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JFK Displays Actual Wait Times Using Beacons That Monitor Mobile Phones

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Re: JFK Displays Actual Wait Times Using Beacons That Monitor Mobile Phones

#61

Post by heatish »

forgottenpass wrote: post #45

When a device passes the beacons, its non-personal unique ID—called a MAC address—is recorded, encrypted and time-stamped. Blip, you make me laugh. You know this will raise privacy concerns and say the sweet nothings that placate the general public, but inspire no confidence in people who know what those words mean. I'm not here to say that as a JFK traveler I'm unhappy with the privacy considerations. I just want to…

Yeah that same line made me laugh a bit as well. "Your non-identifying, SUPER personal, burned onto your phones hardware, is never going to change Mac Address is recorded as you walk by."

I think the idea is a great one, it's unfortunate there isn't a better way (that I can think of atm) to do it, or like you said just some transparency on what they do with it. As simple as: "At the end of each day the encrypted mac addresses are completely erased from our system."

Seems like they do keep the info though, it says the Cincinnati airport kept it and used it for data analysis. In the end, I think this kind of thing most people will be okay with foregoing a bit of privacy for.

Edit: Interesting article on mobile MAC addresses down the comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10097882#up_10098108

Re: JFK Displays Actual Wait Times Using Beacons That Monitor Mobile Phones

#62

Post by rtkwe »

RobotCaleb wrote: post #12

Of what use is this information to the people standing in line? "Oh, it's 30 minutes. I guess I'll hurry."

There's also some psychological tricks you can play with the time estimates. When it takes less time than was estimated people don't mind the wait as much and can come out way happier. Disney is one of the kings of these kinds of tricks in their parks it's really interesting.

Re: JFK Displays Actual Wait Times Using Beacons That Monitor Mobile Phones

#63

Post by pyre »

vidarh wrote: post #49
pyre wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the idea wasn't that they were volatile on their own, but components that could be assembled into a bomb once on-plane.

That might have helped if they actually caught fluids in the carry on. In my experience (accidentally left bottles in carry-on several times; always found out myself after passing through security with no problems) they don't seem to do that.

It's inconsistent. I've had various things denied in carry-on (e.g. jar of jam, snow globe, etc). A TSA agent even told me that snow globes were not allowed even in checked luggage, which I found out later is false. I had to find some way to mail the snow globe to myself from the airport.

Re: JFK Displays Actual Wait Times Using Beacons That Monitor Mobile Phones

#64

Post by mlaretallack »

heatish wrote: post #61
forgottenpass wrote: post #45

When a device passes the beacons, its non-personal unique ID—called a MAC address—is recorded, encrypted and time-stamped. Blip, you make me laugh. You know this will raise privacy concerns and say the sweet nothings that placate the general public, but inspire no confidence in people who know what those words mean. I'm not here to say that as a JFK traveler I'm unhappy with the privacy considerations. I just want to…

Yeah that same line made me laugh a bit as well. "Your non-identifying, SUPER personal, burned onto your phones hardware, is never going to change Mac Address is recorded as you walk by." I think the idea is a great one, it's unfortunate there isn't a better way (that I can think of atm) to do it, or like you said just some transparency on what they do with it. As simple as: "At the end of each day the encrypted mac…

I work in the traffic industry and over the last 8 years I have seen the rise of WIFI and Bluetooth journey time monitoring kit and after looking at every solution, I have found that the method of "encrypting" the data has always been just a MD5 hash, or SHA if you are lucky. With with result Hash just been http'ed over to a server on the internet. This usually leads to to question, "OK, so I can just hash the victims MAC address and the look for that in the data stream to find out where the person is insteadvof just using the MAC directly?"

Re: JFK Displays Actual Wait Times Using Beacons That Monitor Mobile Phones

#65

Post by jessaustin »

MBlume wrote: post #22
harmegido wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they're concern is not foremost for the safety of the passengers. The main concern is airplanes going into buildings. Of course, this is definitely an example of fighting the last war. On a separate note, the TSA really pisses me off. Consider that UPS saves millions by not taking left turns. Removing or adding very small inefficiencies at a very large scale has tremendous cost implications. I don't think the…

I agree that planes going into buildings is the major security concern, but we fixed it. We've reinforced the cockpit doors and we've taught passengers not to cooperate with hijackers (the latter we managed within hours of the first attack)

...we've taught passengers not to cooperate with hijackers

Since I'm old, I remember the decades during which we were taught to cooperate completely with hijackers. Of course this was always bad advice, as was eventually made clear even to the idiots on TV. It seems possible that if no terrorism "expert" had ever appeared on TV, 9/11 could have gone very differently.

