Airport Security Prize Announced

Reservoir Hill writes "Verified Identity Pass, a firm that offers checkpoint services at airports, has announced a $500,000 award for any solution that will make airport security checks quicker and simpler for passengers. The cash prize will go to any individual, company or institution that can get customers through airport security 15% faster, at a cost of less than 25 cents per passenger, using technology or processes that will be approved by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Passengers must not need to remove their clothes or shoes, something that slows down processing significantly. "We're looking at moving things that are conceptual or in the lab to things that we can deploy," says company spokesman Jason Slibeck and added that over 150 individuals, start-ups, defense contractors and universities have shown an interest in the prize. One promising procedure is mass spectroscopy, which involves analyzing the mass-charge ratio of ions on a swab sample taken from a passenger's clothing or air collected from around them to spot traces of substances including explosives or drugs. The Pre-Registration Package Information Sheet is available online."

Re:Eliminate it?

[Anonymous Coward]

> The summary says nothing about maintaining security. Just abolish it, or limit it to the bare minimum and then have an air-marshal on every plain to stop people with box-cutters.

One catch: You forgot about the requirement of "using technology or processes that will be approved by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA)."

...which is easily fixed, of course: "Hire two TSA goons and one supervisory TSA goon to stand around at the checkpoint and ignore everything they see, and allocate $500M/year to the guy running TSA, to dole out to his politically-connected friends as he sees fit."

Re:Eliminate it?

[palegray.net]

Everyone (at least here in America) seems so focused on preventing people from getting on board a plane with a weapon. I think this kinda misses the point of a big part of airport security: the airport itself. This site [emergency-management.net] gives a chronological list of some major security incidents in airports; it's not pretty stuff.

Re:air marshalls.. - Not that much

[geekoid]

From 2001
http://www.thegunzone.com/fam-lawman/fam-qual.html [thegunzone.com]
Probably Pay band G salary. Higher grades do investigation and other duties.

Call it 75K after benefits.

that works out to about 30 an hour. Air flight that take for hours would be an addition of 120 + overhead So if you ahve 60 seats, two bucks or so a ticket.

I think even an 10% cost hike would be well worth it.

Plus you will need to pay fewer people for gate security.

Re:Speed Improvement at No Cost

[lgw]

You got that one backwards: we remove our shoes *not* because it's a security measure, but because it speeds up the lines. Too many shoes have enough metal to set off the metal detector, and it was becoming a problem to wand everyone.

Re:Speed Improvement at No Cost

[geekoid]

Many Shoes actually trigger metal detectors because they have nails in it. It would be unreasonable to expect any security person to know which brands and models have nails at any given time.

Plus you can hide things in them.

I asked this same question, and they let me look at the x-ray machine at my sandals; which to my uprise, had metal nails in them.

Sweaters can hid thing and still not look baggy. When I did security for a large chain, they made us watch actual shop lifting films. In it people would put things under loose clothing that just made it look like tight clothing. The most amazing one was the guy that put a chain saw in his baggy pants and walked out of the store. If you didn't see it, you wouldn't know.

So within todays security context, both those things are reasonable.

I do find searching any person randomly an obscene abuse on the US contsitution.

Normally I don't respond to AC

[geekoid]

But since so many people harbor the fallacy that firing a gun I'll make an exception.

I can tell you exactly what will happen. A quite hiss. You can not create a fiery disaster on a plane with a handgun, or a shot gun. Also, the person being shot at will die.

Of course, you have normal procedure.

I've seen it, so unless you can provide some counter evidence, STFU.

All this ignoring the fact the O2 masks are useless. They ahve never saved a life. Any aircraft incident large enough to cause deployment means the aircraft will desend rapidly, preferably under control, but not always.

Since there is air at the altitude the plane is flying, and the fact that in about 90 seconds you will be at an altitude with sufficient air, they really aren't need.

All other incidents render them moot.

Dupity-dupe.

[Yaztromo]

Didn't we discuss this only six weeks ago?

• $500,000 Prize for Faster Airport Security Checks [slashdot.org]

Well what do you know -- we did! :)

Yaz.

(Tagged appropriately).

Re:Normally I don't respond to AC

[seifried]

Or you can watch MythBusters:

Explosive Decompression [wikipedia.org] which they revisited later: Explosive Decompression [wikipedia.org]

They eventually got an explosive decompression by using (wait for it) a large amount of explosives, which did blow a pretty good sized hold in the fuselage.

Re:You're not going to like the answer...

[Anonymous Coward]

we could be giving a quick, professional, and *thorough* screening to a much smaller group of people. Like, say, El Al does.

Actually, El Al also pays attention to people who don't fit the typical profile. There was a famous case in the UK [wikipedia.org] where a bomb was found in the luggage of a pregnant white christian irish woman. It was placed there by her arab fiancee.

Re:How's that then?

[jrumney]

The fact that scientists in a lab had limited success producing a combination of chemicals that could produce a small explosion (enough of a pop to make people panic, not take down a plane or kill anyone onboard) when they were asked to determine the "safe quantities" for TSA, shows that the plot was never realistic in the first place. Its a draconian restriction for an unrealistic threat.

Re:Give up the charade?

[emlyncorrin]

Hey, I have a good one, everyone checks in *everything* and flies naked. Then we'll finally be safe.

Too late, someone already thought of that [reuters.com].

Re:Normally I don't respond to AC

[NeoThermic]

>All this ignoring the fact the O2 masks are useless. They ahve never saved a life. Any aircraft incident large enough to cause deployment means the aircraft will desend rapidly, preferably under control, but not always.

I was on a flight to California from England. After we had entered Icelandic airspace, we had a tail fire. Smoke was pouring into the cabin, and the oxygen masks were deployed. It took us 10 mins to land at Reykjavik, Iceland.

10 mins of exposure to smoke will kill you. I'd go as far as to say that the oxygen masks saved lives that day. They have more than one trick (i.e. they serve a purpose other than just being deployed for decompression incidents)

NeoThermic