Using Radio Waves to Detect Explosives
deadmantyping writes "A Japanese research group published a paper describing a method to detect explosives in luggage using radio waves. The method relies upon nitrogen nuclear quadrapole resonance (NQR) and is able to distinguish between different white powders, whereas currently used x-ray technology is not."
Please take off your: jacket, shoes, backpack (and take the laptop out of the backpack and put it in a seperate tray), hat, belt, mobile phone, keys, wallet (if it contains more than 3 rfid based entry keycards). Yes, I travelled international recently. It's not even consistent.. some places they'll make you take off your belt, other places, no, that's fine.
Time before last I took a suit coat with me. Big solid metal coat hanger with nice sharp edges. They just let me carry it onto the plane. Had I tried to take a similar piece of metal on (say, a boxcutter) they would have denied me. Hmmm, wonder if there's a little big of class disparity there.
The illusion of safety.
How we know is more important than what we know.