TSA Tests Automated ID Authentication

CowboyRobot writes "Last year, a Nigerian man boarded a plane from N.Y. to L.A. using an invalid ID and a boarding pass issued to another person. A week later he was caught again with 10 expired boarding passes. In response to this and similar events, the Transportation Security Administration has begun testing a new system at Washington's Dulles International Airport that verifies an air traveler's identity by matching photo IDs to boarding passes and ensures that boarding passes are authentic. The test will soon be expanded to Houston and Puerto Rico."

Comments

WTF, TSA?

[Peter Simpson]

First, we all have to show picture ID and cryptically marked boarding passes
Next, we have to partially disrobe and empty our pockets
Then, we have to pass through a metal detector and a high-cost, dubiously useful (and even more dubiously safe) perv-scanner

You mean to tell me that TSA hasn't figured out, in cooperation with the airlines, of course, how to put some kind of cryptologic authenticator on boarding passes?
Perhaps they should have used some of the money they spent on perv-scanners to buy a computer, a bar code scanner and a crypto-hash generator for the boarding passes -- like they have at the gate when you board the airplane. They could scan the new high tech RealID[tm] licenses they forced on us, too, because you know they put an authenticator hash in them (right?)

Bruce Schneier hit it on the nose (and now, former TSA head Kip Hawley seems to agree: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303815404577335783535660546.html) -- TSA is broken.