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Object Lessons: Evan Booth's Post-Checkpoint Airport Weapons
Jah-Wren Ryel writes "In early-2013, independent security researcher, Evan 'treefort' Booth, began working to answer one simple question: Can common items sold in airports after the security screening be used to build lethal weapons? As it turns out, even a marginally 'MacGyver-esque' attacker can breeze through terminal gift shops, restaurants, magazine stands and duty-free shops to find everything needed to wage war on an airplane."
We mentioned Evan's work several months back; now his not-just-a-thought-experiment exploration of improvised weapons has been cleaned up and organized, so you don't have to watch his (fascinating) talks to experience the wonders of the Chucks of Liberty (video) or the Fragguccino (video).
After watching the videos... did I just put myself on a list somewhere?
There are so few terrorists its irrelevant.
When hundreds of people are dying daily from terrorist attacks involving airplanes there might be some argument. There aren't and there isn't any evidence to suggest that the TSA has ever even prevented an attack.
What there is evidence of is economic harm as the result of our decisions to scrutinize every passenger boarding a flight.
Terrorism has an insignificant impact compared to the costs of fighting it. Compare it to any other risk and we're much better spending our money on curing cancer, reducing vehicular accidents, etc.
Flying is the safest method of travel with or without the TSA. That's the truth of the matter and man kind just can't see beyond the emotional aspects of threats. As a result we do the most illogical thing possible passing bad rules/polices/laws and accept the most illogical thing in accepting the legislation (society).
Even while cumbersome I much prefer sitting in an airplane where people had to pass a check than one without.
You much prefer having people's rights violated? The land of the free and the home of the brave indeed.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
You can easily imagine the feasibility of a remotely triggered IED. He did not go for concealability but for demonstration. You can easily think of a multiple attack vectors. During a night flight, people are more relaxed, you use the blow-gun to injure the pilot when he's going take a leak, then blow one or two grenade, while putting a luggage on fire and generate a few more small explosion. This is all about terror, you just need to frighten people, not kill them.
What is a "naive" opinion ? If you check the luggage, terrorist will find another way to scare you, and you will give up more of your freedom. TSA checkpoints are a show to make you feel safe while you're truly scared to death. The only rational way to answer a terror attack is not to change anything, continue living as if nothing happened.
the good news is that he's made and excellent point. the bad news is that a shortsighted authority figure is going to loose his shit over this and evan is going to need a lawyer.
welcome to the dystopian present.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Again, a popular opinion but again, naive.
What's naive is your blind trust in the government. I find it so naive that it disgusts me throughly.
What 'rights' are you violating making a search.
Your privacy, and it also violates the fourth amendment; those are the obvious violations. Where in the US constitution does it give the government the power to molest people who want to get on a plane? Nowhere.
I don't want to be harassed by worthless government (or private) thugs just because I want to get on a plane.
There are ways to make a proper search
You can't violate everyone's rights just because some people may be terrorists. I don't even think you can selectively violate people's rights. Just leave people alone.
people have been doing it for years, it's an accepted method of protection.
I don't care how long it has been around or how accepted it is; I think it's absolutely immoral and disgusting. If you cared about freedom at all, I dare say you'd feel the same way.
Go and do even a modicum of international air travel then imagine what it would be like if there were no checks.
I think freedom is more important than security to anyone with a brain. With that said, the terrorist bogeymen are largely nonexistent; you've been duped.
While I abhor the reports for TSA (I won't fly to the USA because of this nonsense) and I agree that most of the way the checks are done by them is 'theatre', having professionally trained, and accountable 'agents' (or whatever you want to call them) making appropriate searches at borders of countries is sensible.
I disagree that randomly searching people can ever be appropriate or sensible. Freedom is simply more important to me than your or my ability to feel safe.
We do not have such shrill protestations (at least as far as I can tell) in Europe
That sounds like a problem to me.
where frankly many of those countries have had a far more thorough search regimen than the USA
Yeah, definitely sounds like a problem.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Even while cumbersome I much prefer sitting in an airplane where people had to pass a check than one without. Honestly, what would be your preference?
Honestly, I'd prefer that to travel without being subject to a warrantless search with no probable cause. I'd rather take a statistically insignificant risk and retain my Constitutional and human rights, as opposed to existing as an insignificantly-safer coward. I can't see the bogeymen in the shadows that the ruling class want me to fear; I only fear for our liberty.
