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Researcher Evan Booth: How To Weaponize Tax-Free Airport Goods
New submitter MickeyF71 writes "At the Hack in the Box security conference security expert Evan Booth shares the results of his two year research on the effectiveness of airport security. He demonstrates how easy it is to produce lethal weapons from goods easily bought from the tax-free section at most airports."
Google's translation of the Dutch in that link isn't ideal. For those who prefer English to Dutch, Booth's presentation at CarolinaCon 2013 (YouTube video) may be a better bet.
I'll be reading TFA while standing in the TSA security line at the airport.
Have gnu, will travel.
Go into any duty free shop and make a bee line to the liquor section. There's something wonderfully flammable stuff there.
Although, for some of those Scotches, if a terrorist were to use them, you'd see Fark headlines like: "The Horror! 30 year old Scotch murdered in terrorist act! A plane and people died too."
The TSA recently changed policies to allow pocket knives, nail clippers, hockey sticks, and box cutters back on planes. Box cutters, you'll remember, were used on 9/11/2001. The reality is, many prohibited items pass through security on a daily basis. You've heard stories about people the TSA failing their own security checks (fake bombs, guns, etc). You probably haven't heard any stories about the TSA actually stopping a terrorist. This is not because they're too modest to tell anyone.
All is not lost, since cockpit doors are still locked during the flight and passengers know a plane hijacking no longer means "free trip to cuba" but "you will die" which changes the dynamic (c.f United Airlines flight 93).
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
That guy is over thinking it. A wine bottle and a roll of duct tape can be used to make a good knife - and on international flights they serve wine in glass bottles. Credit cards can have their edges honed to the point of being as sharp as box cutters.
About the only thing worthwhile is using a remote controlled toy to trigger something.
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True story: Passing security, my wife had her nail clippers confiscated. As soon as we cleared security, we walked into one of the shops and bought another pair of nail clippers. What was the point of seizing them at security? Equally true story: we bought water in the security area in our originating airport. Transferred planes in London, and they seized the water. BTW: do they somehow scan all of the merchandise that was brought into the secured area, like the bottled water that you can't bring across security?
The weapons in the photos look scary, but I bet they'd be really rubbish in real life. For example, the club is made from a rolled up magazine and some Liberty statuettes. It is small, not very heavy, not very sharp, and would probably fall apart if it was used.
Really any of these weapons is insignificant compared to what an fit but unarmed human can do. And that's why aeroplanes are safe these days: any hijacker will have to take on a hundred or more strong and highly motivated passengers.
The replacement clippers you bought in the shop were made of approved inert metal. The ones you tried to smuggle on the aircraft could well have been made of plutonium. You and a few of your terrorist buddies put your plutonium nail clippers together and... BOOM! So you see, the policy was effective. Now please report to Guantanamo Bay.
That won't happen, because ultimately airports are only profitable as they are run as giant shops. Antiquated rules on the requirements for how long people need to be there before the flight are maintained to ensure there is a large number of trapped people sitting about who want to buy food/drink and who get bored or are addicted anyway to buying things they don't really need in shops.
Ultimately our security means little compared to the ability of the shops to sell "things" - hence the fact that we can still buy such things in the departures lounge even though it is clearly a security risk. The money they make (and thus the rent the pay to the airport) matters more than absolute security. Indeed some of the shops were no doubt delighted when the 100 ml rule came in, as now they can sell us elementary things like a bottle of water that we are not allowed to take through security.
You missed the point: you can bring in large empty bottles, or small bottles filled with liquid, but not large bottles with a small amount of liquid. The regulations are arbitrary and near-useless.
Researcher builds bomb out of articles from airport shops
To demonstrate the futility of current airport security, next week a security expert will demonstrate a remotely controllable bomb. All the materials were bought at the airport once past security.
The detonation mechanism will be presented at security conference Hack in the Box in Amsterdam. It is the result of two years of research by security expert Evan Booth.
“There are all kinds of things we cannot take with us and security checks for those. But it turns out that this doesn’t make much sense,” says Booth.
The detonation mechanism is the result of more than two years of research into deficient security at airports and available materials which are sold the in stores which are located ait airports behind customs.
Drone
To build the mechanism, Booth has used a Zippo lighter, disposable lighters, adhesive tape, dental floss and a remote controlled drone. “Which can be opreated with a mobile phone through a wireless network”, claims Booth.
He used the engine from the drone to operate the zippo lighter. With disposable lighters, it is possible subsequently to create a blowtorch. By doing this, it would be possible to cause a fire, but at the conference Booth will present a more developed concept which even enables the detonation of a bomb.
Simple
“The trick is to prove that you can have dangerous weapons on board without carrying any forbidden items with you”, Booth has stated to NU.nl.
Apart from a bomb, Booth also managed without much effort to create a bow and arrow out of items he had bought in a shop at an airport. For this, he used an umbrella, a hairdryer, socks, a leather belt and condoms. He did not want to further develop things were too obvious, such as using a lighter and deodorant as an alternative gas burner.
Also remarkable is a club he created out of a souvenir, some magazines, dental floss, a leather belt and adhesive tape. During a test, this club turned out to be so solid that a single strike sufficed to break a coconut into several pieces.
Profiling
“Airport security has not been done well for a while now. What annoys me, is that we spend a lot of money on it and, for example, violate people’s privacy with body scanners. In the meantime, it turns out it doesn’t work well”, explains Booth.
“It is a difficult problem, but I don’t know if this security makes any sense at all. I believe more in good intelligence and preventing the wrong people from coming to the airport.”
To pre-empt problems with authorities, Booth has contacted the responsible government agencies in the United States in February. “I have offered to demonstrate my research and provide explanations, but I haven’t received any response. In the meantime, I have continued my research.”
Antiquated rules on the requirements for how long people need to be there before the flight are maintained to ensure there is a large number of trapped people sitting about who want to buy food/drink and who get bored or are addicted anyway to buying things they don't really need in shops.
There are three sets of rules about when you need to be at the airport:
- Check-in time: Usually 30 minutes. This cutoff is to both give you time to get through security and the airline time to put other people in your seat if you don't show. But, since you can check in online anytime within 24 hours of your flight, this doesn't really put any requirement on you as to when you have to be at the airport.
- Back Check Time: Usually the same as the check-in time, and usually 30 minutes, although at some airports it's more. This is to make sure that the airline has time to get your bag to the plane and loaded on it. 30 minutes is pretty reasonable here (and the airports where it's longer, like Las Vegas, there's a reason.)
- At The Gate time: 15 or 30 minutes prior to departure, depending on whether you're doing domestic or international departure. As a practical matter though, this is really "before they are done boarding the plane". If it's 10 minutes to departure and they've still got a line of people getting on the plane, they won't know you're not there. But if it's 25 minutes before departure on an international flight and you're not on the plane and they are done boarding, they're going to pull your bags from the plane.
Why 30 for international but only 15 for domestic? Because the airlines are not required to fly your bags on the same plane as you domestically, but they are required to do so internationally, so they need the extra 15 minutes to get bags off the plane.
So, yes, there are rules about when you have to be at the airport and at the gate. But they have nothing to do with getting people to shop.
paintball
Heh, the *boom* will be when you try to compress acetylene above 15psi.
A few liters of acet-oxy mix makes a nice boom but little damage, I've had a quart sandwich bag of mix go off in my hands, not even a tingle.
30 gal trashbag with a nice lean mix will audibly echo in the hudson valley for at least 190 seconds, assuming your ears were plugged for the boom.
I wanna hang out with this guy..
Bring ear protection.