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Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

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Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#91

Post by dalke »

DoubleMalt wrote: post #77
hatandsocks wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

That was an response to the previous poster's incorrect observation about hearing "nothing in the way of mass murders on airplanes."

It appears that you incorrectly interpreted it as a complete list, as you concluded that only two incidents have occurred. http://listverse.com/2014/03/26/10-people-who-committed-murd... gives other examples of people who have committed mass murder on an airplane, including http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Airlines_Flight_11 (as a consequence of a suicide-by-bomb insurance fraud).

Also, the context was "mass murders on airplanes." Mass murder means typically 4 or more deaths. I have found many murders which took place at churches in the US [1] and ending up with one or two death. However, I haven't haven't found much in the way of mass murders of the sort that is supposed to be identified by security theater measures.

[1] If we go outside of the US then there are certainly metal detectors at some synagogues, bomb detectors at Mecca’s Holy Mosque, etc.

Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#92

Post by MichaelApproved »

BorisMelnik wrote: post #62

"TSA has not audited these devices for even the most basic security issues" This to me is the most troublesome aspect of this an entire ordeal. Any security pen-testing firm with their wits about them could have discovered these backdoors in a few simple audits. The fact that he was able to find all of these is very worrisome to me. I can only imagine what other bugs/backdoors are built in to these systems. Does any…

The weapons in the video are not powerful enough to take down an airliner. They'd likely harm a handful of people nearby or blow a small hole in the side of the plane but not much more than that. A small hole in the side of the plane would likely not cause it to crash.

Of course, I don't mean to be flippant with regards to the lives of people close by but it's not a larger threat than someone doing this on the ground. The biggest point of airport security is to keep the planes from falling out of the sky or flown into buildings.

Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#93

Post by MeinCrapf »

nikcub wrote: post #80

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 place…

You sure you didn't make that change around August, 2007?

http://www.tsa.gov/traveler-information/lighters-and-matches

Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#94

Post by MeinCrapf »

toong wrote: post #81
nikcub wrote: post #80

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 place…

In Europe they let you keep your lighter, at least inside the Schengen Area.

They do in the US, too.

Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#95

Post by MeinCrapf »

iamtew wrote: post #85
nikcub wrote: post #80

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 place…

That seems very odd that they would take a lighter. Mind you I've been on very few domestic US flights, and on a few flights in/out of the US, but I never had problems with lighters. I just drop it on the plate they send through the X-ray and pick it up afterwards, no issues. This was within the last 4 years though, maybe procedures have changed? Here in EU I've never had any problems either. The only thing that I kn…

They started allowing lighters again 7 years ago.

Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#96

Post by DanBC »

tedunangst wrote: post #52
ubernostrum wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TSA has more than a bit of scope creep going on. In theory, all they're supposed to do is a basic administrative search to prevent weapons or explosives from being brought onto a plane. In practice, the perception in the public mind that they are a more general law-enforcement body allows them to easily perform other tasks on behalf of agencies that don't have the same general search powers. The classic example is se…

Is searching for cash the classic example or a one time example involving Ron Paul's cash courier, which then led to a rule change instructing TSA to ignore cash?

TSA claim they don't search for eg drugs; they claim to search for expsi es and incidentally find drugs. This is the classic mission creep example.

There are people who hide drugs in jars of peanut butter. This shows up on TSA screens as a jar with different stuff in, which they claim to view as suspicious because it looks like explosive.

Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#97

Post by tombrossman »

GauntletWizard wrote: post #74
tptacek wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Similar experience here. I was at a party the evening before a flight and had loads of rockets and small mortars stuffed in my cargo shorts, which we were running around and shooting at each other (alcohol may have been involved).

Next morning at the airport was my first time seeing these machines. As the machines doors opened and closed, jets of air puffing at the passengers ahead of me, I wondered about the shorts which I still had on. I looked down at the empty pockets and they were literally sparkling with gunpowder and other residue from the fireworks the night before. 'Let's see what happens' was my only thought and I felt a bit let down when I got through with no problem.

Edit: Shorts sparkling in the light with some kind of crystalline residue from the fireworks, not sparkling like a lit sparkler, which would have been even more impressive.

Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#98

Post by thaumasiotes »

glenra wrote: post #16
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.

I do suggest we scrap it all and go back to the 1950s. Let people walk right out to the gate to meet arrivals. Let people run through the airport right to the gate without having to stand in a line at all. Even the level of security we had before 9/11 was misguided and caused more deaths than it saved. Here's all we should do: leave security policy up to the airlines themselves. Then there won't be the sort of single…

> I do suggest we scrap it all and go back to the 1950s. Let people walk right out to the gate to meet arrivals.

You could do this in the 90s. It still boggles my mind that someone thought it should be stamped out.

Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#99

Post by thaumasiotes »

cookiecaper wrote: post #69
raldi wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to kill 300 people, you can just blow up five buses. It's much easier than trying to blow up a plane.

It doesn't have the same publicity quality, though. The groups that carry out these attacks do it for attention, and they're going to do whatever they can to maximize their press time. That results in worldwide publication of their message, often requiring their opposition to acknowledge and respond, and gives them outlet to advertise to potential new recruits. Airplane attacks and crashes get a lot more coverage tha…

I agree that an airplane crash is more newsworthy than an attack on a bus.

I'm not so sure about a campaign that takes out five buses. I'd expect that to get heavy coverage.

Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#100

Post by thaumasiotes »

a_c_s wrote: post #50
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.

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…

I've done plenty of flying out of China, where you can get the death penalty for improper fundraising. The most onerous part of security is that you have to take your laptop(s) out of your carryon to go through. Out of US-instilled habit, I show up hours early for flights and end up spending those hours at the gate waiting to board. It's enough to make you ashamed of your US passport.
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