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TSA Software Bug Creates Airport Bomb Scare

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the somebody-just-got-fired dept.

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."

2 of 276 comments (clear)

  1. Re:ROFL! by ceejayoz · · Score: 3, Informative

    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."

  2. Re:Fun with false images by Illserve · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's not about testing humans for alertness, you misunderstand the purpose of the lures.

    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/WolfePrevalenceN ature05.pdf

    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.