If there were an airline that allowed passengers to board after passing through an old-style, cursory weapons check — the type of security that's still used at small municipal courts — or even no security, other than a reinforced cockpit door, I would have kept flying during the past seven years. The feelings I experience when my rights are violated are such that it isn't worth it for me to fly anywhere, for any reason. Until the Fourth Amendment and all-around sanity returns to US airports, I'll have no part in that degrading and unconstitutional display of cowardice.
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
Oh, please. Don't pretend that that only options are TSA or no security at all. Back in the day, before the TSA, the airlines were handling security on their own and doing a fine job. It was a measured response, where the level of security suited the contemporary threat level. As a result, the inconvenience to travelers was less, the cost was less, and it was only paid for by people who were actually traveling by plane. Now, with the TSA, you've got airport nudity scanners and inefficient security theater all on the taxpayer dime, so you have to pay for it whether you travel by plane or not. It's worse now by every measure I can think of.
High jacking was much easier then. The door to the cockpit was not locked and secured.
Apples. Oranges.
And don't forget the different politic climate and the different goals of the high jackers.
In a nutshell you can't derive potential high jacking cases from the past.
It is not naive the TSA is naive. If you want security you can have it by doing real security screening and not "security theater." Ask the Israelis about it some time. I flew out of Amsterdam the day after a scare, it was the first security screening I have ever had. Someone looked me dead in the eye and asked my why half of my passport was in Arabic. He looked at me, listened to me, and made a real judgment. It is all bullshit anyway post 9/11 everyone knows that even if the terrorists are able to kill 90% of the people of the plane they are still not going to be able to kill all the passengers plus the external target. By making the risk=damage*likelihood equation infinite they have closed that door for ever. Someone tries to hijack the plane I am on and I am reciting "we few, we happy few" and the then going to stomp those fuckers to death with evey other top level predator on the plane. I will feel bad if they cut the stewardess' throat but that is not going to stop me wrapping my coat around my forearm and pulling the handle out of my luggage and reminding him has he dies that I will bury him in pigskin with his feet pointing to Mecca.
I think the singular rule that stopped hijackings of substantial significance was enacted far later than the other provisions that represent a significant step backwards for freedom.
"In 1973, the Nixon Administration ordered the discontinuance by the CIA of the use of hijacking as a covert action weapon against the Castro regime. Cuban intelligence followed suit. "
You oh so conveniently missed that bit out.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
Now, how many aircrafts have you heard being hijacked over the last decade?
That's awful logic, because you're ignoring all the other things that changed as well. Secured cockpit doors. The willingness of passengers to fight back. Etcetera.
Do you think that the heightened security level has ...
Nope, it doesn't. Hardened locked cockpits and passengers will to aprehend and beat the shit of of scoflaws will do that.
It is true that they may now start to resort to tactics that were not imaginable just a few years ago, ...
The sooner you realise that your attitude to a minuscule terrorist threat is actually the problem here, the better.
I would suggest you are suffering from a form of mental illness similar to that of obsessive compulsives who refuse to touch door handles for fear of picking up "germs". You cannot see the obvious facts for what they are: there is no significant threat from terrorism, and there never was one. The fact that you are willing to drive around in cars, or ride on the subway when a) there is a far higher risk of you dying from non-terrorist causes doing that (and pretty preventable causes too, given TSA-like funding) and b) terrorists could just as easily attack those as well, is plainly deluded when the price you pay in return for "safety" on a plane is so utterly disproportionate.
The sheer Owellian nature of what is going on in the minds of Americans like you is amazing. Land of the free? Don't make me laugh.
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
Actually some credit should go to the x-ray scanners and walk-through metal detectors as well. With those two in place it is basically impossible to sneak a viable bomb aboard an aircraft now. Sure, you can get explosives through, but not the types that are easy to detonate. The shoe bomber and pants bomber both managed to get explosives on board but were unable to detonate them because the process was so involved other passengers noticed and stopped them.
Even without locked cockpit doors hijacking would be almost impossible now anyway, since passengers don't assume they will be safe if they co-operate any more. They assume the hijacker might be planning to crash the aircraft into a building and kill them anyway, so will keep fighting them no matter what.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Security checks are not about security. It's meant to show off an impression of security and to make it feel risky to bring lethal when boarding a plane.
It's the same principle with police patrols. They spend a huge amount of time doing nothing, but it's useful. You see the policeman, you know you can get caught, you abide law.
