as red and still be able to catch the actual terrorists out of the crowd. I've dealt with neural network systems (probably one of the best ways of going about something like this) and have quite a bit of respect for them -- but simply not that much.
Certainly, relying on the security guard's judgement may not be much better -- but the grandparent post's claim that building a database with my banking information will "protect [my] way of life" is just a bit much to swallow.
First there was offshore IT...
Don't like it, get the hell out. Or at least write your representative.
I know you have been saving that "Customer" rant for a long time (which I agree with the general thought), but I think you should shelve it for this discussion and wait a bit longer...
In this context "consumer" is exactly the right word. To the airline you are a customer, but in terms of profiling security risk what they are really looking for (at least partially) is, literally, what kind of consumer you have been - in terms of what debts you have accumulated (and paid off) through the years. If they find no evidence that you have been a consumer of any sort (no credit cards, no mortgages, etc) with no monetary history to speak of, then they would be a lot more likely to find you odd (you have to admit an American with no monetary history is like a cat without fur) and flag you the customer for extra searching, much as I was flagged because I was on a one way flight that I had purchased only days before. That's what profiling is all about, finding patterns that deviate from the norm and looking at them carefully.
It's a crappy way to treat a Customer, but then if the searches affect fewer customers there will also be fewer complaints overall - which is exactly why profiling comes about, because so many people are rigorously searched right now that make no sense to search that they are considering using profiling of some sort to reduce the set of people who have something to complain about and reduce the headache that air travel has become (so that airlines can get back to going bankrupt every ten years instead of every five).
Sadly, the other option (to simply bring searching back to where it was pre911) would never occur to anyone (in the airline industry and government), even though it makes the most sense for everyone and offers an insignificant extra security risk.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
...since the folks at the airlines will be using "black", "brown", and "white" to determine the threat levels.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
Here's the case of the nationalized Canadian citizen who was deported "back" to his homeland of Syria and has not been heard from since:
http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/PE story/TGAM/20021014/UDEPON/International/internati onal/internationalAmericasHeadline_temp/4/4/6/
Bernadette Devlin McCaliskey, the world-renowned Irish civil rights leader was refused entry into the United States of Ashcroft. At Chicago's O'Hare, she was told that she presented a danger and wouldn't be permitted to step foot on American soil. She begged them to recheck their computer. She insisted there had to be a mistake. She told them she came in peace. They said that Tony Blair's British government had told them by fax a different story. They said she was a risk. Yes, this is the same Devlin who at 21 became the youngest MP elected to Parliament. Deported:
http://www.ruminatethis.com/archives/000946.html
a Canadian citizen who was deported to India:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article16 89.htm
Last week, Eugene Angelopoulos arrived at JFK enroute to New York University, where he had been invited to speak at a conference on Philosophy and Politics. The Greek academic was instead detained at the airport, shackled and interrogated. He was asked to explain his views about an American war on Iraq, and immigration officials demanded to know if he was "anti-American." Ultimately, he found his way back to Athens, but his NYU stint was not to be, and he was shaken to the core.