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Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

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Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#131

Post by mncolinlee »

corford wrote: post #125

Lots of people are posting highlighting how pointless airport security is given the ease with which a terrorist can bypass it by e.g. blowing himself up in the security line, targeting buses or shopping malls, making weapons from stuff bought "air side" etc. As this hasn't been happening (despite how easy it would be for a terrorist to do), the only logical conclusion I draw is that the entire terrorist threat is so…

Correction: You can estimate the number of truly dangerous terrorists targeting the US easily. Israel and Russia seem to attract more and they tend to hit easy targets that are more difficult to secure than airports.

Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#132

Post by faster »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #118
cushychicken wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CBP does not ALWAYS search outbound people, but retains the right to do so (at least in the US).

Where would they do it? At boarding? Most US airports have no wall between domestic and international flights.

Totally anecdotal, but I was once pulled aside on the jetway by a woman with a Treasury badge and a burly guy who was probably a sheriff though he never said anything. She wanted to know how much cash I was carrying. I was flying from SF to Frankfurt, and I think it was 1994. My net worth then was about $30k, so I laughed and told her I had about $200 and a credit card.

So maybe CBP doesn't check outbound travelers, but Treasury did at least once.

Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#133

Post by pmorici »

sleeping_pills wrote: post #83
pmorici wrote: post #66

Typical. Government organizations think IT security means having strongly worded statements and reams of bureaucratic rules and procedures. If you look closely though the strong words often aren't backed by any meaningful action. In a government official's mind if the 50 page IT security document was filled out and is on file that means the system is secure. It's all a big joke really.

I don't think most of them would be that stupid. Just lazy. In a government official's mind, if the 50 page IT security document was filled out then he can't be held responsible when the shit hits the fan.

My first job out of school was with the US government. I'm speaking from experience. It is worse than you could possibly imagine. Onion levels of absurdity, snake oil levels of effectiveness.

Being young and naive I, at first, thought it was just an isolated case of astonishing incompetence but I came to realize it was actually accepted as normal and good practice across many parts of government.

Once my idealism about civil service wore off I got out of there as fast as possible.

Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#134

Post by neonhomer »

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.

> Their sole purpose is to make people more comfortable with invasive government overreach.

Amen.

Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#135

Post by zerohm »

vesche wrote: post #20
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?

It's from blackhat USA 2014 (Aug 6/7), when the video is uploaded it should be posted here: https://www.youtube.com/user/BlackHatOfficialYT/videos

+1

Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#136

Post by gergles »

ctdonath wrote: post #124
sib wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Can that be used to avoid the "pat-down" for those who cannot go thru the metal detector for medical reasons (metallic implants)?

No, in fact, precheck generally means you don't go through the AIT device and instead go through the metal detector. If you refuse to go through the metal detector (or if you set it off, or you are the 'zone 5' "random" person), you get a (hilariously perfunctory) patdown that they use to collect particles for the explosives test device. Nothing like the Freedom Grope™ in the plebe lanes.

Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#137

Post by gergles »

_jgdh wrote: post #75
u801e wrote: post #65

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 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.

I didn't have to take shoes off, laptop out, or throw away liquids in India. They do a hand-wand metal detector and a perfunctory frisk if you're wearing loose clothing, but otherwise it's much less invasive than any TSA check.

Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#138

Post by epochwolf »

corford wrote: post #125

Lots of people are posting highlighting how pointless airport security is given the ease with which a terrorist can bypass it by e.g. blowing himself up in the security line, targeting buses or shopping malls, making weapons from stuff bought "air side" etc. As this hasn't been happening (despite how easy it would be for a terrorist to do), the only logical conclusion I draw is that the entire terrorist threat is so…

> As this hasn't been happening

I believe this is incorrect. In Russia, two terrorists set off a bomb outside the secure area in the arrival hall. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domodedovo_International_Airpor...

Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#139

Post by jo_ »

MeinCrapf wrote: post #95
iamtew wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Some lighters. Regular ones are okay, I think, but I had my butane torch confiscated last May in San Francisco. I'd been carrying it around for three or four years and had never been stopped.

I've also brought a swiss army knife on numerous flights, pretty much always by accident.

Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#140

Post by jo_ »

nfoz wrote: post #19
glenra wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Why would the airlines have incentive to provide good-quality security? Terrorism events are rare and it seems unlikely that a reasonable amount of security infrastructure that the airline could provide would result in a substantial decrease in the probability that a sufficiently-motivated terrorist would be successful with an attack against that airline. I just can't imagine we would get anything more than the airli…

I think there are several factors to consider.

Terrorism is an infinitesimally small threat, but many on the political side chose to treat it with heavy gloves despite the diminishing returns because (1) the Zero-risk cognitive bias makes people want to force than small risk to zero [1] and (2) the federal government views the TSA as a jobs program. Even though they're largely ineffective, no politician would dare to propose the dismantling thereof because the opposing side could use this as ammunition in the form of 'X is allowing the terrorists in' or 'X has cost us 10,000 jobs.'

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-risk_bias

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