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Apple's Secret Plan To Join iPhones With Airport Security
Hugh Pickens writes "Currently — as most of us know — TSA agents briefly examine government ID and boarding passes as each passenger presents their documents at a checkpoint at the end of a security line. Thom Patterson writes at CNN that under a 2008 Apple patent application that was approved in July and filed under the working title "iTravel," a traveler's phone would automatically send electronic identification to a TSA agent as soon as the traveler got in line and as each traveler waits in line. TSA agents would examine the electronic ID at an electronic viewing station. Next, at the X-ray stations, a traveler's phone would confirm to security agents that the traveler's ID had already been checked. Apple's patent calls for the placement of special kiosks (PDF) around the airport which will automatically exchange data with your phone via a close range wireless technology called near field communication (NFC). Throughout the process, the phone photo could be displayed on a screen for comparison with the traveler. Facial recognition software could be included in the process. Several experts say a key question that must be answered is: How would you prove that the phone is yours? To get around this problem, future phones or electronic ID may require some form of biometric security function including photo, fingerprint and photo retinal scan comparisons. Of course, there is still a ways to go. If consumers, airlines, airports and the TSA don't embrace the NFC kiosks, experts say it's unlikely Apple's vision would become reality. 'First you would have to sell industry on Apple's idea. Then you'd have to sell it to travel consumers,' says Neil Hughes of Apple Insider. 'It's a chicken-and-egg problem.'"
The irony is that the "1984" theme became one of the most successful ad campaign for Apple back then ...
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
which hasn't happened yet.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
keep buying apple
To offset political mods, replace Flamebait with Insightful.
Apple's patent calls for the placement of special kiosks (PDF) around the airport which will automatically exchange data with your phone via a close range wireless technology called near field communication (NFC).
well, patenting it is a good way to ensure it won't happen for 20 years. Patents retard innovation, as is well understood by now.
I've attended a couple of Tech conferences where the presenters seem to assume that
...
- everyone is, or will be on Facebook
- everyone has, or will have an Apple device (iphone or ipad)
All rather short-sighted. In the past we've seen new ideas come along and be embraced by society and then abandoned. Skateboard parks, CB radios, kung fu
Not to say that Apple doesn't have a large customer base now - but it won't always. Is it really that worthwhile to introduce special handling for people with a special type of device?
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
... that shouldn't even be a problem in the first place. What's so wrong with passports again? They already have various other security (like RFID chips, iirc), and they're much more tightly controlled than phones you can buy off ebay.
the game
You mean for the security theater that didn't exist a decade years ago in a type of travel terminal that didn't exist a century ago? Stop kidding yourself: nothing lasts forever.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
We have RFID tags in our passports already, so they are already moving us towards electronic IDs. It's a foregone conclusion that the type of ID done for international flights will eventually crop up in domestic travel as well, for better or worse.
Consumers won't fight phone ID provided there is some added convenience that comes with it. Perhaps if we didn't have to remove shoes, for example (even though that security theatre seems unrelated to digital identification).
On the first episode, the guy picks boxes and boxes of lost phones in the airport for his kid!
Why should Apple allow the US government to own a monopoly on creepiness?
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Because Microsoft already tried to trademark "Passport."
Time to move to a nice "backward" country, where this might be 10-20 years late or completely derailed by other considerations. This serves the system, not the consumer or citizen.
Apple submitted the patent in 2008, it was approved in July, and both Slashdot and CNN are talking about it today, so this is "secret" HOW?
In all likelihood, it would be a service that would be available *IF YOU WANT IT*
Christ, people, if you suffer from this type of PARANOIA regularly, seek professional help.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
It will be yet another reason to not have an iPhone.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
What was wrong with a passport? KISS!
don't see their own hypocrisy
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Destination 1984
Per previous /. article, leave your cell phone at home: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/09/04/1552228/leave-your-cellphone-at-home-says-jacob-appelbaum
There's no such thing as "illegal download"
. 'First you would have to sell industry on Apple's idea. Then you'd have to sell it to travel consumers,' says Neil Hughes of Apple Insider. 'It's a chicken-and-egg problem.'"
How is the above a chicken & egg problem? FTA's author outlines the steps.
