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Backscatter X-Rays Coming to Airports
TSMABob writes "Wired News reports that a recent, but expensive, technology of backscatter may grace airport security in the future. Nice Bombs Ya Got There is an article that explains how this technology is far superior to the metal detectors of today, pointing out that 'Richard Reid, convicted of trying to blow up a trans-Atlantic jetliner with explosives in his shoes, walked through metal detectors at Orly Airport in Paris several times before boarding the plane.'
Read More about backscatter x-rays and their ability to pick up non-metallic objects."
There's another new article on this in the 'Globe and Mail'. It's a bit more indepth, and features a really, er, 'nice' picture of a seemingly shaven lady testing out the machine.
Aside from the rather titilating views that these folks will be getting I am wondering about the health risks that constant bombardment of X-rays to frequent flyers. What about kids, infants and pregnant women?
Man, perhaps purchasing that new Cessna Skylane is getting more attractive.
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if they just put the monitor in a curtained-off booth, that'd be enough privacy for me. hell, i have less privacy when i try on pants at the store. like i care if they can see my junk.
they have the authority to strip search you on nothing more than a hunch - so how different is this really?
i do remember reading an article talking about this some time back and they were thinking of using a computer generated genderless wireframe and then transfer any hits from the backscatter onto that image, instead of showing the viewer the actual person in the scanner.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
I dunno... I understand the "need" for something like this, and how it would be a very effective preventative measure, but shit... Aside from that fact that it's one HELL of an invasion of privacy, the whole prinicple of being treated "guilty until proven innocent" really gets me. I don't dig on this idea at ALL.
The bigger problem is even then it's not clear his explosive would have shown up. He didn't have any wiring or timer - just plain explosive shaped to look like part of the shoe. If whoever made made both shoes had made the shoes the same way so they matched, who is going to recognize a pair of explosive shoe tongues? Sniffing? Without getting explicit, there are ways of circumventing the chemical sniffers as well. As Abraham Lincoln once said "If a man wants to kill me, he'll find a way."
It would be nice if such machines detected the explosives by their electro-magnetic frequency signature or the like instead of human-based image recognition.
Another approach would be to use automated image recognition. The machine would hilite only suspicious spots, which the guards then inspect further. That way they don't have to see your whole body.
Table-ized A.I.
Not only that, but shoes are mostly made of plastic, rubber, etc. that would look just the same as plastic explosives.
Those who are willing to trade security for freedom deserve neither --GWB
I think I'm having a Total Recall.
"It takes many nails to build a crib, but one screw to fill it."
Seriously, dude, yes. Even if the TSA screeners where... um... PROFESSIONALS, I would still be highly reluctant to allow myself subjection to this kind of scrutiny... privacy factors aside, look at the kind of people who would be doing this... our current TSA folks are NOT the kind or calibur of people that I would entrust something like this to.
My fear is that this type of technology will make the underpaid, overworked, and barely skilled security workers even more complacent.
Last weekend I took a trip to see my new neice. I brought along a few presents. At the last minute, the airline cancelled the flight and put me on a different flight, on a different airline. Fine.
Only problem is, since I changed flights at the last minute, even though it wasn't my decision, I got the extra-special anal-probe screening, which included, of course, opening all the presents that had JUST PASSED THROUGH AN X-RAY MACHINE. I swore there and then that I was done. If I can't drive there in my car in 8 hours, I don't need to go there. This just cements the deal. This is YOUR GOVERNMENT performing unreasonable random searches on you and interfering with free travel now, friends.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"In the terminator series- soon to be expanded to its fourth installment- time travel only works on naked bodies. I am amused to think that we may have to esort to this for ultimate security.
Even so, when you read about smuggling in prisons and elsewhere, there's alot you can hide inside a body.
if it's that easy to get hired into airport security, why doesn't our buddy bin laden just get some asshole to work there and let some terrorists through unchecked?
"Question with boldness even the existence of a god." - Thomas Jefferson
As a pre-op transsexual woman, use of such devices will guarantee that I'm not going to fly. Those transsexuals that fly now and are obviously trans are frequently subjected to strip searches, verbal harassment, and other abuse. I haven't had to deal with it because it's hard to tell with me - unless you have the ability to see certain parts of me naked.
Well, now the screeners can see everything. Meaning I'll have to worry about someone seeing something unexpected about me, and use that as an excuse to harass me.
This surely seems like an unfair violation of my privacy. After all, why should what's between my legs be their business?
[scientific-musing]
The hullabaloo over this and similar devices is that they render the person under inspection apparently naked. This is an understandable objection. It seems, to my naive viewpoint, it would not be so difficult to computationally manipulate the image to remove the body, and leave everything else. After all, airport security (TSA in the US) is supposed to only care about things that are not the body. I've seen MRI scans which have been manipulated to, eg, peel the skull away from the brain, so I cannot imagine that it would be difficult to remove the pseudo-naked body from the data before they are displayed.
[/scientific-musing]
[privacy-rant]
I hate the idea of these and similar technologies which allow semi-secret observation of the populace without court order. Forget the tinfoil hat, you'll have to wrap your entire body in foil now!
[/privacy-rant]
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
Nichts gegen Bremsstrahlung, aber...
Z backscatter seems to base on the Compton effect. (At least that's what the specs from AS&E say.)
There are three major effects ionisating radiation has on matter. Photoeffect, Compton-effect and pair emission. The last one appears only with very high energies, the first one need elements with high mass.
This leaves the Compton effect that mainly takes place with medium energies and affects rather light elements, as used in organic matter. Briefly, the photon splits into a less-powerful photon and an electron. The new photon might (or might not) come back to you. This (back-)scattered light can be detected with special sensors.
For medical purposes this scattered light is a PITA since you only get some gray blurred edges. But it seems to me that now there exists a new technique to get some good information out of this scattered light.
Just my two cents...
So it seems to me that the main thing that makes people modest, eg. not stripping naked and running around campus, is the fact that people will know it was you and you have to talk to them afterwards. The same is probably true of this machine, ie. people assume that the operator would see you before and after you walk through, and you might feel embarassed about beeing seen that way.
But just suppose for a second, that the operator of the x-ray vision machine is in a totally isolated room, and sees only the image of the person walking through the machine with no face shown, and doesn't get to see the person before or after. Wouldn't this eliminate the privacy problem? After all, if no one knows who you were individually walking through the machine, how are you to feel violated?
I personally would be ok with that kind of setup. Would you?
I remember hearing some airlines setting up special lanes for VIPs, a.k.a. rich people, to pass through the security checkpoints faster. So as these backscatter checkpoints start showing up in airports, will the rich and famous wiggle their way out of having to walk through these things? Is it fair?
On one hand, I'd have to say that well off people rarely blowup the planes that they are riding on. On the other hand, money can buy a lot of things. Can you really trust someone because they have paid for VIP privileges?
I for one don't think it should an option to buy your way out of a security scan that "everyone" is required to go through.
Life moves pretty fast; if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. -FB
Exactly. Ever since 9/11, we've been sacrificing freedom in the name of security.
This technology will not make our country more noticeably secure. If someone wants to blow up a plane, they will find a way to do it.
Our national security problems stem from our foreign policies and our general complacency and arrogance as a society. If we want to make ourselves more secure, we need to repair the fabric of our society and stop bombing the hell out of anyone who disagrees with us.