Slashdot Mirror
Can Imaging Technologies Save Us From Terrorists?
itwbennett writes "In the aftermath of the failed Christmas Day terrorist attack, full body scanning technologies such as millimeter wave and backscatter are regaining popularity, writes blogger Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols in a recent post. But, he asks, do they really work? The TSA seems to think so. It has just issued a contract to purchase more millimeter wave scanners from L3 Communications. Michael Chertoff, the former homeland security secretary, told the New York Times that if these scanners had been in place, they would have caught the would-be bomber. Ben Wallace, the Conservative Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom, disagrees, saying that the technologies can't detect the kind of low-density explosive that the would-be terrorist tried to use on December 25th."
He stuck them up his bum.
I win
aren't these the scanners known to have health risks and/or not work?
Ben Wallace, the Conservative Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom, disagrees, saying that the technologies can't detect the kind of low-density explosive that the would-be terrorist tried to use on December 25th."
Since when has a technology that doesn't work deterred the US from using it anyway? :(
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
...until some terrorist manages to get his underwear bomb past the millimeter wave. After that, will we all be required to fly in the nude? (If so, I refuse to fly unless I'm flying in a plane full of nothing but attractive young female swimsuit models)
Had DHS not been so secretive about their processes and people actually bothered to listened when the guy's father walked into the US embassy and said "I think my son is a terrorist" and actually looked into the matter it wouldn't have happened.
Right now I don't think I know if anybody without an TS-SCI clearance actually knows how to get on of off the list.
We can't make the world 100% safe; I don't see why people are so critical of the TSA. They do a decent job at making airports appear secure, which is all that should be expected of them.
...like the Maginot Line.
Moderation : -1 Conservative Viewpoint
New scanners break child porn laws
because child porn laws are already being considered with these new machines, in the UK I believe no one under 18 can be scanned with one.
So, lets just hand them our playbook again. Instead of looking for terrorist we are looking to naughty bits.
We are nearly suicidal in our attempts to not offend anyone. What will it take to realize that feelings heal over time but death does not?
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
The government likes this war on terrorism so they will keep it going so they can do in the name of anti-terrorism whatever they like to do. Its like the neverending war from orwell's 1984.
in Holland! However they weren't used to avoid embarrassment to US passengers.
Also, having them in place in US airports won't scan someone flying in from Timbuktu, now would they?
If I had an Ass, I'd call it Fanny Bottom, then I could slap my Ass; Fanny Bottom, on the Arse.
If only you give up more freedom and more privacy you will be safe!
Northwest Bomb Plot 'Oddities'
Were any provisions of the Patriot Act set to expire soon or something?
Expensive new imaging devices generate fees. Tax dollars FTW!
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
I own a number of security-related investments, so YES YES YES they work!!! Save us from teh terrorists !1!! Wait, am I being too cynical?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Simple no. Terrorism induces fear, mostly irrational fear which trumps any technology or logic.
There was an article that mentioned that use of these scanners violated GB laws on child porn. So now you have kids (up to 17) - very impressionable and angsty kids - that will become the target of recruitment by terrorist organizations. Epic FAIL.
What we need to do now is to accept that airline travel is not safe, and can never be safe. Everything in life that has the best rewards also has the greatest risks. Why can't we just factor risk into airline travel for the reward of being a timezone away in an hour? I would still fly. And those who wouldn't would push for a transcontinental high-speed train (Mag-Lev?) which would have a lower risk/reward, but just as cost effective.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
to bad having under 18 is child porn and they may be forced to not get scanned and how long before they seek a bomb / gun in?
Michael Chertoff, the former homeland security secretary, told the New York Times, that if these scanners had been in place, they would have caught the would-be bomber.
Except the 'bomber' boarded a US-bound plane at an airport that the TSA doesn't have any jurisdiction over whatsoever. So even if the TSA and DHS had rolled these out at all the US airports years ago, they still wouldn't have done anything to stop the guy. Now, if Mikey is talking about airports and countries that he's never had any jurisdiction or say over, then that might be another story. But at that point he's just talking out of his ass (not like he wasn't before).
It promoted "terror". It's making the enemy (us) scramble, expend resources and showed the jihadies that the enemy (us) is still vulnerable.
That there were no dead bodies or a mile-wide debris trail in downtown Detroit is trivial -- because there COULD have been.
The only thing that will save us from terrorists is to refuse to be terrorized. When we go through all this bullshit, giving up our liberties, conviniences, travel, the terrorists win.
It's just more security theater. There are a whole lot of ways to kill large numbers of people, and no way to protect all of them.
Why are you so afraid of terrorists when only 3,000 people have died from terrorism in the US this century, while there are five times as many Americans murdered every single year in non-terrorist murders?
Murder is murder, why should political murder scare you more than some thug doing a drive-by shooting?
Free Martian Whores!
why won't somebody think of the children now!
Disclaimer: I am an expert in millimeter-wave and terahertz imaging technology, both passive and active. I have posted here many times before, also as AC, for obvious reasons.
The short answer is a qualified YES. All imaging technologies can (help) save us from (some) terrorists. Specifically, those individuals carrying dangerous/unknown objects or materials outside their body, whether integrated with their clothes or simply bound to their body. The proof is in the images. I will provide examples if asked.
As far as safety concerns, the active millimeter-wave systems are safer than your cell phone or laptop wifi. The x-ray backscatter systems give you a dose of radiation that is far less than what you receive while flying over a few states at 39,000'.