Not saying I think it's a good idea, but please, write non-garbage for once.
iThought of it first. Mine!
But will it also photograph and then lase the polyps it finds. Put that in your Instagram.
Okay. I am going no further with this.
"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
thinks that the hipocrisy of others justifies their own
Somehow a publicly published idea about how to get people through airport security faster and easier is now a "secret plan for searching you at the airport" and comments equating it to all sorts of nasty things...
It's a public patent, and the goal of the thing is clearly the opposite of what everybody seems to be claiming...
What is it we call collusion between the state and industry?
It's not freedom people. Wake up and smell the tyranny.
Just keep eating all the FUD they can serve up.
Ask any big defense company. Government contracts are fabulous things.
I've spent most of my life reading patents for money. No one, at any company, gives a crap about right and wrong. If it's a novel idea and you think there's some chance of making money on it, you patent it. I'd be reviewing applications for Zyklon B if there was a way to monetize murder.
let's see:
will it cost a lot of $ to implement? check!
will it further erode privacy/civil rights? check!
will it be completely ineffective, demonstrably useless & not improve actual security (vs theatre)? check!
seems like all Apple need to do is hire Chertoff, misplace a couple of briefcases full of $ and this is a done deal...
am I missing something?
is smug but can't even spell "hypocrisy."
And then you would have to sell me an iPhone. Urrp.
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
oblivious hypocrisy strikes.
Thanks to Apple patenting this idea, there is no way this crap will ever make it's way to other devices. Thankyou Apple!
Apple's patent calls for the placement of special kiosks around the airport which will automatically exchange data with your phone via a close range wireless technology called near field communication (NFC)
Tin foil hat bullshit.
NFC has a range of less than an inch, if you're lucky. It often requires physical contact.
There is nothing "automatic" about a security checkin where I have to take out my phone and hold/tap it against a scanner.
Face recognizing cameras. They already have it and it doesn't require a phone that could be hacked. An iPhone ID would only punish the innocent while letting guilty in through the front door.
While there will be those of us that know otherwise the masses will eat it up and not think one iota about the consequences.
Stop checking IDs at all and only search for explosives. Stop the police state. I flew for decades with either no ID or a drivers license. Including to Mexico and Canada.
The overlords own us.
I just read about it on Slashdot.org
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
The TSA has several "Trusted Traveler" programs already. Global Entry, SENTRI, and NEXUS are three of them for "rapid" entry into the US and TSA Preâoe" works in conus.
I travel a lot but mainly through 5 or 6 different airports. I know which checkpoints are better than others at each airport. That knowledge can easily save me 30-60 minutes each time going through security even through I may have to walk a little further once through.
and ATT will tie a added fee to this and get apple to lock it down.
This sounds like a "Proto" version of Apple's "Passbook" app that launched today, alongside iOS6. Not the security part, but flight boarding passes, and expanded beyond travel for movie theater tickets, gift cards and what not.
http://www.apple.com/ios/whats-new/#passbook
I'm not seeing a secret apple conspiracy plan, and even if there was one, they decided against NFC and went with Passbook.
- "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem"
Lake In Salt Lake City: http://lakeinsaltlakecity.com/
Before too many more people go off half-cocked, please allow me to remind everyone that every major tech company, particularly Apple, patents all sorts of crazy stuff that they never use. Here is an article detailing 10 patents from the last few years (the article is a year old) of crazy things that had /.ers (and others) predicting all sorts of weird and crazy stuff -- and not a single product has been released using any of them.
Remember when Apple patented touch gestures for the rear of an iPhone-like device? In the four or five iPhones released since then, have they ever implemented it? No. Seems doubtful they ever will at this point.
I'd wait until such a device actually exists in the wild before getting excited about it. Like a lot of companies, Apple simply builds up their patent portfolio for offensive and defensive purposes.
Yaz
This might be worth talking about if Apple made anything that has NFC, but they don't.
maybe it is possible to replace all the TSA with Apple genius, I think one of the commercial already giving us a hints.
I'm guessing they plan to use your unique voice signature... which is probably already in their database. C'mon... you telling me that every time you use Apple's Siri or Google's voice-to-text, etc that those giants are not saving all that data? My money's on the fact that they're building a massive biometric database on every single one of us. Thanks, Siri ;)
"Yes, I have a Disaster Recovery Plan. It's called my Resume"
Apple just patented that so it can sue the pants off of any company that tries to do that...
