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Making Airport Scanners Less Objectionable
Hugh Pickens writes "The Washington Post reports that one of the researchers who helped develop the software for the scanners says there is a simple fix that would make scanning less objectionable. The fix would distort the images captured on full-body scanners so they look like reflections in a fun-house mirror, but any potentially dangerous objects would be clearly revealed, says Willard 'Bill' Wattenburg, a former nuclear weapons designer at the Livermore lab. 'Why not just distort the image into something grotesque so that there isn't anything titillating or exciting about it?' asks Wattenburg, adding that the modification is so simple that 'a 6-year-old could do the same thing with Photoshop... It's probably a few weeks' modification of the program.' Wattenburg said he was rebuffed when he offered the concept to Department of Homeland Security officials four years ago. A TSA official said the agency is working on development of scanner technology that would reduce the image to a 'generic icon, a generic stick figure' that would still reveal potentially dangerous items." Reader FleaPlus points out an unintended consequence: some transportation economists believe that the TSA's new invasive techniques may lead to more deaths as more people use road transportation to avoid flying — much more dangerous by the mile than air travel.
Anyone care to google: Funhouse mirror p0rn? Because I sense rule 34...
Ok, so now figure out how to make that image without exposing me to extra radiation.
Honestly, this whole thing is a joke and just shows how becoming too PC is a weakness. If we would just profile we wouldn't need half the security we have.
They'd still cause cancer deaths at a rate exceeding the terrorist threat.
As we can see here, the TSA doesn't like even blurry crotches. All that stuff we heard about "blurring the private areas" was a lie by the TSA and John Pistole because here we have someone who had to get patted down anyway because of a blurred crotch.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
"A group of scientists at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) raised concerns about the 'potential serious health risks' from the scanners in a letter sent to the White House Office of Science and Technology in April... 'While the dose would be safe if it were distributed throughout the volume of the entire body, the dose to the skin may be dangerously high,' they wrote."
Continued - http://www.prisonplanet.com/naked-body-scanners-may-be-dangerous-scientists.html
Updated - http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-11-naked-scanners-airports-dangerous-scientists.html
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
If a 6 year old could do it in Photoshop, then the same 6 year old probably could undo it too. Just run the distortion with opposite paramaters (shrink where you stretched, and stretch where you shrank) and you end up with the original image again.
I seem to recall a few years ago, a police agency cracking a child pr0n case by undoing a distortion made on the perpetrator's face in the images.
"When I grow up, I want to be a weirdo"
Then the TSA will be swamped with job applications from fetishists who like funhouse-distorted body images...
"Will you look at the size of her feet!!"
"... assuming that the radiation in a backscatter X-ray is about a hundredth the dose of a dental X-ray, we find that a backscatter X-ray increases the odds of dying from cancer by about 16 ten millionths of one percent. That suggests that for every billion passengers screened with backscatter radiation, about 16 will die from cancer as a result." "Given that there will be 600 million airplane passengers per year, that makes the machines deadlier than the terrorists." http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/11/tsa_backscatter.html
I am embarrassed by people. Not because they're outraged about the scanners. But because it's over a little virtual nudity.
Worry about the incredible cost in hardware and training. Worry about some idiot cranking up the power, or a hardware flaw doing it for them. Worry about the infinite spiral of ineffective hoops in the security theater. Worry about what you're going to have to supper.
But, good grief, stop with the omg-naked and think-of-the-children crap.
"'a 6-year-old could do the same thing with Photoshop... It's probably a few weeks' modification of the program.'"
There are six-year olds who can undertake a multi-week programming project?
I can't believe my parents were wasting my time making me read Dr. Seuss when I could have been doing this shit!
HI, MY NAME IS ISAAC.
Seriously, since 9/11 we have gone from a "let the hijackers land where they want and don't fuss" mentality to a "kill the fucker" sport mentality. Hijackings, at least on US flights are a thing of the past. Sure, ok, finding an explosive is a good thing, but at what cost? The chances of being on a plane with a bomb are so tiny it isn't even worth worrying about.
Lets go back to metal detectors to get the obvious and maybe walk bomb sniffing dogs through often enough to deter would-be "terrorists". Oh, and scan checked luggage all you want, just stop stealing from it, ok?
