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TSA Software Bug Creates Airport Bomb Scare
192939495969798999 writes "An article at CNN's website reports on a serious software bug at the Atlanta airport." From the article: "TSA screeners are given tests around the clock to check their alertness. Images of bombs and other suspicious devices that are hard to detect are put up on the X-ray machine, followed after a brief delay by an alert that reads, 'This is a test.' After reviewing a tape of the images, Hawley said the software failed to alert the screener of the test."
http://geography.about.com/library/faq/blqzbusiest airport.htm
"Atlanta's Hartsfield International Airport is the world's busiest passenger airport, with 77,939,536 arrivals, departures, and transfers in 1999. Atlanta bypassed #2 Chicago-O'Hare in 1998 to become the world's busiest."
The TSA screeners' raises are based on how many hits/misses they get. It makes sense, because this is the only way to get someone to pay attention.
It's not about testing humans for alertness, you misunderstand the purpose of the lures.
N ature05.pdf
The fake bomb images are there to IMPROVE performance.
The DHS & TSA fund research into optimizing human search. This implementation is a practical application of very recent research.
I refer you to
http://search.bwh.harvard.edu/pdf/WolfePrevalence
which is part of the research of Jeremy Wolfe's lab
http://search.bwh.harvard.edu/
Just read the first the first few paragraphs of the Nature paper I linked to understand the point.