Slashdot Mirror
Charges Dropped In Fake Boarding Pass Case
An anonymous reader writes, "Investigators have dropped the criminal case against Christopher Soghoian after satisfying themselves that he acted without criminal intent. The grad student had created a web site capable of printing fake airline boarding passes. Soghoian is quoted: 'If they fix the airport security problems... then this entire process has been worth it. If they don't fix airport security, then... what was the purpose?'" Soghoian's blog has insightful comments about the divide between security researchers and government officials on subjects such as TOR.
I don't have a problem with ID checks, though the USCOA does. When I fly internationally, I am subject to ID checks at almost every port of call. That's just the way things are when you enter and leave countries. However within the U.S. there is no requirement that you submit to an ID check. It is your right to refuse this check. So anyone can claim to be anyone and get past the TSA checkpoint with nothing but a boarding pass. The No-Fly list is made useless by this simple loophole.
So what then? Change the Constitution so that we lose the right to security in our papers? I dunno.
But what I do know is that a not-really determined terrorist can plant a bomb anywhere outside the TSA security perimeter with impunity. In fact, a bomb can be placed anywhere in any city at any time and cause the type of destruction that generates terror.
Is the solution to negotiate with the terrorists? I dunno.
I don't like to give these crackpots any more legitimacy than they deserve, but if we are truly afraid of them wouldn't it help to find out what they want and then find a way to come to a mutual agreement?
If we're not afraid of them, then stop all this nonsense about making our country safer by strip searching grandma. The initial price of freedom is blood, but the recurring cost of freedom is risk. You can't have freedom without risk. You can reduce risk by reducing freedom and that's what the current tack is, but it's a mistake to assume that we have all agreed to this level of reduced freedom because a few fraidycats are unwilling to live in a risk-filled world.
Got them for under $1 each.
To my dismay, they can't read standard bar codes.
To my amusement, and dismay, I figured out WHY they wouldnt read standard bar codes.
Some airline sold them to a liquidator. With their custom code in the flash memory to scan their baggage and boarding pass tags.
It wasnt too hard to learn all this. Every scanner had several stickers on it with diagonal red stripes and phrases like
"/// SECURITY DEVICE #xxxxxxxx/// "
"/// USER MUST HAVE SIGNED CONFIDENTIALITY AGREEMENT A8R55-2/// "
"/// FIRING OFFENSE TO REMOVE FROM RED ZONE (UNION HBK, PG 37)/// "
"/// DEADULUS & EARHART AIRLINE CUSTOM FIRMWARE VERSION 1.22"/// .
I wonder what their thought processes where?, something like:
""/// DEADULUS & EARHART AIRLINE CUSTOM FIRMWARE VERSION 1.22"/// . "
Those are antiques! You might just try to re-sell them on eBay. Daedalus Airlines, in particular, had their assets sold of decades ago when the last wax-attached bird features fell off the last airliner. Both airlines declared bankruptcy, and eventually merged with the old Glenn Miller Airlines to form the Oceanic Air we know and love today. You know, the one with the slogan "Getting halfway there is all the fun". They're also the first airline to consider electrified wings in order to keep the gremlins off.
Where were you when the voynix came?
"If he was truly concerned about the safety of airline security like he claims, why would he sacrifice the safety of others by making a boarding pass generator to make a point?"
He isn't sacrificing the safety of others. This is the point of the exercise: our government is sacrificing the safety of us, and doing it while wasting (or stealing, depending on the individual politico) huge amounts of our tax money.
"Writing a research paper is one thing, but posting a boarding pass generator on the internet is pretty serious stuff."
Serious how, exactly? Serious in the sense that it actually demonstrates his claims, yes. Do you think anyone would pay attention or even hear if he just stated how poorly designed these procedures are? He would be dismissed as a political critic.
Saying that "posting a boarding pass generator on the internet is pretty serious stuff" borders on ludicrous. I can just picture the crowds running for cover, terrified, "Dear God! It's a boarding pass generator! On the INTERNET!"
"I find it very shocking that the FBI dropped the case. I think people have been sent to Guantanamo for much less."
Yes, people have been sent to Guantanamo for much less, but just because a few random peasants who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time got locked up for 5 years of their lives, torn from their wives and children, unable to speak even with a lawyer -- let alone protest their innocence -- does not make such pointless attacks on human liberty justifiable. Be surprised that the FBI dropped the case, but only be surprised because of the incongruity of this glimpse of sanity.
As with most of the security changes imposed on air travel it is all mostly illusion, or as some other Slashdot poster called it "Security Theatre". If you make life difficult for the average travelor they will assume it makes life equally difficult for terrorists. Unfortunately, this just isn't true!
What I don't understand is if Osama and his cohorts are so dead set against us (ie The West) and he has armies of suicide jockeys all raring to go, then why aren't there 'planes falling out of the sky all around us. Why are shopping centres (malls) not blowing up? Trains, buses, garages, boats, ships. They could be instilling real terror on a daily basis but they're not! Hell, even failed attempts to blow up stuff would instil terror as it would confirm that they are still trying! It doesn't make any sense, unless they're simply not as powerful as we are being led to believe, in which case why are the politicians still trying to take away our freedoms?
Eclectic beats from Leeds, UK
handmadehands.co.uk