The DHS's Latest Investment: Terahertz Laser Scanners

MrSeb writes "It seems like every time I set foot in an airport, there is some new machine I need to stand in, walk through, or put my shoes on. The argument can be made that much of this is security theater — an effort to just make things look safe. However, if a new kind of laser-based molecular scanner lives up to its promise and finds its way into airports as planned, it could actually make a difference. A company called Genia Photonics has developed a programmable picosecond laser that is capable of spotting trace amounts of a variety of substances. Genia claims that the system can detect explosives, chemical agents, and hazardous biological substances at up to 50 meters. This device relies on classic spectroscopy; just a very advanced form of it. In the case of Genia's scanner, it is using far-infrared radiation in the terahertz band. This is why the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is so keen on getting it into airports. Understandably, some are calling foul on the possible privacy concerns, but this technology is halfway to a Star Trek tricorder."

Comments

Oops

[war4peace]

I should then quit smoking doobies prior to traveling. Bummer.

Re:Oops

[jimpop]

possibly before posting too! :-)

Re:Oops

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Invasive scanning without detection at 50 meters?
"Backscatter" vans are already roaming the streets of Amereica's cities. So I don't suppose that many months will pass before DHS has this equipment deployed into the hands of "local jurisdiction associates" sooner than later. Hell, they'll probably deploy this on drones, if they can manage the power-supply.

Then? They'll have your arse scanned and tanned before you are in earshot of the announcement: "papers, please!"

Good to know that there are Americans volunteering to die overseas, in the defense of such Liberty as this!

Re:Oops

[Sponge Bath]

If you eat enough Doritos before traveling, the laser will only detect cool ranch flavor.

Re:Oops

[war4peace]

Then I would never post anything...

Re:Oops

[pwnyxpress]

Invasive scanning without detection at 50 meters?

they'll probably deploy this on drones, if they can manage the power-supply.

Holy shit, look at that drone skimming the tree tops!

Sounds good.

[Animats]

This sounds good. A device that can detect explosive compounds at a distance. That addresses the real problem. No more need to examine laptops, check documents, or pat people down.

Re:Sounds good.

[Hatta]

You're not naive enough to think that they'll stop, just because the original justification is no longer valid, are you?

Re:Sounds good.

[barlevg]

But will they really stop patting people down?

First the legitimate: these things don't exactly have any mechanism by which to detect box cutters.

Now the bureaucratic: as the summary states, much of airport security is pure theater. People aren't as likely to feel safe if they're only being screened by "magic laser scanners."

Re:Sounds good.

[dgatwood]

The paranoid part of me would point out that it can also detect various medical conditions at a distance. That's not necessarily a bad thing to find out about if you don't know you have cancer or whatever, but it has all sorts of ramifications, and falls under HIPAA....

That said, as long as it is not physically capable of producing a coherent image, it is significantly less invasive than the pedo porno scanners they use today, and really isn't that much different from the magnetometers except in the number of materials it can detect. I would view these as a significant improvement if these are physically incapable (because of hardware limitations, not software policies) of producing anything approaching an image.

If they can produce anything remotely approaching an image, then they are far worse than the porno scanners and should be banned. There's no valid reason for the device to be able to determine distance or even determine which direction the laser is pointing at any given moment if your only goal is to detect dangerous substances by their chemical signature.

I'm cautiously optimistic, yet very pessimistic all at once. On the one hand, this might be a significant improvement in privacy when going through an airport checkpoint. On the other hand this might significantly reduce privacy all the time, and knowing the DHS, if there is a way for them to screw things up so that they invade privacy more than necessary, they will find a way to do so. So the cynic in me says that this will probably turn out to be another few billion dollars of our money pissed down the toilet that should be spent on something more useful, like education, intelligence gathering, actual useful security changes, providing universal healthcare, feeding and clothing the poor, building highways, updating rail beds for high speed trains, or even just burning the cash for warmth....

Re:Sounds good.

[whitedsepdivine]

The real problem is the false positives of explosives. Laundry detergent and makeup can actually give a false positive.

Additionally, explosive residue shouldn't signify guilt. If I have gun powder residue on my shirt, does that make me a terrorist? No. I could have gone hunting, or even brushed against a police officer.

Explosives Molecules != Terrorist

But with the TSA it means you will be getting advanced grope down, and will miss your flight. Even if you pass your groping procedure, they may still contact the airlines and see if the airline will deny you.

Re:Sounds good.

[jimbrooking]

HIPAA rules only apply to "covered entities": payers, providers and clearinghouses. DHS is none of these, so HIPAA doe not apply here.

Re:Sounds good.