Nude photos and fondling my (and everyone elses) man bits isn't making me feel safer, it's just making me want to fly less and make me loathe my government even more. I'm spending less and the government is spending more. What a great recipe.
there is absolutely no need for prison security in the airport for regular people just trying to travel. It is a just a big scam by Michael Chertoff and Rapiscan Systems to sell naked scanners to the tsa for billions in profits. I bet if they were not allowed to make any money they would no longer be pushing their use.
I mean, these are average Americans we're talking about. Most of my countrymen and women are already distorted into something grotesque so that there isn't anything exciting or titillating about them. But seriously, though... if there were mass boycotts of the airlines for even a couple of days in protest over the scanners, I bet we'd see them removed right quick. Economics trump national security, after all. Plus, apparently economics are a national security issue in this post-cold war, post-columbine, post-9/11 world.
This misses the point. First (and least important), if you can distort the images, you can undistort them.
More importantly: people finally seem to be waking up to this simple fact: The government has no right to search you unless it has probable cause and a warrant. TSA, in fact, does not even have the right to demand an id. The right to interstate travel without government interference has been upheld by the courts: flying is a right, not a privilege. Nude scanners (even if distorted) and genital gropes violate your fourth amendment rights. Trying to make this violation more palatable is the wrong approach.
The right approach is to eliminate the TSA (and all of its regulations) and let the airlines and airports be responsible for their own security. As private companies, they have an interest in finding ways to guarantee security without humiliating their customers.
Fourth amendment, folks, use it or lose it.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Do I trust the scanner to:
- Actually mangle the image?
- Not save a "raw" image internally or transmitted someplace?
- Actually be mangled as described in front of out-of-sight invisible surveillance agent?
No, I don't. They've already been caught lying on all these issues, actually.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
The problem is not that anybody will see the naked images, the problem is not even that these scanners are probably worse for your health than the terrorists, the problem is even not that somebody is touching 'your junk' and the problem is even not that none of these procedures are making anything any safer (they are not.)
The problem is that you are a human being, and if you allow yourself to be treated like cattle, they will.
The problem is that those Freedoms and Liberties are eroding and you are allowing them to take the Freedoms and Liberties away.
People died and killed others for this kind of stuff because it matters. You only have one life, do you want to be cattle or a human?
You can't handle the truth.
Italy has decided to dump the full body scanners because they are slow and ineffective.
http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/international/italy-to-abandon-airport-body-scanner-project
http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-news/italy-to-abandon-airport-body-scanners-20100924-15pgu.html
http://www.euronews.net/2010/09/23/italian-airport-security-axing-body-scanners/
Seems to me that ought be a clear signal that they are just security theater.
The reason the US doesn't have a system like Isreal's is because they've taken a systematic look at the problem and have implemented a comprehensive, multilayered, efficient solution. In the US, we prefer one-step, silver-bullet type "fixes". Anything more complex would be argued out of existence.
Keep in mind that a terrorist (sorry, "freedom fighter") used an ass-bomb in an unsuccessful attempt on the Saudi Arabia's counter-terrorism minister.
Backscatter won't detect it. Groping (short of a finger up your asshole) won't detect it. Nope, we can only be safe if you drop trou and pull a goatse or let the TSA watch you take a shit.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
You mean being interrogated before boarding the plane?
Why don't we just go back to what we had before and just accept the fact that flying will never be 100% safe, but remains the safest form of transportation available? A hijacking will never be successful again, not after what happened the last time. People won't just sit there when somebody jumps up with a box cutter. Explosives will always be a threat, but realistically what's to keep a terrorist from walking into an airport with an explosive vest and detonating it in the security area? Will we install body scanners at all entrances and exits then? It's just ridiculous. Of all the ways to die in this world why are we making such a big deal out of this one?
At this point I don't believe it has anything to do with public safety, not really. I think terrorism is embarrassing to governments. A small group of people can't possibly be allowed to "beat" one of the greatest countries in the world with some home made explosives and box cutters. It's just plain embarrassing. So lets just keep ramping up security to show those miscreants who's in charge here, put them back in their place so they'll never make fools of us again.
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
The reason the US doesn't have a system like Israel's is that most flights in the US are domestic.
Yes, so easy a "6-year old could do the same thing", and yet:
"The Livermore laboratory sent off a final application to the U.S. Patent Office on Nov. 23, 2006"
That provides insight to the absurdity of the patent process. Take something obvious, simple, and widely used, then say "Look! This is a brand new technique, just because no one has applied these algorithms to these sorts of images before."
Give me a break.
Better known as 318230.