Sure, but isn't that true of damn near *any* weapon that could pass through a metal detector (i.e. the old security measures)? The question you should be asking is: what can bypass the old system that can't bypass the new system as well? Because no one is arguing against airport security in general, we're arguing against the more absurd rules the TSA has implemented.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
Agreed. Most of these "weapons" are useless at best. The "grenades" aren't powerful enough to do more than singe some eyebrows, the crossbow-like devices are obvious as fuck and you wouldn't be able to make them without someone noticing (nor are they any more effective than stabbing someone with a pencil), the "reloadable" shotgun isn't reloadable and takes *considerable* time to go off, the fire-making device would be entirely contained if in luggage (planes are *designed* to tolerate a fire in luggage) or quickly put out by a crew member if inside the cabin, the "remote detonator" is just a flint wheel and couldn't detonate anything, etc. They're all entirely worthless. This experiment doesn't really prove a damn thing other than that current security measures are such that ineffective gadgets like this can be fashioned.
What he *should* have tested is whether or not the TSA's security rules are more effective than the old security rules. That is to say, could you construct a better weapon, one that's actually effective, under the old rules but not the new rules? I don't think so, but that isn't what he tested.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
>You can bet that terrorists would find it an easy attack vector if there were no checks anymore.
False dichotomy. We can go back to the old security measures (i.e. metal detector). It's not an all or nothing situation.
>Honestly, what would be your preference?
I'd prefer to do away with the new "security" measures. I'll gladly take the risk of a terrorist slipping through. I live in this country, I fly semi-regularly. I'm agreeing to assume as much risk as anyone else under my preference. There are two, and only two, things that have made air travel safer since 9/11":
1. Reinforced cockpit doors. If the hijackers can't get to the cockpit then they cannot take the plane by force. Even if they kill all the passengers, they cannot gain control of the airplane and use it as a weapon.
2. Passengers now know to resist hijackers. The old logic used to be that you should obey the hijackers, don't be a hero, and keep your head down. The hijackers wanted money, political stuff (e.g. prisoners released), or free travel to $country_without_extradition_treaty. If you shut up and did what they said then no one would get hurt. The plane would land, SWAT (or equivalent) would negotiate with them. The hijackers would either surrender or SWAT would storm the plane with minimal innocent casualties. But now we know that the hijackers might want to use the plane with a weapon. Thus, passengers now know to dogpile anyone who tries to take over the plane. Even with a fully-loaded, fully-automatic rifle, no hijacker could possibly take over an aircraft. Have you seen pictures of recent would-be terrorists? The passengers beat those fuckers to within an inch of their lives!
TL;DR: We're safer now, but not thanks to the TSA.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
High jacking was much easier then. The door to the cockpit was not locked and secured.
Apples. Oranges.
And don't forget the different politic climate and the different goals of the high jackers.
In a nutshell you can't derive potential high jacking cases from the past.
Really it was the crackdown on drugs on airplanes that put paid to the high jackers. Now the best they can manage are drunk jackers.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
That certainly doesn't mean that the TSA is the best approach ... something like Israel's methodology would make more sense.
Bulldozing the houses of anyone committing anything that could remotely be interpreted as an act of terror, with their elderly relatives still inside, would surely strike sufficient fear into other 'terrorists' that they wouldn't dare do anything!
(yeah I'm aware you are talking about the Israeli airport screening, which is demonstrably effective, just pointing out that the Israeli 'follow through' is nowhere near effective as a deterrent, just makes their opponents angrier).
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
I remember when the shoe bomber got arrested - it was the other passengers that first apprehended him on the plan. By the looks of his face I don't think they were particularly pleased with his botched attempt.
That wasn't just a botched attempt; the guy was totally set up to fail from the very beginning and his 'bomb' was virtually fake. He was fucked by his muslim pals.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
They are usually quite inflated on their own, I don't think they are that expandable.
Dealing with risk and mitigating against it is my primary job. So lets examine your comments from a mitigation point of view and see where it leads us...
To mitigate the risk you have to go to the root cause. Namely our foreign policy. The US has been building its empire trying to think of itself as the world's police. We meddle in other countries affairs both political and economic whether they asked for our help or not. We have supported dictatorial regimes as well as provide blind support for allies, especially Israel, whether they were right or wrong. We have invaded countries for natural resources and have economically sanctioned countries that refused to cooperate with the corporate interests of the US. Our belief in American Exceptionalism (the belief that we are somehow superior to everyone else) leads to an attitude that other countries see as arrogance. Our largest export isn't food or energy, it is weapons both advanced and deadly accurate.