The ultimate issue for most people is privacy. I won't get into that here; I just know the phenomenology and implementation side. I will answer any questions now, so please respond.
The article you linked to says no. The health risks are no greater than carrying a cell phone or spending 2 minutes in an airplane at cruising altitude (depending on the type).
Imho, this is all about power, it's clear to me that the control freaks are using every incident they can in order to justify big salaries, more powers and even less accountability. Yup, there's just nothing like living in fear and paying big bucks for it. Way to go people!
Terrorists aren't the only ones who smuggle things on airplanes. I think that drug mulls have pretty much proven that if someone wants to get a banned item onto an airplane badly enough, they're going to.
For example, will this technology find things that a person has swallowed? I might point out that the most recent attempt used an acid based chemical detonator. We have acid in our bodies. I don't know if it's enough to detonate an explosive material but I have to wonder.
Will this technology find things in other orifices? I think not. In fact, I doubt that anything short of a computer aided full body X-Ray (ala Total Recall) will actually give us 100% protection. Even that could be beaten by implanting devices that look innocent on the surface.
Next time I fly I am going to use a paint-pen to write something clever on my ass and see if they notice. Maybe something like "open other end".
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
... is to the airline industry. My wife and I have flown once since 9/11. After being pulled out and "randomly" scanned at every single stop, we decided it wasn't worth the hassle anymore. Now we drive to where we want to be. It's amazing how pretty parts this country are from the ground. We don't really have any plans to fly again until this whole security theater thing has blown over.
Apparently we're not alone; general travel was up 2.2% over the holidays yet air travel was down 6.4%. This security nonsense only hurts the airlines. Soon we won't have a robust air travel system in the USA.
End of lesson. You may press the button.
If the photography, lighting, and touch-up are removed and the swimsuit models drop from a "10" to a "7", most slashdotters would still be on board, literally.
Unless they have nukes or something, terrorists are not much of a threat to the country. Recognize that governments never assume an actual responsibility to say protect you from crime. So what is happening here?
I suggest we are having a wave of terrorism to change the subject from the collapse of copenhagen. Some psych warfare.
Here is something to think about. There is a lot of talk about Yemen. So they talk about the underware bomber and Yemen. But the obvious factoid that he was recruited in Londonistan is never mentioned. And then we have supposedly released gitmo detainees to yemen with bad rsults. Of course, it is not mentioned that these people were released to the saudis. And sometimes the 9/11 people nationalities have actually been mentioned in the past.
Figure you are being taken for a ride.
All this "security theater" does little, and does so at the cost of a massive violation of our Constitution's 4th Amendment (to wit: privacy of person and possessions not otherwise subject to individualized judge-signed warrant). The right to such privacy is enumerated for a reason, and this wholesale ignoring of it will backfire badly.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
Michael Chertoff, makes money from full body scanners. So he isn't exactly unbiased.
Also, he is kind of a jack ass who really doesn't seem to care for the constitution.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I like the idea of these scanners and think they will make it more difficult for the crazies to do stupid stuff. My concern however is with radiation exposure. How much exposure is there from a single scan. What about all those frequent fliers and what about the screeners themselves. Next time I travel I'm bringing my gieger counter.
Hear, hear. Your chances of dying in an aircraft terrorism incident are really, really tiny. People need to stop wetting their pants every time they get a whiff of some kind of terrorist activity - it only encourages more of the same. You are far more likely to die in an auto accident, from some other form of murder, by slipping in your bathtub, or even by being struck by lightning, than you are to be killed by a terrorist. So enough with the inane security bullshit, already.
considering that most suicide bombers are children/disaffected teens anyway? It seems pretty likely.
people are concerned about the issue of terrorism on airlines, so there's money and effort pushed towards this problem. it doesn't mean the effort or the technology is effective, its more like a groping in the dark to get something done, and more importantly, the perception that people are trying to solve the problem, regardless of how intractable the problem is
now a lot of people on slashdot might gripe and groan about lack of effectiveness, but you have to think about this from a political perspective: effectiveness is less important than perception that you are trying to be effective
that is, your average citizen, concerned about terrorism on airplanes, doesn't want to see zero screening and the pat answer "well, we have no effective technology to screen for this, so take your chances". then they get angry. they want to see barking dogs, stern men in uniform with stun guns, and people passing through electronic sniffing doodads. even if its not going to prevent something like the crotchbomber
actually preventing bombings isn't an issue, perception of an effort to try to prevent such bombings is the issue
so all of the inevitable griping on slashdot about technological ineffectiveness is completely besides the point. you are 100% correct. but it doesn't mean we won't get millions spent on ineffective technology
peace of mind, though resting on a flimsy foundation, is better than no peace of mind at all
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
2. The real problem is stopping another hijacking, not an explosion. Hijacking is much CHEAPER to defend against with a reinforced titanium door (light weight and strong) and the willingness to blow up the plane ourselves rather than let terrorists turn it into a weapon against a ground target.
The moronic TSA crap does not and can never stop terrorists, but it can delay, annoy and cost the flying public huge amounts of cash in an attempt to 'look like we are doing something'.
In my opinion, the terrorists have won. They destroyed our airline industry and convinced too many scared fools to willing give up their freedom in the 5 years directly after 9/11.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Could it be because he has a financial interest in selling them? Why, yes. Yes it could. Not that he ever mentioned any of that in his numerous television interviews extolling the virtues of the things - you're meant to think that he's flogging them because he's genuinely convinced of their effectiveness.
