

Pornoscanners trivially defeated by pancake-shaped explosives - panarky
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/12/11/pornoscanners-trivia.html

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Stormbringer
I was in 4 different airports in the US recently. Didn't have any problems in
any of them.

I will note though that the big scanner off to the side that I saw in one
airport had the product name:

"Rapiscan"

... which probably doesn't seem like such a good idea now to their marketing
team.

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jcromartie
The question is: is anybody surprised? (particularly curious about those at
DHS/TSA, and scum like Chertoff... I'm guessing not)

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jey
I'm against security theater, but this sounds like an information
visualization problem: if the image contains enough signal that a
theoretically optimally trained eye can detect the contraband, they should be
able to use machine learning algorithms to detect suspicious items and make
them show up with higher contrast.

In other words, the software should magnify anything out of the ordinary, like
contraband. It's not foolproof of course, but would help.

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cheald
I think the issue is that if you can produce anything approximately the size
and density of a gut, you can get it past a scan - no machine learning is
going to be able to pick up something that for all intents and purposes looks
like a normal beer belly.

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jey
Fully agreed that that's a real problem.

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pierrefar
Great headline based on a simulation. Says so in the second sentence of the
abstract. Is it hard to do a test using real machines? What's stopping them?

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tomjen3
Why should the company that makes these machines allow access to them?

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pierrefar
Shouldn't the airports or governments (or whoever is paying for these) test
them properly?

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angusgr
That's true if their main concern is security, as opposed to security theatre.

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Mrich30
I'm not even sure security simulation is the main concern at this point. it
rather seems to be giving as much tax dollars to the companies who helped
politicians get into office in the first place.

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pmjordan
To me it seems that at this stage it's purely a matter of refusing to back
down on any "security" measure because that could be interpreted as "letting
the terrorists win" by political opponents or voters.

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ShabbyDoo
Let's say a terrorist had a plastic container with a wirelessly detonatable
bomb inside surgically implanted in his abdomen. After a few weeks to allow
the incision to heal, the guy went through airport security. Given the number
of implantable devices on the market, I bet the TSA folks are quite used to
feeling the odd lumps of pacemakers, etc. on people's torsos. While the
backscatter xrays might show a bunch of wires and such, would the image look
much different than someone who had a pacemaker implanted with various leads
into the heart? What if that guy was rubbed down with the bomb detection cloth
pad (name?) which is then placed in the explosives detector? After a few weeks
of being sewn up, would he trigger an alarm?

What's interesting about this scheme is that the bomb would be ready-to-go,
and the terrorist could throw himself right before hitting his remote control
button toward the area of the plane deemed to maximize the likelihood of
death.

Is this scenario at all possible? How could the TSA possibly deal with it
without harassing a bunch of people with pacemakers installed? If a single
terrorist tries such a scheme, I predict that everyone with any sort of
implanted object will have be added to some sort of pre-screening registry so
the TSA can sort-of verify the legitimacy of the thing which shows-up on
xray/pat-downs/etc.

As is obvious to most HN readers, the TSA's security measures can only make it
more difficult for terrorists to operate. However, the scenarios thought to
still be possible do not seem terribly sophisticated compared to the incentive
to commit these acts.

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lutorm
Wow. There is a "Journal of Transportation Security"...

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EGreg
Cut the foreplay, TSA, we all know eventually we will have to get on the plane
naked!

After a good cavity search.

Because, let's face it, all it takes is one bra-bomber and panty-bomber for
this to become a reality.

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rorrr
Cavity searches aren't profitable.

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IgorPartola
Not sure why you got downvoted. You are correct in that the government can't
exactly hand out a giant contrract for a cavity search scanner to some shadowy
corporation with expensive lobbyists.

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stcredzero
It would be very hard to conceal such conformally-packed explosives from
sniffers and dogs.

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pyre
I've been through a few airports since 9/11 and I've yet to see dogs
patrolling security checkpoints.

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jfb
Admittedly early for me, but I read the headline _very_ differently.