[what2123]

Glad someone was thinking the same thing. I shoot guns, and play with model rockets quite a bit (don't tell the DHS though). If it has the ability to detect at the level they are stating, then there will be many false positives. How will they know what the "zero" is on the scale?

Re:Sounds good.

[Em Adespoton]

You have no idea if this laser backscatter machine gives false positives.

No idea? I'd say that given standard statistical distributions, the machine is GUARANTEED to give false positives, unless it doesn't give any positives at all. Given that we live in a universe filled with entropy and this is a fairly advanced device, a 0 FP rate indicates an unacceptably high FN rate.

So the real question is to do with process and granularity of information provided, not FP rate.

Re:Sounds good.

[veganboyjosh]

Long before 9/11, i went with a friend and his father to pick up a family member of his at the airport. This was back when anyone--not just ticketed passengers--could go through security, all the way to the gate. my friend's dad was carrying a messenger bag type satchel that he got at a military surplus store. For some reason, it triggered some alarm or the other, or maybe he was just picked randomly, but the bag he had was putting off a chemical signature of TNT explosives, and he was given the option to leave the bag in his car, or not enter the secure area. All because of some residue from who knows what back when the bag was being used in the military.

Re:Sounds good.

[Xacid]

"The DHS says you must be a terrorist."

While I haven't been a fan of the TSA - I'm pretty sure it'd just illicit a secondary screening. Rather, I hope there's common sense involved here. We'll see how that actually pans out.

Frankly, I see a lot of potential good in this. Two things we needed after 9/11 - cockpit doors and better explosive detection. Beyond that we were pretty much good, IMO. Depending on how rapidly this scans, what the health concerns are, and how the enforcing agency (TSA) handles this tech this may, surprisingly, make travel somewhat more bearable.

Re:Sounds good.

[julesh]

I say again, you are purely assuming, with no actual FACTS, that the machine will give false positives on "laundry detergent and makeup". While I agree that it is likely to give false positives, the rate at which it does so and the substances which cause it are unknown to those of us on slashdot. My point is that one should not be all upset about false positives until such time that real FACTS about them are available. Once can be concerned that there may be false positives, but one should not state categorically that "Laundry detergent and makeup can actually give a false positive" without those actual FACTS.

Ok, here's a fact for you. I don't knw what the problem with laundry detergent is, but a rather large number of cosmetic items (mostly nail varnishes) are produced from nitrocellulose, a high explosive. It is physically impossible to detect molecules of nitrocellulose from an explosive device without also detecting the ones that are used in nail varnish (and the lacquer on many guitars, and in wart removers, and in the plastic backing on some brands of playing cards). If it is sensitive enough to be useful, it will detect false positives because the false positives are actually caused by presence of the same substance in similar quantities to what they would have to be looking for.

Except for...

[strangeattraction]

Go and work in your garden with fertilizer and get some on your shoes or hat. Maybe your person. Next take a trip to your lovely TSA scanner and see if they let you on the plane:) The problem is the molecules they scan for are all over the place. There would be far more false positives than they would be willing to handle. If I remember correctly they where testing for nitriles by wiping with a cloth. So many people tested positive they finally gave up. Of course they have probably forgotten about that.

Re:Except for...

[MyLongNickName]

How is this a problem? If the device detects explosives then you are taken to a secondary more "personal" search. I doubt that the false positive rate would be that high that it would be undoable... after all, the TSA is basically doing a 100% search rate as is.

Re:Except for...

[John Hasler]

> How is this a problem? If the device detects explosives then
> you are taken to a secondary more "personal" search.

How is that not a problem?

Re:Except for...

[h4rr4r]

It will be when some jerk/terrorist/bored teenagers decide to just mix fertilizer/gun powder with water and dump some on the floor at the airport.

Talk about impact per dollar spent. If you had to search every passenger many flights would be canceled or delayed and doing that at one major airport would impact the whole country, do it at Heathrow or O'Hare and you might be able to delay flights and disrupt travel for the people all over the world.

Ridiculous

[Mathias616]

Good luck getting through an airport if your job has you work with chemicals, explosives, etc. I hear a lot of EOD tech's in the military often complain about the difficulty they have getting through an airport because of residual traces of explosives being detected by dogs. If this technology is as accurate as it is made out to be then nobody could travel the week of July 4th because they are all terrorists hiding explosives in their rectum's. Break out the gloves and strip search that 11 year old in front of their parents! Seriously, the TSA and DHS need to be abolished, this sensationalist security crap is not doing anything but harassing everyday people and systematically making our country into a police state.

Re:Ridiculous

[sabri]

In that case, you can/should be able to be pre-screened by the TSA. They already have something in place for people with names that are similar to names on the no-fly list

If you work with explosives/chemicals, all you (would) need is a redress number and perhaps a pre-screen and you're done.