To be clear: I'm not opposed to the former DHS secretary taking a post-politics job in the security industry. I'm not even against him appearing on my teevee to flog his products. What stinks, though, is when he doesn't make it clear that his words amount to an advertisement rather than news.
building better rat trips leads to smarter rats/ building something that is idiot proof leads to better idiots.... No matter what we do in an attempt to keep the idiots or rats from terrorizing us, they will always find a work around. In the mean time life for 99.998% gets exponentially more complicated for the rest of us.
insert inflammatory comment here!
Short answer: No.
Whether or not these scanners can actually detect such explosives is largely irrelevant.
This specific bomber was on watch lists, bought a one-way ticket with cash, and had worried his father enough for him to contact authorities. There are plenty of things already in-place that could have caught the would-be bomber, but didn't.
These new gadgets might very well help catch terrorists... But they aren't going to magically eliminate all terrorism.
They'll find an explosive that isn't detected. Or they'll carry it on in some way that isn't detected. Or they'll bribe the right people to get past security un-screened. Or they'll get people hired in the right places to bypass security entirely. Or maybe they'll blow up something instead of a plane - another building, or a train, or a boat.
We're still looking at treating the symptoms, rather than the disease itself. We're addressing specific actions - he tried to blow up a plane with a bomb in his underwear - rather than the root cause of these actions - religious extremism that's willing to sacrifice plenty of lives to make a statement.
As long as that extremism exists... And especially when we're willing to give their statements so much attention... Terrorism will persist, regardless of what technological gadgetry we put in place.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
...or at least, there is witness testimony strongly suggesting the bomber had inside help in the airport to get him past normal security, the answer is "No, full body scanners will not stop terrorists." What good is a full body scan if you have people on the inside that can get you past the scanner?
Don't take my word for it, listen to this NPR interview: Attorney witnessed bomber before flight had already bypassed security with no Passport
Authority questions you. Return the favor.
Let's spend a few billion of taxpayers' money on an unproven technology of dubious benefit.
Nothing stimulates the economy better during these hard times.
How many more cancer deaths will be created due to constant exposure to x-rays? I for one would rather get the frisk.
Yes, but the government spent less on national defence than it did on silly walks...airports are the right place, scan them all
This state-of-the-art technology cannot store, print, transmit or save the image. In fact, all machines are delivered to airports with these functions disabled...Each image is automatically deleted from the system after it is cleared by the remotely located security officer.
There are two interesting issues at play here. The first is obvious and of personal concern: privacy. The above, a statement issued by the TSA, is meant to alleviate concerns that the TSA employees will be swapping weird nudie photos of you, your spouse, or your children. There's a contradicting concern here. Ignoring the issue of whether or not the use of this device constitutes "search" under the 4th amendment, I assume they are using this machine to establish probable cause for an "actual" search? If so, the fact that images are not stored both opens the system up to the potential for abuse and fails to protect the TSA when they search someone who is a false positive.
Regarding the 4th amendment -- don't you have to consent to you and your property being searched before purchasing or checking into a flight? If that's the case then these machines are just a means for the TSA to carry out said search in a more efficient manor.
Regardless of the above, I don't like this one bit.
I see this situation as paying for federal government incompetence with my civil liberties.
I read in the news that various security & intelligence networks had red flags about the Nigerian terrorist but decided not to act.
The way to prevent future problems is to fix the broken process whereby a red flag can come up and be ignored.
Not by trampling on people's civil liberties and right to privacy.
This isn't the first time this bullshit happened.
Prior to 9/11 one of the terrorists told a flight instructor that he didn't need to know how to land. Reports about the hijackers were lodged in several intelligence/security agencies. They were ignored the way red flags about the Nigerian terrorist was ignored.
President Bush created an entire new Federal agency because he felt he couldn't fix the dysfunctional culture at the FBI.
Today I read that there was 3rd gate crasher at the White House.
It is time to start visibly firing people.
The private sector fires people for serious screw ups. Putting the lives of the President and other Americans at risk is of far more importance than a network admin downloading malware.
How about refraining from deposing democratic governments (like Iran in 1953 and Chile in 1973) and installing dictators in their place? How about no longer consuming 25% of the world's resources and surrounding the planet with military bases in other peoples' countries to keep the oil flowing? How about refraining from propping up brutal dictatorships like the House of Saud?
Just saying.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
..as the bad guys don't even need to go around or through security anymore to do something really bad. The bad guys just have to haul an overstuffed carry-on full of nastiness from the curb and set it off in the security queue *before* they even get to the screeners. The TSA game plan guarantees good odds that they would have several plane-loads of passengers in a small area.
Send mirrors to everyone supporting the TSA, anti-terror overreaction and hysteria. Look in the mirror. You're the people who are helping terrorists win. When the terrorists give it their best shot, kill a few thousand and we shrug it off like nothing and go about our lives with no change, THAT is winning the war on terror. Turning ourselves into a police state while bombing the fuck out of random civilians in their country is giving them everything they could ask for short of sodomizing ourselves with a lit stick of dynamite.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Probably. As a social, political and economic question, no.
