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TSA's Sloppy Redacting Reveals All
A travel blog breaks the story of a poor job of redacting by the TSA: they posted a PDF of airport screening policies, with certain sections blacked out — not realizing that simply laying a black rectangle over the text is hardly sufficient. Cryptome has posted a copy with the redaction removed (ZIP).
but must admit that this strikes a blow to their reputation for competence and effectiveness.
I don't see why the TSA wouldn't do the same thing.
For the same reason they make you take your shoes off? For the same reason they have so many ineffective security policies that busy airports often have security checkpoint lines containing more people than a plane, which makes for extremely easy bombing targets (no security!)? Clueless, inept, and there to absorb money and power.
ttp:cryptomeorgtsa-screeningzip
The cryptome URL has been redacted. Nothing to see here, move along.
Sincerely,
TSA
using System.Awesome;
How stupid are these people?! Adobe even has a feature to redact (not draw black boxes) text from documents
dude, you zipped a pdf....
thats almost as bad as when my mom puts a jpg in a doc to email it.
Here are typical examples of redacted paragraphs:
On what planet is it necessary to keep facts like these secret?
It's not clueless and inept. It's the illusion of security. Take off your shoes. Put your liquids in a clear bag. Stand here while we do a cursory search of your carry on luggage. It's to make the general population *FEEL* secure, not to actually secure them. Have you looked in their trash bin of confiscated items? It's all stuff that wouldn't sell at a yard sale. Their "explosive" detectors are a joke. And backscatter xrays? I went through one. Because of the way my shirt was sewn, it looked like I was wearing suspenders. 15 minutes to explain that it was just a shirt. How about recent tests where only 25% of the tests done passing obvious dangerous items (bombs, knives, guns, etc) through security were caught?
They still allow objects with more serious potential through. A laptop as a blunt force instrument? The potential energy stored in a laptop battery? The RF radiation created by handheld electronics? The fact that a highschool football player could overpower the flight crew and air marshals? They worry about that tube of toothpaste. What if 100 of the tickets for a flight were booked by terrorists? Good luck for the rest of the passengers to overpower them.
But, the people demanded higher security, so they get the illusion of higher security.
Now, take off your shoes, and play along with the security theater.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Security theater isn't inherently bad. People get scared very easily. We could say "sure, we've added in some minor stop gaps but the main result is that we hope if you get hijacked you'll do your patriotic duty to stop the hijackers or barring that bringing the plane down. And bombings? We aren't very concerned about them. Such events have been very rare for a long time." People wouldn't respond rationally to that. So instead we add steps that are ostentatious and feel like security. The result is people behave more reasonably and use airplanes they wouldn't otherwise do so. This is a cynical but strong argument for security theater.
No, your views aren't cynical. They're realistic. Unfortunately, we (the gov't with our tax dollars) are spending so much to enhance the illusion, that could be better spent elsewhere. But, the TSA isn't going away any time soon, and "security" measures will continue, even though they are entertaining at best.
I had a nice talk with a TSA agent once. I had time to waste, and he was going through the drill. It was obvious that he understood his job was just to maintain the illusion. We both understood that if air travel is the path of most resistance, a real terrorist would choose the path of least resistance. There are so many options, and even in a total police state those methods wouldn't be fool proof. Consider the underground movements during WWII in Europe. Even in occupied cities with Axis troops on every corner, the resistance was able to not only subvert their security by moving people in and out, but they were able to stage resistance attacks (as we'd now know as terrorist attacks). But as it goes, one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Most people at airports dont seem afraid, or reassured, they tend to simply be irritated at what the average citizen can recognize as silly and ineffective.
I dont know what part of the population the TSA hopes to fool, but its not the majority.
The TSA is to security what Micheal Vick is to Pet Care
Slashdot should have a facility to nominate quotes like this for a Slashdot Hall of Fame.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Forget the laptop battery... On most planes there is a canister of chemicals stored above every seat that when mixed produces oxygen. Combine that with some duty-free Bacardi 151 (You know, the one with the flame retardant top) and the cigarette lighter you bought just before the flight and you could make you're own very effective little bomb right on the plane itself! All these so called security measures are a joke, when things like spirits and cigarette lighters are still allowed on flights. TSA... I'm not even going to start thinking about those morons. It just gets me all angry.
This bit actually says it all.
1) You're not allowed to bring liquids above a certain quantity for fears it might be part of an explosive device
2) Throw said components into an open trash can
3) Repeat 1 and 2 until you hit critical mass
4) Throw an igniter into the trash can
5) Big boom
When's the last time you saw the police or military treat a package like that, when they suspect it might be an explosive? It never happens. They take very serious steps to prevent injuries, going as far as blowing up small bags of bikinis.
But at the airport, where you have hundreds of people standing in line, you're supposed to just toss it all into an open container next to the line. Security indeed.
Since when has global significance been a requirement for slashdot articles? Half the time significance isn't even a requirement.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
I'd like to point out that a Terrorist (in general) deliberately targets civilians. If someone is claiming to be a Freedom Fighter they had better be taking steps to ensure that their targets are military in nature. If they target civilians out of choice, then they lose the right to claim freedom fighter status (doesn't stop them from claiming it anyway, but they're just deluding themselves.)
GENERATION 667: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation
iv. If the individual's photo ID is a passport issued by the Government of Cuba, Iran, North
Korea, Libya, Syria, Sudan, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Somalia, Iraq, Yemen, or Algeria, refer
the individual for selectee screening unless the individual has been exempted from selectee
screening by the FSD or aircraft operator.
This section proves that the US Government and the TSA DO target certain groups (in this case people from certain countries) for extra screening (regardless of the individuals who may be members of these groups)
Are people with a Lebanese or Algerian passport more of a risk than other people? Or is it that these passports are easier for the bad guys to legitimately obtain than any other one?
Maybe the people on the other side were like yourself: your credentials hold no water if you weren't involved enough to spell "counsel" - the word you used means something completely different.
Are you actually a pilot, or do you just play one on TV?
Barrel rolls are 1G maneuvers. A "normal" roll down the axis of the airplane is an aileron roll. This would probably cause injury to those not sitting down with their seat belts on, and those who are hit by the unseated, but won't cause the plane to crash as long as the pilots don't overstress the airframe during the recovery. A snap roll is something else; it's a more violent maneuver that's more complicated than an aileron roll, and one that would likely break the airplane.
Your "analysis" of Airbus FBW systems is entirely off-base. Fly-by-wire is not some fuzzy-logic computer that tries to think about what you want vs. what it wants to do; rather, such systems have known, hard, rigidly-defined limits. They may have pitch and roll angle limits (as you allude to) in addition to other ones, but essentially they are just feedback controllers, not much more complicated than the PID ones we all remember from our controls theory classes.
The meek may inherit the earth, but the strong shall take the stars.
Which, as the summary explains, is absolutely true.
I am officially gone from