Re: JFK Displays Actual Wait Times Using Beacons That Monitor Mobile Phones

#66

Post by mlaretallack »

heatish wrote: post #61
forgottenpass wrote: post #45

When a device passes the beacons, its non-personal unique ID—called a MAC address—is recorded, encrypted and time-stamped. Blip, you make me laugh. You know this will raise privacy concerns and say the sweet nothings that placate the general public, but inspire no confidence in people who know what those words mean. I'm not here to say that as a JFK traveler I'm unhappy with the privacy considerations. I just want to…

Yeah that same line made me laugh a bit as well. "Your non-identifying, SUPER personal, burned onto your phones hardware, is never going to change Mac Address is recorded as you walk by." I think the idea is a great one, it's unfortunate there isn't a better way (that I can think of atm) to do it, or like you said just some transparency on what they do with it. As simple as: "At the end of each day the encrypted mac…

I work in the traffic industry and over the last 8 years I have seen the rise of WIFI and Bluetooth journey time monitoring kit and after looking at every solution, I have found that the method of "encrypting" the data has always been just a MD5 hash, or SHA if you are lucky. With with result Hash just been http'ed over to a server on the internet. This usually leads to to question, "OK, so I can just hash the victims MAC address and the look for that in the data stream to find out where the person is instead of just using the MAC directly?" The same is done for ANPR based systems. The word "encrypted" seems to be added to some how make it secure without the solution being secure.

Re: JFK Displays Actual Wait Times Using Beacons That Monitor Mobile Phones

#67

Post by vigneshv_psg »

I am just curious. Wouldn't it be more easier to do this with specific devices than using the phones?

Each passenger can be given a smart card along with the boarding pass (or embedded in the boarding pass). The sensors could merely check for the smart card at certain points and determine how long it took for the passenger to clear security, etc. The airline can then collect the smart card back just before boarding when they scan the boarding pass. Seems like a simple solution that would work without much privacy concerns.

Re: JFK Displays Actual Wait Times Using Beacons That Monitor Mobile Phones

#68

Post by jessaustin »

rayiner wrote: post #42
harmegido wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they're concern is not foremost for the safety of the passengers. The main concern is airplanes going into buildings. Of course, this is definitely an example of fighting the last war. On a separate note, the TSA really pisses me off. Consider that UPS saves millions by not taking left turns. Removing or adding very small inefficiencies at a very large scale has tremendous cost implications. I don't think the…

It's not like we didn't have airport security lines before the TSA. And with the new millimeter wave machines I'm not sure if they're appreciably slower than the old metal detector setup. The bottleneck was always putting your luggage through the X-ray, and we've had that for as long as I can remember.

When I was flying in continental USA on a weekly basis in 1998-99, security lines were seldom a problem. On more than one occasion, I parked my car in the DIA short-term lot (client was paying) 20 minutes before flight time. Gate agents would wag their fingers, and I'd be breathing hard when I got aboard, but I never missed a plane because of it. Also when I forgot to stash my pocketknife in my carry-on bag I just plunked it down in the change bucket with my keys and change. It really was easier and more enjoyable to fly back then...

Re: JFK Displays Actual Wait Times Using Beacons That Monitor Mobile Phones

#69

Post by ISL »

vigneshv_psg wrote: post #67

I am just curious. Wouldn't it be more easier to do this with specific devices than using the phones? Each passenger can be given a smart card along with the boarding pass (or embedded in the boarding pass). The sensors could merely check for the smart card at certain points and determine how long it took for the passenger to clear security, etc. The airline can then collect the smart card back just before boarding w…

It's not easier than using a thing they already have.

Re: JFK Displays Actual Wait Times Using Beacons That Monitor Mobile Phones

#70

Post by sixothree »

forgottenpass wrote: post #45

When a device passes the beacons, its non-personal unique ID—called a MAC address—is recorded, encrypted and time-stamped. Blip, you make me laugh. You know this will raise privacy concerns and say the sweet nothings that placate the general public, but inspire no confidence in people who know what those words mean. I'm not here to say that as a JFK traveler I'm unhappy with the privacy considerations. I just want to…

I suspect this statement is just as innacurate

> The BlipTrack solution ... detects Bluetooth or Wi-Fi devices in “discoverable” mode

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