That is a dead and, and a very expensive one. In fact nothing can "save us from the terrorists" except reducing their numbers. The way to do this is to start to undertsnd what makes them terrorists and remove that motivation. This does not mean bowing to certain extremist organizations, it does however mean finding out why people are willing to support them and doing something about that.
One consequence is that there is nothing that can be done about true fanatics and the mentally disturbed. However with no or only small support they can do only limited damage and that can be well tolerated by the general population, unless fearmongering is done on present levels. The problem here is that far too many people have to gain something by playing into the terrorists hands: Security providers economically, intelligence community by getting more fnds and power, politicians by appearing to do something about the problem, etc.. In effect the people we task with "doing something" have a lot to loose if they wver manage to effectively fight terrorism, hence they do not.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Because privacy is still something we're raised to expect as a basic civilized consideration, a fundamental personal liberty to maintain social boundaries until we wish otherwise. It's just that simple.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Behaving like a rational human being instead of freaking out and pissing down your leg every time some incompetent, irrational wing-nut sets his pants on fire would be a better start. Spending millions more dollars on security theater isn't going to do a damn thing to make anybody any safer. If you were one of the sheep in the herd that was terrified that this happened, then by definition, the terrorist(s) already won.
How 'bout using common sense:
1) Don't let passengers on an international flight who don't have passports.
2) Question and search passengers who are on a terror watch list.
3) Don't let passengers on a flight when their father warns you that they're a terror risk.
4) Don't announce that "the system worked" when it was an epic failure.
[Insert pithy quote here]
Michael Chertoff, the former homeland security secretary, told the New York Times, that if these scanners had been in place, they would have caught the would-be bomber. What would you expect him to say? "Yes, this is a method that is guaranteed to make you successful in smuggling explosives onto planes -- keep using it, chaps!" Arguably, one of the few parts of "security theater" that is actually effective at discouraging attacks is not letting the bad guys know what does and does not work.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Here's another good question:
"How many airplane bombings have the TSA prevented?"
Ok, I know we can't know how many attempts were NEVER made. But, how many ATTEMPTS have been thwarted by TSA screening? Any?
The whole point of terrorism is to deny the enemy use of his or her resources. The moment you've got the enemy spending loads more than you are, then you are winning, and the fact that you are winning will attract others to your cause. It's simple economics. The USA, for example, may have 20 trillion dollars in physical assets, or even 100 trillion, so, any tiny fraction the potential of an idiot with a bomb up his rear can deny those assets is an automatic win for the bad guys.
To his credit, Bush did at least see this point. His answer, to invade everybody, was directly because he saw that defending everything that has to be defended is a no win proposition, and therefor, the obvious answer was to essentially create wars everywhere and make the terrorists attack soldiers rather than civilians. The big question is, really, is it less expensive to defend 100 trillion dollars of domestic assets, than it is to spend 100 billion a year on a bunch of wars? And, perhaps Bush's biggest failing was that, knowing that he's following the strategy of attacking everybody abroad to not have to eat the big bill at home, why not just dispense with even the dumbness of TSA and homeland security... like, he could not resist the unfortunate temptation to do something in the name of security when his own stated policy goals said that it couldn't work. He didn't trust himself, and by extension, could not trust his country, and that is why he failed.
This is my sig.
If so, I refuse to fly unless I'm flying in a plane full of nothing but attractive young female swimsuit models who become nymphomaniacs when they see a slightly rotund computer nerd.
There, fixed it for you.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Wouldn't a potential bomber be able to smuggle explosive material in a Depends undergarment? From what I've seen of the pictures online, the explosive material might have shown up on a full body scan because the guy was wearing briefs, but it would have been totally missed inside an adult diaper. Considering all the extra security measures imposed (like staying in your seat for last hour of flight), a terrorist could even argue that the Depends undergarment was a preventive measure.
No, and you are retarded for asking.
Why doesn't the USA stop telling the rest of the world how to live and maybe the rest of the world will stop trying to kill us.
Isn't that what the Obama campaign implied they would do?
Instead we have more and more liberties being taken away in the name of saving us from the boogieman.
Banning islamics from flying is more cost effective and probably more efficient that scanning millions of innocent travellers.
It works on every crime show... all you need to do is ENHANCE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vxq9yj2pVWk)
-Cnik
Even with the terrorist attacks, air travel is the safest form of transportation on the planet.
More people die in car crashes than in terrorist attacks, so why not use all of those gazillions of dollars to find ways to make cars safer?
Soon we'll have to strip naked to take a flight to make sure we're not carrying explosives, but nothing is preventing anyone from driving completely blitzed. On the latter, even getting caught isn't much of a deterrent, up here (Quebec) we have people who are caught driving completely plowed 6+ times and the penalties aren't doing squat.
~Syberz
Who still believe the crap on TV? The so-called terrorist on the last attack went through security check escorted (so he was NOT checked) and didn't even show his passport, according to many witnesses. Nobody believe the official 9/11 version anymore. So why are we getting this "naked scanners" for? This is INSANE, and the insanity is going further and further...
seal some semtex up in glass with wire leads coming out, then shove it up your butt. take out your normal cellphone and stick the wire leads to the battery. boom! nothing would detect it.
also, testers from various agencies still smuggle knives, guns, and large assortments of implements which could be used in an attack like on 9/11 (box cutters anyone?). this is expensive misdirection. it's also really annoying and makes flights take much longer.