I agree with you that the current TSA system is not the best, but it beats the alternative (i.e., letting everyone on an airplane without any checks).

Re:Ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

>it beats the alternative (i.e., letting everyone on an airplane without any checks).
[citation needed]

Never mind our entirely sufficient airline security pre 9/11 did only minimal checks. Every now and then a bunch of wackos blow up a plane. Big deal. Heart disease and traffic accidents do far, far worse.

So sometimes they get one through. No reason to live in constant fear and surrender all freedoms in a *futile* attempt to stop terrorists. I'm not saying don't put people through a metal detector or x-ray baggage or anything but this current crap is ridiculous.

Re:Ridiculous

[nschubach]

Not to mention, if a terrorist really wanted to fly a plane into something else... they could just do it on a private jet which has no TSA screening. Heck, even a small craft (unmanned anymore) loaded with explosives could take off from any number of airports in the US and cause a tremendous amount of damage.

Re:Ridiculous

[hoggoth]

For fuck's sake, anyone who's read Make magazine could make an unmanned explosive drone by buying a quadropter from Brookstone and duct taping a bomb to it.
Take off from a backyard.

Technology will not be getting any harder in the future, folks.

The TSA: Keeping us safe from yesterday's threat, today.

Re:Ridiculous

[geekoid]

The quote is:
"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

That said:
Why do you assume it's true? Why do you state it as if it is a finished proof.

IT is not.

Do you doors have locks? well then, you can' even enter you own house without a key! You have given up essential liberty, for safety, there for you deserve nothing.

What's that, you have to wait while they do a safety check of the airline? OMG!!

Why don't you actually think about the subject instead of just post trite out of context statements?

You do know that it's a fact that people hijack planes, write? You do know that screening began because someone blew up a plane mid-flight with a bag of dynamite, right?

He also didn't believe light was created from the sun. You know, just to keep perspective that he was a man, and not some sort of fool proof machine.
"I am not satisfy'd with the doctrine that supposes particles of matter call'd light continually driven off from the Sun's Surface, with a Swiftness so prodigious!"

also this little gem:

"If Men are so wicked as we now see them with Religion what would they be if without it?" Turns out, less wicked.

In Other News

[decipher_saint]

Poppyseed muffin sales have dropped to all time lows in the airport concourse. Terrorists suspected...

Renovations at Dallas Love Field

[HockeyPUcX]

Sounds very similar to the renovations at Dallas Love Field - http://travel.usatoday.com/flights/story/2012-06-19/Faster-better-airport-security-checkpoints-not-that-far-off/55693916/1

Dubai has this.. it's awesome.

[tempest69]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-512815/Briton-jailed-years-Dubai-customs-cannabis-weighing-grain-sugar-shoe.html Because a police state is a safe state.

Make a difference?

[digitallife]

"it could actually make a difference"
I'm sorry, what? What kind of difference do you expect it to make?
Terrorist attacks on planes are EXTREMELY rare. I do not lose sleep over them. You and I are far, far more likely to die from a plane malfunction or pilot error than a terrorist. The only 'difference' I can see is yet another hoop to jump through at airports.

This won't be used as intended

[DL117]

This will just be another drug hunting gadget that won't even encounter a terrorist

Re:Dubai has this.. it's awesome.

[h4rr4r]

So he walked over some?

I think the potheads would love this. They will start dumping shake at the entrence of the airport.

if it is so important then nationalize the company

[Dan667]

I bet if there is no profit to be made the tsa would quickly be dissolved.

Follow the money

[melted]

FBI should look into who got the contracts and how decisions to award these contracts were made. Personally, I think this stinks from a mile away, and large bags of money had to change hands to make this happen.

Then it just meets the next joke

[dbIII]

I work with people that handle explosives and travel a lot. Various sensors beep when they go into airports. At that point they are asked "do you work in a mine", and if they say yes there are no furthur questions, searches or requirements to provide paperwork.
It wouldn't take a paticularly smart terrorist to talk their way onto a plane at this point even if the sensors are very accurate.

Re:Sounds BAD!

[whitedsepdivine]

So my story actually happened. Freshly washed, I got a pat down when I declined the imagers. I then tested positive for explosives. They took me into a back room for a move advance pat down. Once I passed the more advance one, they contacted the airline to deny me.

I talked to TSA and airport employees, they all agreed that their CURRENT machines can give positives for laundry detergent and makeup. My assumption is that if there current deployed machine is calibrated to detecting molecules up close gives false positives now, their machine that detects molecules at a range would have a similar calibration.

Regardless, my point was trace amounts of molecules does not define a motive, and is not probable cause to be searched and seized.