Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Security Analysis of a Full-Body Scanner

radsec.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 65 posts

Re: Security Analysis of a Full-Body Scanner

#41

Post by joshfraser »

wdewind wrote: post #36
joshfraser wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The supreme court ruled 8-1 that strip searches in schools are unconstitutional. How are technology-enabled strip searches at the airport any different? Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06...

> The supreme court ruled 8-1 that strip searches in schools are unconstitutional. They have not. You'll have to point to a specific case because they have ruled for strip searches to be constitutional under essentially what amounts to probable cause. Edit: you added the link. If the girl in that story had been using or distributing an illegal drug it would've been a (legally) reasonable search: http://en.wikipedia.o…

No, "the court ruled 8 to 1 that such an intrusive search without the threat of a clear danger to other students violated the Constitution's protections against unreasonable search or seizure".

How would her having illegal drugs be a clear danger to other students?

Re: Security Analysis of a Full-Body Scanner

#42

Post by wdewind »

joshfraser wrote: post #41
wdewind wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The supreme court ruled 8-1 that strip searches in schools are unconstitutional. They have not. You'll have to point to a specific case because they have ruled for strip searches to be constitutional under essentially what amounts to probable cause. Edit: you added the link. If the girl in that story had been using or distributing an illegal drug it would've been a (legally) reasonable search: http://en.wikipedia.o…

No, "the court ruled 8 to 1 that such an intrusive search without the threat of a clear danger to other students violated the Constitution's protections against unreasonable search or seizure". How would her having illegal drugs be a clear danger to other students?

No what? Nothing I said disagrees with that.

Can we go back to the part where you explain how scanners at airports are a "blatant violation of our Constitutional rights"?

Re: Security Analysis of a Full-Body Scanner

#43

Post by thinkling »

drostie wrote: post #32
jamoes wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Millimeter wave scanners still subject the body to radiation, even though they don't have the work "X-Ray" in the name. Radiation damage to your body is cumulative throughout your life, so if you care about your longevity, you'd be wise to opt-out of subjecting your body to this radiation whenever possible.

So you've got a bunch of responses, but as a guy with a Master's in applied physics I wanted to chime in with a bit more of a long explanation. The word "radiation" just means that something radiates -- it travels off to infinity. In this case we're talking about electromagnetic radiation, which spans a vast continuum from radio waves through microwaves to infrared and red, across the visible spectrum to deep blue, t…

PS: so in electromagnetic radiation, shorter wavelengths carry more energy, whereas in sound, longer wavelengths (bass) carry more energy. (Right?) I'm not physics-savvy enough why these effects are opposite; is there an explanation for this?

Re: Security Analysis of a Full-Body Scanner

#44

Post by [deleted] »

jamoes wrote: post #29
tedunangst wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A light bulb subjects the body to radiation.

A light-bulb's light also doesn't penetrate solid objects. It's clearly a different type of radiation than standard light. Our bodies aren't subject to millimeter wave radiation in nature, so they're not really evolved to defend against it. I'm not against further studies of millimeter wave radiation and its effects on humans, I just don't want to be a guinea pig in those studies.

[deleted]

Re: Security Analysis of a Full-Body Scanner

#45

Post by UrMomReadsHN »

wdewind wrote: post #30
joshfraser wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The TSA is a government agency, not a private organization. Options for flying without undergoing a grope down or subjecting oneself to the nudie photo maker are limited to those wealthy enough to fly private.

> The TSA is a government agency, not a private organization. Right, but the airlines are private and you are choosing to enter into a contract with them out of your own volition. The TSA is a regulator, but is not requiring that you fly. > Options for flying without undergoing a grope down or subjecting oneself to the nudie photo maker are limited to those wealthy enough to fly private. Which sucks, but doesn't soun…

"The right to travel is a part of the 'liberty' of which the citizen cannot be deprived without due process of law under the Fifth Amendment. If that "liberty" is to be regulated, it must be pursuant to the law-making functions of the Congress. . . . . Freedom of movement across frontiers in either direction, and inside frontiers as well, was a part of our heritage. Travel abroad, like travel within the country, . . . may be as close to the heart of the individual as the choice of what he eats, or wears, or reads. Freedom of movement is basic in our scheme of values." - Justice William O. Douglas

Like everything there is a balancing act between the interests of the individual, group, and state. One can argue that commercial air travel is so important to modern travel and movement of people (are you going to take a boat to Hawaii?) that going through needlessly invasive screening without any suspicion or probable cause as a prerequisite might be an undue limit on freedom of movement.