I think people forget that 9/11 wasn't caused by terrorists with bombs. It was caused by hijackers. We've fixed the hijacking problem. A bomber can't do nearly the damage that the 9/11 hijackers did. So instead, airport security should focus on what is important: hijackings. If once every 10 years, a plane explodes from an underwear bomb, then we have succeeded. We lose more people due to car crashes or swimming pools or tripping over a loaf of bread.
How about a decent foreign policy instead?
The more miserable and abusive the air travel experience the more people will want to avoid air travel as much as possible. Then air travel will be absolutely safe from terrorists because the planes will be empty and on the ground.
I suspect Amtrak and Greyhound are behind this.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Say you have have a technology that is 99% effective. (neither Star Wars nor scanning is close to this).
Then the detractors say: "Why bother? The 1% that can evade it can cause incalculable harm!".
But the promoters counter: "The enemy is not going to waste their time on this approach anymore if it mostly succeeds. They'll develop other attacks."
What I want to know, and what I've not seen addressed in the media, is the number of people apprehended at Schiphol that day trying to smuggle onboard small amounts of marijuana, hash, or seeds. I'd bet the number is not zero, which means they threw back the big one and pan-fried the little ones. Weird priorities.
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
Almost three years old, but still very applicable: http://steve-olson.com/when-did-america-become-a-nation-of-frightened-wimps/
I think even the *title* of this article is quite indicative of the whole problem, and that problem doesn't have anything to do with the actual acts of terrorism. The article implies that we need "saving" from the terrorists, as if terrorism is such an overwhelming threat that we are all constantly at risk. We aren't; the percentage of people killed by these criminals is insignificant when compared to, well, almost any other cause of death. We don't need to be "saved"; phrases like "protected from" or "help identify" would be more accurate but they don't use those because they doesn't push the same emotional buttons as a word as laden as "save" and thus they can bypass rational thought about the issue. Politicos and journalists keep using this sort of hot-button terminology; watch out for it.
The image you link appears to be a passive IR with fairly low resolution. However, I was under the impression that these sensors were acrive (i.e. they emit mm waves and detect the backscatter) and had much higher resolution than the image you show (cf. new report linked from a TSA page on the topic).
Obviously the latter raises a much more blatant privacy concern (it's basically a strip search without removing your clothes). So...is the TSA mostly going for the former tech, the latter, both, a random mix or what?
Anybody who thinks anything can "save them from terrorists" is naive and, frankly, stupid. Or a publicly accountable organisation pretending that it cares.
If you lock down your environment to the point where no terrorist can take any action, then the terrorist has won. Welcome to your police state.
If you don't " " " ", then the terrorist can take action.
That's it. Two options. If/else. Either/or.
But don't worry, there's still some good news: you're still more likely to die in a car crash on the way to the airport than you are to die in any air incident.
... and no system is human proof.
They will figure out a way. We can make it harder for them, and this is a good thing to do because we'll catch more of them, but they'll still find a way.
Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
Tech is not the solution to everything. This and sex are two things that come to mind...
All food service vendors replaced with Taco Bell. Mandatory 3 burrito minimum consumption for each passenger an hour before an international flight. Problem solved.
If I sew a lead lining into my pants, would it be able to see through that? What about leather? Other materials? Sequins (their reflections would sometimes overload early TV camera's)? Chainmail? What mm-wave opaque or reflective materials are out there?
(Hmm, I'm not sure what the status of meta-materials at mm length is but you might be able to build a cloak out of these.)
maybe in Afghanistan that's true (probably not though) - but terrorists looking to strike in the first world have to be trusted to work independently and not draw undue suspicion, a lone 17 year old doesn't fit the bill.
(I think the profile for terrorists everywhere in the world is middle class men between 20 and 30 with the equivalent of a high school diploma - terrorists in the first world generally have more education and are even better off financially)
Observing the lines at the airport, I've noticed that the imaging machines are much slower than the rest of the line. They were only pulling 1 in 5 people out of the regular line to go into the imaging machine and the machine was still at full capacity. Is there anything in the works to make these machines process people faster?
From what I've heard, most bomb sniffing dogs would have detected the explosive. I think instead of an unproven technology, train more dogs... Also, the guy paid CASH for his ticket (I think I heard it was a one way ticket), didn't check any luggage, and had a few other flags that should have put him under suspicion...More of the millimeter scanners will only be good for L3 IMHO.
And also "terorrism" is also the needned enemy for the west, especially for the last empire on Earth called USA.
1 Buy expensive screening machine
2 ???
3 Catch Terrorists!
If you're going to deal with all the privacy implications of this tech, is this expensive machine any better than a pat-down?
you would have to train and pay a human either way.
Here is the link, that describes how to make such a bomb — and the joys of deploying it...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Get out of other nations’ business!
Stop fighting fake wars!
Meet them and listen. Listen good and listen long.
Start at their mindset and work your way towards yours, without ever saying something that conflicts with their reality. (The trick is to give them hints that makes them feel that that idea is fitting inside their reality, and that they gain something [that’s second the key] with moving their mind in that direction. Then let them work out the re-wirings necessary for this to work.)
If you are successful, you got a friend and an ally, who trusts and respects you (because in the end, you gave him something valuable), while living with his and your mindset in harmony.
Yes, it’s hard work. Yes, you have to be socially competent. Yes it takes time. But doing it right always is harder than botching up some sloppy job that falls apart five minutes later.
