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Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

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Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#71

Post by hatandsocks »

msandford wrote: post #61
nfoz wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agreed with you more before this post. Let's consider the advantages of centralization: (1) A single agency can have within its mandate, expertise, and budget the security apparatus, which requires full-stack authority: airport design and administration, customs officials, airlines, planes, luggage, etc. The airlines can focus on the task they actually want to perform and are qualified to perform, whereas the one a…

> It is nonsense for a customer to walk openly onto an aircraft carrying a rifle. I'm not sure that I agree. Prior to metal detectors and airport security here in the US plenty of guns were carried on planes and very few bad outcomes were the result. I've heard of planes getting hijacked and going to Cuba but nothing in the way of mass murders on airplanes. I wish that instead of just stating this as a fact that you…

> I've heard of planes getting hijacked and going to Cuba but nothing in the way of mass murders on airplanes.

Now you have:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Air_Lines_Flight_773

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Southwest_Airlines_Flig...

Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#72

Post by bane »

tptacek wrote: post #29
idlewords wrote: post #2

I wish there was a transcript to go with these slides, or some context. It looks like an amazing talk. One thing that jumped out at me right away is that the explosives sniffer is also configured to detect narcotics, amphetamine and marijuana. Is this standard procedure at American domestic airports?

I wonder how the THC thing could possibly work. I opt out at every checkpoint, and each time, they maximize body contact and then generate an input to those machines. Wouldn't it go off for anyone who had smoked up earlier in the day, or the preceding day? It seems like they'd be spending all their time doing drug searches. (Don't get me wrong: drug searches at TSA checkpoints are extremely alarming, because TSA has…

Also, if you spend lots of time outdoors around fertilizer you can set it off.

Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#74

Post by GauntletWizard »

tptacek wrote: post #29
idlewords wrote: post #2

I wish there was a transcript to go with these slides, or some context. It looks like an amazing talk. One thing that jumped out at me right away is that the explosives sniffer is also configured to detect narcotics, amphetamine and marijuana. Is this standard procedure at American domestic airports?

I wonder how the THC thing could possibly work. I opt out at every checkpoint, and each time, they maximize body contact and then generate an input to those machines. Wouldn't it go off for anyone who had smoked up earlier in the day, or the preceding day? It seems like they'd be spending all their time doing drug searches. (Don't get me wrong: drug searches at TSA checkpoints are extremely alarming, because TSA has…

I've literally spent a night putting on a fireworks show, gotten up and flown the next day, and not set off the alarm. I've also at a different time been completely clean, set off the alarm for gunpowder (I could see the screen), and then had the TSA wave me through.

They don't know, they don't care, they don't do anything. Their sole purpose is to make people more comfortable with invasive government overreach.

Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#75

Post by _jgdh »

u801e wrote: post #65
a_c_s wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, all of this scrap-the-TSA talk makes me wonder how much people have flown internationally: in places I've been, security has been very similar to the TSA with minor variations. It seems like for every policy that had something a little less strict about it there was also something else it was a little more strict about: some care about liquids, some treat iPads as laptops, some make you remove your shoes. I've…

> Yeah, all of this scrap-the-TSA talk makes me wonder how much people have flown internationally: in places I've been, security has been very similar to the TSA with minor variations. It seems like for every policy that had something a little less strict about it there was also something else it was a littles more strict about: some care about liquids, some treat iPads as laptops, some make you remove your shoes. In…

Depends on which country in South Asia. I've travelled to Thailand, where they're super lax about security. Their scans can be skipped and their pat-downs (if they occur at all) are cursory. Right next to Thailand is India, where the policy is indistinguishable from the TSA.

Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#76

Post by Canada »

sib wrote: post #70
chimeracoder wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But that will not happen, because the people who enable and profit from these checkpoints aren't subjected to them at all. Don't worry - you can pay ~$100 to have the privilege of being "randomly" selected for "reduced" screening (ie, pre-9/11, with a metal detector). Of course, this is certainly not random at all. I don't have a random sample, but based on what I can see, it's very unlikely that they actually sele…

I applied to - and was granted - the TSA Precheck clearance. Let's face it; it's $100 for five years. And the interview took well under an hour including waiting time. Works out to be an almost negligible increase in cost compared to the cost of the travel it covers. The fingerprinting is a different issue.

What kind of questions did they ask during your interview?

Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#77

Post by DoubleMalt »

hatandsocks wrote: post #71
msandford wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is nonsense for a customer to walk openly onto an aircraft carrying a rifle. I'm not sure that I agree. Prior to metal detectors and airport security here in the US plenty of guns were carried on planes and very few bad outcomes were the result. I've heard of planes getting hijacked and going to Cuba but nothing in the way of mass murders on airplanes. I wish that instead of just stating this as a fact that you…

> I've heard of planes getting hijacked and going to Cuba but nothing in the way of mass murders on airplanes. Now you have: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Air_Lines_Flight_773 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Southwest_Airlines_Flig...

While these incidents are tragic, two incidents in the span 50 years of passenger aviation since WW2 don't seem like a big problem.

More people have been killed by lunatics while going to church without churches imposing a security theatre on attendees.

Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#78

Post by Hydraulix989 »

shamwao wrote: post #33
stevefeinstein wrote: post #8

If this isn't the answer, and I'm not asserting it is or isn't. What is, and how do implement it. Or do you suggest if we scrap it all and go back to 1950's like airport security that the few incidents that are inevitable are an acceptable risk? I don't know the answer, but I'd like to have the conversation.

This is a ridiculous idea I've always wondered about, but... why not just drop everything, and allow open carry? Maybe keep the cockpit doors. I find it impossible to imagine any security threat to a flight where the passengers are packing and willing to defend themselves. Doesn't this make flying exactly as dangerous as being in a crowd? For zero dollars?

You're overestimating the marksmanship/ability to use firearms of the average (untrained) person, especially when under extreme stress.

Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#79

Post by nfoz »

msandford wrote: post #61
nfoz wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agreed with you more before this post. Let's consider the advantages of centralization: (1) A single agency can have within its mandate, expertise, and budget the security apparatus, which requires full-stack authority: airport design and administration, customs officials, airlines, planes, luggage, etc. The airlines can focus on the task they actually want to perform and are qualified to perform, whereas the one a…

> It is nonsense for a customer to walk openly onto an aircraft carrying a rifle. I'm not sure that I agree. Prior to metal detectors and airport security here in the US plenty of guns were carried on planes and very few bad outcomes were the result. I've heard of planes getting hijacked and going to Cuba but nothing in the way of mass murders on airplanes. I wish that instead of just stating this as a fact that you…

I appreciate your comment. I should have been clear to separate my opinion that "availability of rifles on planes make them less safe" away from the argument that "less-safe planes should not be a passenger choice because the harm caused by the lax security is commit against non-passengers as well".

Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#80

Post by nikcub »

I ended up finding a way to get cigarette lighters through with a 100% success rate just by brute forcing it.

If you travel a lot and you're a smoker you'd know that the worst part is getting off the flight, crawling through the airport at exit and then not having a lighter because they took it off you at departure[1].

No penalty for being caught with a lighter, so I kept leaving lighters in my bag in different places deliberately to figure out how I could get one through.

Solution turned out to be simple, and I hit it almost accidentally. I removed the metal shield and then dropped the lighter into an inside pocket of my bag that contains pens and loose coins.

Worked 100% of the time thereafter.

The scanners being blacklisting like a virus scanner means they have the same problem, they can only identify known threats. Change the form of the threat and you're through until they update and train their scanners again (both human and machine).

The illusion of safety. I've since quit both smoking and flying frequently.

[1] I gave the TSA the idea of handing out lighters they have confiscated from departing passengers to arriving passengers but they didn't buy into it.

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