No conspiracy here, move along...
We have RFID tags in our passports already, so they are already moving us towards electronic IDs. It's a foregone conclusion that the type of ID done for international flights will eventually crop up in domestic travel as well, for better or worse.
I microwave any RFID they dare to put in my papers. So should you.
"oh? no workee? I have a magnetic personality. Electronics just fail around my person."
Anyone seen my low uid? last seen 10 years ago while panning the #@$# out of Taco's 'web based discussion system'
Makes sense, since the phone is a tightly controlled tracking system.
It is the way that people with an agenda in power can find not just your location but do an extremely sensitive psychological profile and human network analysis with optional real time wiretapping.
What people don't understand is that to a supercomputer, keeping tabs on the movements, communications and activities of a measly hundred million people or so is really easy, especially when police, traffic control and data carriers are all funneling information into it patriotically. It's really easy. Not anywhere near the realm of simulating nuclear fusion or whatever. You just maintain a huge rolling archive, and then can data mine to your heart's content with a user-friendly interface.
Of course posting anonymously is most likely not a major barrier to finding someone's identity but since I am having a bad day I figure why not just post what I think today, instead of what I usually do which is to think twice about whether I want what I write to be stored and analyzed forever, either by the government, a potential employer or customer, a friend, etc.. Usually I hit the cancel button before I finish a post. The world is really quite a nastier place than it used to be and the people everyone lets run the place seem to be a lot more cynical and rapacious.
I would like to think Apple would be against such intrusive invasions of privacy and human rights. Oh, hold on, look at Foxconn. Apple continues to support that company and its practices.
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
"Secret Plan?" It's a patent application, FFS. Published, on the web, for all to see. Nothing secret about it.
Hey, let me tell you about my moneymaking plan. It involves putting all my money into cash and tossing it out the window as I drive through NYC.
OTOH this would be the most stupid way to screen passengers. If a terrorist was going to carry an iPhone, it could be register to a perfectly legitimate person. Is it illegal to carry a phone that is not registered to you? What people are missing is that as soon as you buy a ticket, all this information is available. I don't think they are talking abut dumping all your content into a government computer. That can be done already when you hook your phone to a USB charger at the airport. What they are talking about is using your phone for ID. And that is a stupid thing to do. Driver licensees are already forgeable. If an iPhone is ID, then we will have planes being blown up all over the place.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
So if my phone is able to pass security, does it matter who is holding it?
How many terrorists has the TSA caught...0
New plan Achmed, with which, Ynch Allah, we crush the infidels. We hack Apple, THEN jack jets. We... iJack them! Hahahahahah
Shookran, Cupertino! Allah O Akbar, yiyiyiyiyiyiyiyiyyiyiyeeeeee!!!
I am not saying this is new, or secure, or even a good idea. It just seems to be what US policymakers have decreed.
I think people are idiots. The chicken and egg problem isn't a cause and effect problem. It's a language definition problem. The question's the only issue.
1. eggs came first because lizards laid eggs long before chickens evolved. so we're talking about "chicken eggs" not "eggs". So we rephrase: "what came first, the chicken or the chicken egg"
2. at some point, something that wasn't a chicken laid an egg from which a chicken hatched
3. if your definition of a "chicken egg" is "laid by a chicken", then the chicken came first, necessarily by your definition. on the other hand, if your definition of a "chicken egg" is an egg that hatched into a chicken, then the chicken egg came first, necessarily, by your definition.
4. if you don't believe in evolution, then the whole question is meaningly, since your god probably made them both together about ten years ago, when he created you as a full-grown adult.
So it's a stupid question because all it actually asks is for your definition of a chicken egg. And that's really of no interest most of the time. Most scientists define evolution as happening within the egg, so the egg would be a chicken egg after it was laid and before it hatches. So the egg comes first.
Wow, just wow.. that's all I have to say really. It's yet another reason among more and more they seem to just toss out there for us to NOT buy or even want to buy apple, if the double,tripple,quadruple price tag versus better phones or tablets running android were not enough.
Or Eurail?
I suggest you try a train next time.