So far, all our mitigation efforts have been reactionary to the incident as your comment points out without addressing the root causes. Our reaction to a terrorist with explosives in his shoes? Require everyone to take off their shoes for deep inspection. Our reaction to another terrorist with explosives in his drawers? Invasive pat downs and explicit x-ray machines that display everything under the clothing. Our reaction to the possibility of liquid explosives? Ban liquids on flights.
To truly mitigate this, we need to change our foreign policy to leave other countries alone to fight their own battles. We need to scale back our consumption of resources dramatically and ditch the attitude that we are the best thing since sliced bread. We need to stop the empire building and support of dictators that we use as proxies for that empire building. We need to stifle our corporate overlords in their quest for world domination and exploitation in the "global economy".
Lastly, we need to stop exporting weapons to everyone especially to those same regimes that are committing the worst atrocities whether they are allies or not.
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Who needs "chux'o'liberty" when the Security Theater is lax enough to permit 12" steel razor blades on a flight?
Some days it's just not worth
chewing through my restraints.
How do passengers fight back against explosives again? Hijacking isn't the only threat anymore, in case you haven't noticed.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
My job is also mostly about risk identification and mitigation as well. I am not a believer in root cause analysis. Proximate cause analysis is more interesting and more useful, which is why its what the legal system usually aims for. Your root cause analysis may be correct. We might indeed prevent a considerable portion of future international terrorism by dealing with the military industrial complex and putting in some cooler heads to run the CIA.
That would not do anything to address all the other crazy reasons someone might decide to use an airliner as guided missile. Root cause analysis fallaciously assumes there is some single point up a decision tree that lead to branch where the event was possible. In the real world there is often more than one way to get somewhere.
The proximate cause of the towers getting hit on the other hand was "passengers were able to gain the ability to alter the flight path of the aircraft" A secured cockpit door addresses that. It addresses it no matter if the would be perp does it because the CIA install an oppressive regime that denies him his freedom in east whocaresisatan or because the voices in my head tell me to smash things.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
There are so few terrorists its irrelevant.
When hundreds of people are dying daily from terrorist attacks involving airplanes there might be some argument. There aren't and there isn't any evidence to suggest that the TSA has ever even prevented an attack.
To add a little perspective. 3000 people died in the attacks on 9-11-01. A tragedy to be sure. Almost that many people died every month in car accidents in 2011. By the way, 2011 is the lowest number of traffic deaths since 1949. If you go back to 2001, 3000 people died in traffic deaths every 26 days.
I'm of the opinion that very few, if any, terrorist groups want to pull off an attack like Sept. 11 again. That kind of destruction and death toll did nothing good for them. The US attacked several countries, with the support of most of the worlds governments, and decimated the group who carried out those plans. The unsuccessful attacks have been much more fruitful from what I've seen. One guy fails to ignite a bomb in his shoes and we waste how many millions of hours of time per year taking off and putting on shoes. Another guy tries to set off a defective bomb in his underwear. How much more time and money is spent on back scatter scanners? How much additional ionizing radiation are people who fly exposed to? We really don't' know. We have the PR answers of what it is for one that is properly calibrated. But we don't know how often, or if those scanners are ever checked. There was only one study done regarding this, and it was by the TSA itself. The first, and only, independent study was cancelled. The TSA people don't even wear radiation badges. It's obvious to me that they aren't following what would be considered best practices by any other industry.
Yes, we have the example of Flight 93 but I think that's an exception to the rule
No so much:
http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/29/world/asia/china-plane-hijack-foiled/
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/default.aspx?pageid=438&n=man-attempts-to-hijack-thy-plane-in-istanbul-reports-say-2011-01-05
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-149289/Italian-plane-hijack-foiled.html
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
people already were going through metal detectors without the TSA for decades
However, your solution, although practical still relies on the first strike which is bad news for those in that strike. It is reactionary and quite active mitigation. No matter how many holes you plug it is impossible to plug them all. A weakness will be found. All you have done is reacted irrationally to a threat that has succeeded and thrown billions of dollars at a ghost. All of our disaster related mitigation programs require a benefit cost analysis which is something lacking in the homeland security grants. Even a cursory glance at the TSA shows it is security theater unlikely to catch real threats.
Since you are in mitigation as well, you should know that the goal of it is to lessen the impacts of risk. It doesn't necessarily eliminate it. In the short term, proximate cause analysis works but the root causes still need to be addressed or you simply wind up chasing that ghost.
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