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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?
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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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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.
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.