

Randomized TSA screening is stupid - clarkm
http://blog.erratasec.com/2013/07/randomized-tsa-screening-is-stupid.html

======
btilly
This is a stupidly wrong article.

If you have a deterministic screening procedure, then would-be terrorists can
simply do a dry run to figure out whether they are going to be caught in the
screening. As long as they can find enough white extremists (like the Boston
Marathon bombers), they can guarantee getting through.

Random is trivially better than that. It has a chance of catching them. (If
the plot involves many terrorists, the chance of catching someone becomes
surprisingly good.)

~~~
jdp23
The 2002 "carnival booth" paper by Strauss and Chakrabarti is a good analysis.
There's a summary here with some quotes from Hal Abelson
[http://tech.mit.edu/V122/N48/48secure.48n.html](http://tech.mit.edu/V122/N48/48secure.48n.html)