I tell you, if you start to get it right, it feels incredibly powerful. ^^
P.S.: No, I did not use that tactic for this comment, since I’m not talking to people (you) whose mindset needs changing. :)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Greetings and Salutations.
Your title is, I have to say, one of the best lines ever produced by the Star Trek franchise.
However, alas, the answer to your question is a bit harder to find. It is like the situation with my work as a system/network administrator. If I am lucky, and, do my job WELL, then, everything runs smoothly and there are no problems. If I fail to patch, or ignore flaky hardware...there is a problem that impacts the functioning of the equipment. So...How many problems did my work stop? One? a thousand? None? There is no real way to answer that.
One data point that I find telling, though, is that I have yet to hear any hard statistics about actual, credible terrorist actions that have been stopped by Homeland Security in the years since 9/11. There have been some vague things that have been SAID, with lots of handwaving, etc, that attacks have been foiled, but, it sounds like the same sort of nonsense that anyone trying to justify their actions would use.
Bruce Schneier, in his blog: http://www.schneier.com/blog/ Makes some very good points about the security theater in America, and, how the focus could be changed to really increase security for travellers. However, there is no money to be made from HIS suggestions, so, the erosion of civil rights and privacy will continue, until America takes its place along with the Roman Empire and other failed civilizations in history.
Pleasant dreams
Dave Mundt
YAB - http://blog.beemandave.com/
The answer is "yes, it can". Devil is in the details, which, in this case, is the raw numbers. How many terrorists per given time span will it save us from? One per five years? One per ten?..
Don't take it personally. People might hate the US Government's policies but be perfectly friendly with individual Americans, they are intelligent enough to understand the difference.
"Approved By The TSA" - the best testimony a security measure can get!
I notice that the terrorists have now shifted their goal back to simply blowing up airplanes, instead of taking them over and using them as weapons. That's because this was a trick that could only work once: passengers wouldn't tolerate it today—they know they're going to die anyway, so they'll take their chances and rush the hijackers. But terrorists have been merely blowing up planes for decades (it started back in the 70s, IIRC), and public hysteria was not nearly so profound. The worst imposition I remember is being asked whether I had packed my own baggage (a dumb reflex to some terrorist who slipped a bomb into his girflriend's luggage). An exploding plane is bad, but not nearly as bad as killing thousands by running it into a skyscraper.
So where's the relief and optimism here? Surely this is progress? Shouldn't we be de-escalating the hysteria rather than screwing it up higher and higher?
Great men are almost always bad men--Lord Acton's Corollary
We should look at what the Israeli's are doing in their airports as a possible model for what we are doing. They are one of the bigger reasons Islamic extremists are upset, and thus have been dealing with this stuff for a longer time. Instead of looking at things, they are looking at people's behaviors and reactions to benign questions. It involves looking into peoples eyes more so than looking into their pockets. It might mean having to train and pay more airport security people well which could be more expensive than the next gadget, but it has been fairly effective at Ben Gurion. The bigger downside, which doesn't seem to be mentioned often, is what happens to people who fail the interviews with the Israelis. Is it better or worse than what is happening to people now with do not fly lists and the like. I've seen it written that it takes 25 minutes to go from curb to gate and Ben Gurion, and nothing's been hijacked out of there in 30 years.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I fully accept and agree that you're willing to pay the price of potentially being blown up (potentially equalling extremely far-fetched odds), because you know the true probabilities are close to nil. However, most of these measures being put in place now are being done so because you, me, and most every reader on /. are outnumbered about a thousand to one by Ma and Pa Jones, who may fly only twice a year to see relatives in Chicago or Buffalo, have never been overseas, and want the Government to DO SOMETHING. They vote quite often, aren't quite up to date on the world as we'd like them to be, and more than anything cannot stand to see "Them idiots in congress doing nothin' while terrorists blow up our planes".
When I flew back from Michigan after the Crotch Bomber incident, I remember seeing TV interviews where people in airports were cheerfully saying that they wanted to see the government implement more security measures in response. There were no armed federal soldiers backed up by bureaucrats telling these people what to say. These were average, everyday American citizens telling the government that they want additional security measures in place because they want something to be done about this.
We here on /. tend to get into groupthink and believe that everyone else in the world thinks like we do. Well, we don't. We're a small libertarian-leaning minority in the midst of a whole lot of law-and-order type citizens who want the government to do something about all the dirtbags so they can get on with their lives. So remember that the next time you start ranting about the price to pay for freedom - you are outnumbered and in the minority. Try telling some 40-year-old mother from Peoria that you'd rather sacrifice security for freedom. She'll tell you that no price is too high to make sure her children, and other people's children remain safe.
Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.
As long as the us foreign policy is based on fear no technological aid can stop angry people.
This is social issue rather than technological. Or not, if you folks at at united states of americka are willing to continue harrassing and provoking those easily harrassed and provoked, you're going to need to deploy more tech to not prevent your ass getting kicked from time to time.
How about being nice for a while? Doesn't it fit well with interests of weapon industry or what is the reason?
meeee .... there's people wearing turbans out to kill me waaaah wahhh uuuuuh uuuh I'm sooo scared baah baaaah please scan my cock with your terahertz scanners so I can be saaaafe
He admitted on an NPR interview where he was touting these things that he consults with the companies that make them and is paid by the companies to "consult" on security issues. Read this as, "Because I used to work for the Federal government in a high position, stupid news-people like you give me credibility that I haven't earned. BTW, I get paid money by these companies to say how great these machines are, but you would never question my motives other than via a mealy-mouthed disclaimer, so you're obviously too stupid to catch me even if I do lie about how good the machines are. And did I mention that they work, really, reaaaaally great?."