Re: Security Analysis of a Full-Body Scanner

#46

Post by UrMomReadsHN »

jamoes wrote: post #29
tedunangst wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A light bulb subjects the body to radiation.

A light-bulb's light also doesn't penetrate solid objects. It's clearly a different type of radiation than standard light. Our bodies aren't subject to millimeter wave radiation in nature, so they're not really evolved to defend against it. I'm not against further studies of millimeter wave radiation and its effects on humans, I just don't want to be a guinea pig in those studies.

That's not how evolution works...

Re: Security Analysis of a Full-Body Scanner

#47

Post by SomeCallMeTim »

jamoes wrote: post #29
tedunangst wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A light bulb subjects the body to radiation.

A light-bulb's light also doesn't penetrate solid objects. It's clearly a different type of radiation than standard light. Our bodies aren't subject to millimeter wave radiation in nature, so they're not really evolved to defend against it. I'm not against further studies of millimeter wave radiation and its effects on humans, I just don't want to be a guinea pig in those studies.

Umm...glass is a "solid object" the last time I checked. And no, it's electromagnetic radiation, period -- it's a different wavelength (just like blue is a different wavelength than red).

Look for the reply from the physicist for greater detail as to why you're completely confused, though. I opted out of the Backscatter X-Ray machines due to what seemed like poor science; the MM wave devices may violate privacy, but that's their worst offense.

Re: Security Analysis of a Full-Body Scanner

#48

Post by SomeCallMeTim »

joshfraser wrote: post #9

These machines are such a blatant violation of our Constitutional rights. We shouldn't be searched like this without probable cause or a search warrant. Whether they are effective or not is irrelevant.

They aren't a violation when you can ALWAYS "opt out" and get a pat down.

Whether a pat down is a rights violation is another question, but I think that mandatory searches for safety reasons have long passed Supreme Court tests.

Re: Security Analysis of a Full-Body Scanner

#49

Post by jessaustin »

thinkling wrote: post #39
drostie wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you've got a bunch of responses, but as a guy with a Master's in applied physics I wanted to chime in with a bit more of a long explanation. The word "radiation" just means that something radiates -- it travels off to infinity. In this case we're talking about electromagnetic radiation, which spans a vast continuum from radio waves through microwaves to infrared and red, across the visible spectrum to deep blue, t…

I like this response a lot and am going to adapt it to explain this to my radiation-paranoid family. The concept of wavelength as the sole distinction between these types of radiation is probably abstract to most non-science-educated people. Can you (or anyone else) think of a good concrete real-world analogy of different types of X that vary only in Y and some X are harmless but those with Y are not? Maybe an analog…

Maybe you could relate it to temperature? A simple quantity, but intuitively safe at some magnitudes and dangerous at others.

Re: Security Analysis of a Full-Body Scanner

#50

Post by jessaustin »

thinkling wrote: post #43
drostie wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you've got a bunch of responses, but as a guy with a Master's in applied physics I wanted to chime in with a bit more of a long explanation. The word "radiation" just means that something radiates -- it travels off to infinity. In this case we're talking about electromagnetic radiation, which spans a vast continuum from radio waves through microwaves to infrared and red, across the visible spectrum to deep blue, t…

PS: so in electromagnetic radiation, shorter wavelengths carry more energy, whereas in sound, longer wavelengths (bass) carry more energy. (Right?) I'm not physics-savvy enough why these effects are opposite; is there an explanation for this?

Sound energy is unrelated to audio frequency. Intuitively, it's possible to have quiet, deep sounds and loud, high-pitched sounds.
Post reply on HN