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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."
That's insane. Images to test their alertness sure, but images of bombs? That's just plain crazy. All you're doing is desensitising them and guaranteeing that even if they're alert they won't get the adrenaline rush they should. What brainiac thought this one up?
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
How frequent are these "tests" given? Once every 10 minutes...30 minutes? What are the chances that they coincide with an actual suspicious device, which the screener would then assume was part of the "test" which happened to occur simultaneously.
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A real bomb wouldn't explode until it got into the luggage handling system. After all, how do you explain all the luggage that disappears from the airports?
Way back in 1986 I had a summer job as an airport screener. Back then it was all private companies, of course, and we all got minimum wage. We didn't have the fancy computerized tests, but the supervisors (and occasionally FAA inspectors), had a collection of fake weapons/bombs that they could slip onto somebody's x-ray machine.
The operator would observe the item, stop the machine, look up, and the supervisor would then inform them it was a test. If you failed the test, you'd be disciplined. Fail too many, and you'd be fired.
You might think that this test would be too easy because you would see the supervisor approaching, but most of the time the operator is so focused on their screen that they don't look at the passengers. Still, there were only a limited number of fake items so you got good at recognizing them. It seems like these new electronic tests have the advantage of offering a much larger variety of images.
On the plus side, if you actually caught somebody trying to smuggle a bomb onto a plane, you were eligible for a massive $100 reward. I always thought the risk/reward ratio of X-ray work was too low, so I preferred to do less stressful jobs like escorting children and disabled passengers.
No no, this happened in the US, not in the UK.
The US security would have gunned down the people around the suspicious traveler and missed him entirely.
Besides, the flight attendents for Delta pass out weapons during the flight. They come by with a cart full of aluminum soda cans which make very effective shanks. Just flatten the center of the can, give it a twist and voila! A metal cutting edge.You can even serrate it with a diamond hole puncher:
http://www.onlineriver.com/doorway/holepunchworld
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
Having lived within broadcast of the metro Atlanta news for decades, I find the explanation that this was just a software glitch to be somewhat suspicious.
:-)
Blaming technology is an easy thing to do, and very common in Atlanta. It is an explanation that makes people laugh with frustration and lose interest quickly in the story. Even better, there's no one that has to take the fall and take the blame for the problem. It's a common tactic that's been used a lot. In a city that doesn't want to scare or blame any person or corporation, technology is an easy scapegoat.
Certainly the situation could have been a technology failure. The problem is that it took so long for them to let the public know what the cause was. The security lines were opened, what?, two hours or so after the panic that caused them to be closed. But no explanation then. No explanation came forth until the next day in fact. Either they opened up the security lines when they were unsure of what was on those screens (gleep!) or they knew what the explanation was and knew there was no real security risk. But why keep the cause secret for so long afterward if it was a simple technology error? My opinion was that they needed to find a better scapegoat; and concocting a plausible way to blame technology (as usual) took a bit of time.
While the baggage screeners might not know when random tests are run, their supervisors damn well should. If baggage inspection is a real time operation it'd be tragic if a "test" image with a fake bomb appeared over baggage with a real bomb. While the screeners are in the dark as to when the tests are run, the security system itself should clearly know when the tests are run.
Hey, here's an idea. Cut some metal words out of old scrap metal and make the phrase "This is a test" and put it inside your luggage. I wonder what kinds of things you could get through the screening system
does it heck... they'll still be bored to tears...just petrified of missing one of the random tests... can you imagine driving along the highway minding your own business when software in the car does an awareness check on you by popping up an image of a kid running across the road??? well this is similar...
they've got devices coming out for cars and trucks that test driver awareness far more subtly than just popping up a test picture at random... the software actually monitors the drivers eye movements and other parameters... so there shouldn't be anything stopping them from doing something similar for this x-ray scanner application...
Then again, perhaps it would be better to dump the human out of the loop altogether and rely on AI to determine if an item of luggage warrants further attention... but these days it's still cheaper to use people to do it and pay them peanuts at the same time...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Depends on what you mean by "bussiest". If by passangers, then yes, it is ATlanta. If you mean by "moevements", that is landings and take-offs, the it is Chicago O'Hare.
c ontent.jsp?zn=aci&cp=1-7-46^6865_9_2__
http://www.airports.org/cda/aci/display/main/aci_
So the software failed, but in the end it didn't really fail, because it showed someone was doing their job as they were supposed to be.
...
So in your opinion it didn't fail, and it's a reasonable arguement but what about from the traveller's perspective? I have been on the recieving end of a mistaken item in my bags.
airportsecurity: "What do you have in your bag that is a metal coil?!"
Me:"Nothing."
airportsecurity:"Tell us what you have in your bag that is a metal coil before we check it or we will be forced to detain you!"
Me:The only things that have any metal in that bag are a cd player and some cd's.. maybe the stack of cd's looks like a coil to you guys?
airportsecurity:"The item is NOT CD's what is it?"
airportsecurity2:"--glares-- You inisist there isn't something 12 to 14 inches long that is a metal coil in your bag? About 2 inches in diameter? Have you left your bag anywhere?"
ME"No, I mean yes I insist there isn't anything like that and no I haven't left my bag anywhere.. it was on my back!"
To make a long story short they surrounded me in security only to find out that they mistook which bag the "item" was in. Oh the "item", it was a candle holder, pretty cool one at that in the short time I saw it (it was a coil so that the base could be spun to bring the candle height up to keep it consistent).
The security did not even chastise the guy for bringing a large metalic item on the flight, they didn't even make him check it. This was before 911 though, back when large heavy blunt objects were safe on a plane (It was Colonel Mustard in the 737 with the candle stick!).
I did not recieve and appology. Instead I recieved a reprimand for having a keychain which was a mini-supersoaker (which I thought nothing of since it had been there a year). Yes, it could shoot water (a thimble full reserve that would get you 3-4 shots of half a meter or so), but it really was not dangerous, not as dangerours as candle holder in my opinion. I guess I could have filled it with a thimble of bleach and threatened a stewardess to get me another beer, or I'd make her blind, if she would be kind enough to stand within 50 centimeters of me and hold very still as the aim is not very accurate on a TOY WATERGUN KEYCHAIN!
Security doesn't like reason, they took my keychain.
Moral of the story: I bet it sucked for the people with the "bomb" in their suitcase.
"If you are going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill
They were real good about opening up all the security lanes to clear the backlog. Actually, I had subscribed via web to the airport line monitor service. My first page before I left to the airport was 10 minutes and this was after a buddy at the airport told me to get my butt down there for my flight early. The second page said "over 2 hours", the third was 30-45 minutes and the last said 1.5 hours to get through security. Seems like this is based on wild ass guess rather than more industrial engineering means.
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I'm guessing that the baggage checker didn't really notice the "This is a test" and called in to report the bomb. He'd be too embarrassed to admit it's his fault rather than the software, and it's so much easier to blame the software and get away with it, because most people don't know how it works.