Most of the crap that you get in travel these days came via this sumbitch and I wouldn't trust him if he said the sky was blue. In fact, if he says these machines can detect explosives, I'd believe that they actually paint your ass blue and give you hemorrhoids. But it's OK, we all get to pay for them.
That is all.
They are using technology to make clothes dissappear... why dont they just require everyone to get nakid and walk down a hallway with glass walls with observers behind them and have the cloths pop out the other end? If they are goiong to see me nakid with our without my consent, we might as well save a few billion dollars in equipment and do the lowtech version of what they are implimenting. Cant be any worse than a public change room at the pool, at least there wont be that old nekid dude who wont stop talking to you.
See the Boston Globe article detailing how he is promoting scanners that he has a financial interest in. That guy has been scum from day one. This is no different. What about the evidence that these scanners tear apart DNA? How freaking safe is that?
Those full body scanners show EVERYTHING - you really want your KIDS going through those? Do you want to and have your naked body images stored on computer systems? Just think those perverts watching you and mentally and physically m@$turb@ting over you and your kids?
Airports Set To Become Primary Peddlers Of Child Porn
http://www.prisonplanet.com/airports-set-to-become-primary-peddlers-of-child-porn.html
New scanners break child porn laws
http://www.prisonplanet.com/new-scanners-break-child-porn-laws.html
Group slams Chertoff on scanner promotion
http://www.prisonplanet.com/group-slams-chertoff-on-scanner-promotion.html
Alex Jones Calls For Mass Resistance To Implementation Of Body Scanners
http://www.prisonplanet.com/alex-jones-calls-for-mass-resistance-to-implementation-of-body-scanners.html
The Truth is a Virus!!!
Thing is that the person in question did not depart from either a UK or a US airport. Schiphol Arirport already had 15 such scanners and both the Airport's management and the Dutch Interior Minister announced yesterday they intend to get 60 more this year.
Exactamundo. Remember the terrorist was screened only in Nigeria. No new scanner technology in US or Netherland airports would have made any difference. The obvious reaction must be to fix the weakest link in the chain (in Nigeria), not the strongest (in US or Netherlands).
What's more, if a candidate screening technology doesn't improve the strongest link both in a usable and reliable manner, then the 'fixed' chain is no stronger; it just gets more expensive. Bruce Schneier correctly observed that a new scanner with a hit rate of only 85% correct (and 15% incorrect), will generate so many false positives as to be totally unusable in a high-throughput production environment like an airport. To be useful, any new scanner technology has to be damned-near perfect.
No.
More detailed answer - almost certainly not.
Person Of Interest
Yours In Ashgabat,
K. Trout
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=972_1262283908
have a look at it yourself. You can quite clearly make out portions of a persons anatomy yet you could conceal contraband inside the body or even folds of skin.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
Embrace the panty-bomb.
The seasons don't fear The Reaper
neither do the wind, the sun or the rain
we can be like they are
come on baby
don't fear The Reaper
baby take my (kevlar-mitted) hand...
Unless the airports do a *full* body search, I've notice that the body image scanners leave out imaging the genetalia. It would seem a determined terrorist decide to hide an object on the body in this region knowing that will not be imaged.
The most common type of terrorist attack is the car/truck bomb. This will do nothing to stop them.
How many people were killed by car/truck bombs in the last year. Now how many were killed in blown up aircraft.
Soon this method of attack will come to North America and by then it will be too late.
Air terrorism is so sexy it gets all the attention.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
I heard that the full body scanners can not detect an explosive device hidden by rolls of fat in an obese person. I can't picture those rolls being searched by hand either. Yuck.
Why wouldn't terrorists recruit fat people?
Why don't we just admit that airport security is futile?
Imaging technologies are in use, and have been for some time. So it's a perfectly reasonable request. Especially in light of the OP's claim that "The short answer is a qualified YES. All imaging technologies can (help) save us from (some) terrorists."
As for being deterrents, yes, they are. I won't support an industry that cares so little for my liberties, not to mention which encourages acting like a bunch of craven cowards. So I never fly.
As far as efficacy in stopping an infinitesimal number of these clowns from blowing themselves up (or incompetently attempting to, like mr-flaming-pants and mr-flaming-shoe) as compared to the number of flights per day... that simply hasn't been demonstrated. Nor has it been shown that they won't simply switch to shoulder-mounted rockets or something similar. Or different targets. The fact is, if there were a lot of 'em, there would be a lot of incidents or a lot of them getting caught. But there aren't. It's 99.9999% theater, and it's all at the expense of our way of life.
The real problem is that the masses live in fear inspired and encouraged by the media and the politicians. I stand against everything that makes that problem worse.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
They had the scanners. In fact, the US bought them for just this use. They were not used.
Using this as an excuse to use full body millimeter scanning in the US against US citizens (and everyone else flying) is something that should not be allowed.
that some hacker shows how to fit a netbook's logic board (to pass security checks) into a large multimedia laptop, replace the content of the battery, hard drive and dvd drive with a plastic-like substance (shielding it from the scanners), add an igniter to the package.
And then, we'll get it: no more electronic devices as carry on!
