T-Ray Camera Sees Through Clothes, Preserves Privacy

Quite a few readers are sending in stories about ThruVision's products, slated to be demonstrated in Britain next week, that are claimed to use Terahertz radiation ("T-rays") to detect foreign objects under clothing, without revealing body details, from a distance of 25 meters and while the subject is in motion. T-rays lie on the electromagnetic spectrum between infrared and microwaves, and are the subject of lively research efforts worldwide. ThruVision says it developed its products in cooperation with the European Space Agency.

Comments

Preserves privacy

[robably]

...so long as you redefine privacy to mean exclusively "photographic images of your body", and exclude anything else including the contents of your own pockets. That's a pretty narrow definition of privacy. So narrow, in fact, that it stops being privacy at all.

Re:Preserves privacy

[jotok]

It's like the "so long as you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to fear" argument: the definition of "right" is getting so narrow as to be ridiculous.

To use a networking metaphor...Our model of government is supposed to be one where the government's rights are whitelisted and everything else is by default given to the citizen, but we're moving towards a state where the government is blacklisting OUR actions.

"Right" and "wrong" have, sadly, never had absolute definitions and have proven to be quite malleable in tyrannies past.

Judging by this picture

[Chrisq]

The "naught bits" might not be very clear, but a lot of people would be unhappy with security guards looking at images of you like the one shown in this article. Would you be happy with some guy looking at a picture of your teenage daughter like this?

Re:Judging by this picture

[Eivind]

Actually, that'd not bother me at all. (though it'll be a few years before any of my daugthers enter their teenage-years)

I don't at all get the obsession with body-shape in American culture. Those images give you an idea comparable to what you get on any beach, besides, it's just a human body, most of them are quite similar, there is some minor variations, but really, it's not -that- interesting. People who -do- want to look at nude girls (or boys) have a limitless supply already, and that is perfectly fine.

It bothers me a lot more that the idiots think they need to know every tiny thing you bring with you, be it a can of Coke, a tube of toothpaste or a key. I can live with the metal-detectors, though frankly I don't approve of even those.

As for the "airplane as missile" threat, that is trivially handled: Install a locked, secure, cockpit-door, end of story. It's not as if: "Fly the plane into that building, or I'll kill this passenger" will work. (the pilots would just refuse, it makes no sense to kill everyone, including that passenger to prevent the killing of a passenger)

Besides, I have the same ridicolous restrictions when flying on a 20-seat plane flying say Anda - Bergen, there isn't even a potential target within the RANGE of the airplane. If someone *does* take over the plane, best they could do would be killing everyone aboard, plus a single-digit count of people on the ground if they do their aiming well, frankly, this "threat" does not worry me much.

Frankly, if your goal in life is to manage to somehow kill 20 people, there are easier ways. Defending against them all ain't worth it, because any marginal increase in security is more than counterbalanced by MASSIVE losses of freedom.

I'd rather live free and have a 1:1million chance of dying as the result of a terrorist-attack, rather than live in a cage, checked every step of my travels, and have a 1:2million chance of dying as the result of a terrorist-attack, both risks are negligible anyway. (if the adiminstration cared about real risk they should start the "war on diabetes" or "war on traffic" or "war on obesity", all of which kill more people a month than terrorism does a decade)

It's a threat to privacy no matter how you look at

[jay-za]

Any deice that attempts to see things you have decided to conceal is a threat to privacy. Just because I choose to conceal something doesn't make me a terrorist, I could be concealing an external bladder bag (or any other kind of medical device), women (and guys, I suppose) may have given themselves some non-surgical "enhancements". There are all sorts of things I may be concealing that are no threat to anyone, but could embarrass me if they were made known to others.

No, the question here isn't whether this is a threat to privacy or not - it is. The question here should be is it a threat we're prepared to accept. How much of our privacy are we going to give up for a sense of security?

Too late...

[Yvanhoe]

Planes hijacking using knifes cannot happen again. The 9/11 was a one-time event. Before it, in case of plane hi-jacking, passengers sat quietly, waiting for the hijackers to finish their negotiations. After 9/11, taking back the control of a plane at the risk of getting hurt is the most intelligent course of action. This is what apparently happened on UAF93. Now you can't hijack a plane without anything short of an automatic gun.

All this craziness about uber-security is just useless, the only risk today is the risk of bombing and it is already hard enough to bring a big engine in the cabin. Bombings are far easier by bringing a car full of explosives into a crowded area...

Re:Don't be silly

[EsbenMoseHansen]

don't see how a plastic bag makes make-up less dangerous though

The argument is that the liquids they are afraid of are volatile and hard to contain in cans, and thus you would see condensation on the inside of the bag.

Incidentally, do you know how many terrorist attacks that airport security at check-in have prevented? :)