Seeing an opportunity to take money from TSA (if they can get them to buy into this crazy scheme), they've put out some feelers. After all, who doesn't like nice shiny new tech gadgets? Like those backscatter scanners over there!
//can't cry any more, must laugh at the absurdity of it all
Here in the UK we have public healthcare. We also have private healthcare. And competition.
Seriously, your "competition" you have over there is the same as the old Soviet competition: a choice of one.
Unless you are going to emigrate to a different state just because you want to change healthcare provider, you have no competition.
A truly outrageous patent. How in the world can a company patent a way to communicate with the U.S. government? The government has to design the socket and that controls what the plug has to be. Not just for this reason alone, the patent system has to be blowtorched and started up again from scratch.
Hmm so a device constantly transmits all my most important personal info using a VERY insecure technology. Are you sure this wasn't Zuckerberg's idea? Plus, anyone planning or already convicted of something bad would probably purposely NOT CARRY AN iPHONE! So this does absolutely nothing. I say go for it, Apple! I'm waiting patiently for Apple to burn to ground for making such stupid decisions and being so unbelievably evil and this will speed it up a lot.
HOW?
Seriously, can we just abolish patents...this would be funny if it wasn't so darn sad.
I can see someone hacking and using the NFC to get the info needed. Similar to the wave on credit cards.
Apply just wants to control everything. Now they are getting in bed with the government. Who knows what other information they will give the TSA, as theoretically, they could tell the TSA anything you do with your phone.
Last time I flew from JFK it appears they installed X-ray machines on every checkpoint and run everyone through them, no questions asked. (It does not say anywhere that those are X-ray, but they are not metal detectors either.) So next vacation I will need to travel with my 3-year old, and exposing him to unknown level of radiation is the last thing I want to do. I cannot afford to become a carriage-traveling luddite either, my spouse would not approve. (She thinks TSA is needed to make her safe.)
Any suggestions how to avoid X-ray without police and fire crew being summoned?
On my way home yesterday, I misplaced my boarding pass somewhere between the airport coffee shop and the TSA checkpoint. I was able to use the airline app on my Android phone to present an electronic version of my boarding pass and was able to board my plane. I was also able to board my connecting flight using the same app. I don't see how Apple's current version would act any different, especially since the iPhone doesn't have NFC.
Sure Apple applied for a patent, but it as past performance has shown, it doesn't necessarily mean that they will actually deliver it to the consumer. At least not right away. When and if they do, if it means going through the checkpoint faster then I'm all for it. I mean TSA is already rummaging through my stuff and looking at my naked image, how much more intrusive can they really get?
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
We have RFID tags in our passports already, so they are already moving us towards electronic IDs. It's a foregone conclusion that the type of ID done for international flights will eventually crop up in domestic travel as well, for better or worse.
I microwave any RFID they dare to put in my papers. So should you.
"oh? no workee? I have a magnetic personality. Electronics just fail around my person."
While I agree with the sentiment, that's illegal when it comes to passports. They are government property, not yours, and you can be charged with destroying government property if you microwave one. Or you could just be refused entry when you arrive somewhere with a defective passport.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
How would you prove the phone is yours??
By your face--just as you stated.
That's all the TSA has to go on right now, when you're asked for your driver's license.
Man, /. sucks.
ObamaCare does not provide health care
it raises the cost of health insurance
then forces you to buy it . . .
We are Dead Stars looking back Up at the Sky
FDA enforces the cartel on medicines and medical devices.
State licensing requirements enforce the cartel of personnel and hospitals.
State licensing requirements enforce the cartel of insurance services.
The US is a cartelized economy, it can't possibly perform with a free market in these services, and doesn't even have to try.
The scientific method says you haven't done the experiment yet.
Everyone has to do this every time you change communities : find a dentist, MD and auto mechanic. Diplomas on the wall aren't the answer, as the difference between best and average in all measurable aspects of human performance is 10 : 1. E.g. heart surgeries and measures of morbity and mortality.
It is really important to not get the guy who is in the lower 10% of heart surgeons.
Let's not forget that Apple would have to actually put NFC into a phone, so this could be another 2-4 years before that happens. Let the others work out the bugs first, then they can add it in and say they invented it.