Hopefully the uproar will be enough to convince security to revert their insane policies to lighweight, formality checks, and focus on the effective methods that protect us from terrorism: field intelligence, and bringing a bit of social and economical justice in this world!
Won't scanning be unpopular with people who are very reluctant to expose their body to view - such as (notably) Islamic folk?
Also, it might be upsetting to some of the American Christian right.
And - damn - that corrresponds fairly closely to the largest groups of people that want to blow things up, if history is any judge.
Euopeans (perhaps not Brits) will be quite unaffected, especially Scandinavians and Germans, who would be quite happy to travel naked in a sauna plane.
Pedantic fail.
There is no such thing as "safe" radiation of any sort. The only safe level of radiation is, indeed, zero, regardless of whether or not that happens in real life. We "tolerate" the background radiation, but that doesn't mean it isn't dangerous and doing constant damage. Perhaps you should look up the meaning of the word "tolerance" in the dictionary. It is not a level of immunity, but a measure of one's ability to cope with a destructive element.
You can tolerate a small amount of poison. Is poison safe? Not at all. The poison still hurts you, but your body is able to recover from the damage. Not even that "tolerable" amount is "safe".
"Safe" radiation is a myth.
In a western world where now most every law-abiding citizen must have at least one government-issued identity document on them at all times and with that will end up irrevocably on several, ever larger, ever more privacy sensitive and consequently more easily abused databases, this very clumsy would-be terrorist managed to successfully board a plane with no passport and while listed on at least one "terrorist watch list" and with a recent warning from his own father to intelligence services that he was up to something. What does this tell us?
I think at this point we don't need to discuss the fallacies of the technology touted above. And fallacies they are, for the belief that throwing ever more privacy invading technology at the problem was laughable on its face from the start, as the attacks that this technology tries to secure against are without fail amazingly low-tech in nature, so there is no technology gap to bridge. Quite the contrary: If there was a gap it was one of high-tech being caught out by sheer down-to-earth practicality, and all the government did was widening the gap by fleeing into complexity. The accompanying restrictions are direct damage to civic liberties and thus themselves spell out terrorist success.
Yup witnesses saw a man in a suit get the "bommber" on the plane even though he didn't have a pasport and didn't go through security - there was also supposedly a man videoing the "bomober" on the plan the whole time. AND a bomb dog alerted on one of the other pasangers carry on and was taken off in handcuffs.
Read about it!
Bombshell Eyewitness Revelations: Confirmed FBI Cover-Up Of Flight 253 Attack
http://www.infowars.com/bombshell-eyewitness-revelations-confirmed-fbi-cover-up-of-flight-253-attack/
Haskell Family: FBI has changed accounts 4 times; our story is the same since day one
http://www.infowars.com/haskell-family-fbi-has-changed-accounts-4-times-our-story-is-the-same-since-day-one/
Officials Admit Second Man Detained As More Witnesses Emerge
http://www.infowars.com/officials-admit-second-man-detained-as-more-witnesses-emerge/
Exclusive: FBI Silent On Plane Bomber's Accomplice
http://www.infowars.com/exclusive-fbi-silent-on-plane-bombers-accomplice/
Was the attempt to blow up Detroit bound plane a false flag?
http://www.infowars.com/was-the-attempt-to-blow-up-detroit-bound-plane-a-false-flag/
False Flag Event in Detroit a Pretext to Invade Yemen
http://www.infowars.com/false-flag-event-in-detroit-a-pretext-to-invade-yemen/
Obama Blames al-Qaeda for Christmas False Flag, Sets Stage for Yemen Attack
http://www.infowars.com/obama-blames-al-qaeda-for-christmas-false-flag-sets-stage-for-yemen-attack/
Underwear Bomber False Flag to be Exploited to Renew Draconian Patriot Act
http://www.infowars.com/underwear-bomber-false-flag-to-be-exploited-to-renew-draconian-patriot-act/
Officials Claim Second Man Unrelated To Christmas Attack
http://www.infowars.com/officials-claim-second-man-unrelated-to-christmas-attack/
The Truth is a Virus!!!
Here are the odds of being killed by a airborne terrorist in a handy infographic - It's about 1 in 10 million. Wow, you're orders of magnitude more likely to die by the plain falling out of the sky by itself... which they do.
Ten million to one:
http://www.boingboing.net/200912301009.jpg
Original post:
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/12/30/odds-of-being-a-terr.html
Food for thought no? Bare it all in mind next time your at the airport being harassed by security - it's all for show.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
None of this has any impact on security worth mentioning. So you raised the security value X from 96.567% to 96.571% for just a few million bucks? Good boy, here's a cookie.
The main impact is that terrorists now have access to these machines as well. If I were to plan a major terrorist attack (say, multiple planes), I'd buy a few of those machines and experiment with them until I found out how to bypass them.
The problem is that the idiots at the security checkpoints really are idiots, and rely almost 100% on the technology. So the game has changed from bypassing human security personal to bypassing security technology and a few fools who are challenged using it properly.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
...is peace and love.
:
I am sorry to sound hippy, but that is in fact a credible geo-strategical advice. Peace in troubled regions and understanding between people would make
- recruitment of terrorists a lot harder
- working with local authorities to get the terrorists a lot more accepted by local populations
- training camps a lot harder to hide.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Why not just use sniffer dogs instead? Cheaper, friendlier, less invasive, and can detect a far wider range of explosives than these stupid scannermabobs.