Airport Security Prize Announced 381
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."
Eliminate it? (Score:5, Insightful)
I know! (Score:5, Insightful)
Do I win?
Re:How about (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:How about (Score:3, Insightful)
And I don't care about rubber bullets. They have to be lethal in order to be an effective deterrent. Mythbusters showed pretty conclusively that a bullet's not going to do much of anything to an airplane in flight -- no massive depressurization, etc. And a suicide terrorist isn't likely to bet their life on a 25% chance that their gun will contain a live bullet AND be a "good enough" shot to hit a vital control surface or cable from within the passenger cabin. Might want to armor the fuel tanks, though.
Make it accountable (Score:5, Insightful)
Give up the charade? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, there WAS a plot to do that. It was an epic fail from the start and there's no reasons to keep the restrictions in place.
Hey, I have a good one, everyone checks in *everything* and flies naked. Then we'll finally be safe.
Re:Eliminate it? (Score:5, Insightful)
What's missing here? (Score:1, Insightful)
If you want *effective* airline security, follow the best model in the world: Israel's airline, El-Al. There, if a guard so much as doesn't like your aftershave -- you're off the flight. And if you disagree, you get to talk to the business end of a submachine gun and will probably spend the night in a jail cell, at the least. They take that shit seriously because they have to - they are quite literally surround by tens of millions of people (yes, mostly Muslims) that want them dead.
All baggage is pressure/decompression tested (to check for pressure-trigger bombs). It is all chemically "sniffed". It is X-Rayed. Everyone goes through a metal detector. etc. etc. etc.
You can have safety. Or you can have convenience. But so long as there are tens of millions who want to kill you, you cannot have both.
But we're still living in a fairytale world here in the US. Some think we can negotiate with the world's murderous fanatics. Just talk out our differences. They'll talk us all into either a burqua or a grave.
--Jack
The purpose is fear (Score:4, Insightful)
Soup Nazi Style (Score:3, Insightful)
Why search for drugs? (Score:3, Insightful)
So what are the stupid Americans going to do then when they find some young person with trace molecular levels of cannibus in their aura? Shut down the airport? Call out the National Guard? Taser the poor motherfucker over and over and make him or her flop around on the airport floor like a white shark dragged into a tuna boat? All of the above?
And what are they going to do when it happens again a half hour later?
What the fuck is wrong with these people?
Americans! Let us give you a hint about security. Forget about finding the molecular levels of cannibus on random college students. Concentrate on the people who are seriously interested in blowing up airplanes.
Here's another hint. No serious terrorist is going to try hijacking a commercial airliner any more. If they are serious about flying a big plane into a place where a plane has no reason to be they will spend the money to rent a private plane, or blackmail some corrupt CEO into letting them borrow the corporate jet. Which never get inspected by what these bozos call 'security'. Because they are corporate private property. Which according to what passes for logic in the American mind, can't be used for terrorist activities because it is corporate property. Inconceivable!
If the Americans were really serious about making their airports safe they would turn the whole operation over to the Israelis or even the British. After all, this would give them more time to go around tasering random young people found in the presence of molecular traces of 'drugs'.
Re:The purpose is fear (Score:5, Insightful)
A still open flaw... (Score:5, Insightful)
What gets me is that no one seems to give a shit about what's in there - not once have they even looked to check when it goes through the ex-ray machine; lighting it up like a Christmas tree. They just assume that because it's being checked in with me, it's safe? I don't know, this is just my experience.
The discs I'm taking on as hand-luggage is a different story. I've had to explain to person after person that they're "hard-discs for a kom-pooo-ta!" not in fact weapons of mas destruction, nor agents of deadly nerve gas.
Now to my mind, if you can get a 40kg bag checked into a plane without any/many checks because it's not hand-luggage, you're just asking for trouble. The bombs that went of in Madrid were mobile detonated....what if after boarding the plane you don't suddenly "get a headache" just before take-off (of course they wont take off with your bag still in the hold), nip outside and blow the lot to kingdom come once at a safe distance? Baggage handlers aren't known for their efficiency, and imagine doing it on a plane with 300 passengers.
My point is, to my mind, this is a huge hole. Most plane hijackers have been willing to sacrifice themselves too, so just getting a "computer" into the hold would be enough...
Re:How about (Score:3, Insightful)
( It's a common mistake; the government does it all the time. )
Re:Eliminate it? (Score:5, Insightful)
the solution that pays for itself (Score:2, Insightful)
I call this prize throwing good money after bad.
Here's a novel solution: stop bombing people. Not only will we reduce the number of people that want to bomb us in return, we can save half a trillion dollars annually from slashing the military budget and closing every overseas military base. With all that extra cash we can afford all kinds of security, not to mention national health care, schools, repairing infrastructure, jobs... you name it. Of course, we also may find we don't need as much security.
Re:Eliminate it? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the line is: "On Sept 11, 2001, 40,000 children starved to death."
But yeah, your air-marshal plan kicks ass and you should get a cheque. Never mind some ridiculously over-priced chemical sniffer (hello, dogs?) or facial recognition software (hello, it's fooled by smiling).
Just have a guy (or girl) with a gun on every flight. Perfect solution.
Oh, add a Faraday cage to every plane so remote explosives can't get their signals.
The only logical solution (Score:5, Insightful)
...from a perspective not saturated by fear is to revert to the policies and procedures in place on September 10, 2001
Re:How about (Score:3, Insightful)
There is//// was a well-established process for hijackings. Do whatever they say. Fly the plane wherever they want to go. EVERY country on earth has signed anti-hijacking treaties. Yes, even really
wacky places like Iran and North Korea. You don't sign the treaty, you can't fly anywhere.
Once the plane lands on the ground, bring out the negotiators as the first line, and the SWAT team as a backup. The hijackers will be arrested, hopefully nobody gets hurt, and the appeal of hijacking as a crime is very low. Crimes with a 0% success rate usually don't get repeated.
One reason 9/11 was so successful is that with the exception of Flight 93, everyone followed the script.
Nobody is EVER going to do anything a hijacker asks for ever again.
As for your suggestion, I am seeing a major problem.
I will assume that you are trained in the use of firearms and take their use seriously. You would never point a gun at anything unless your goal was to put a hole in it. Not as a joke, not as a threat, not for any other reason. If you wanted a hole in something, you'd raise the gun and pull the trigger. Otherwise, you'd keep it where it belongs.
You are proposing giving firearms to civilians, many of whom have no experience with firearms. Several of them will be drinking on the flight, at least a few will be pissed off by the food, being crowded in small seats, the fact that their boss hated them so much as to send them to Poughkeepsie or whatever other humiliations real and imaginary are meted out on air travelers today.
There is a 75% chance that the gun you issued the civilian shoots blanks. As a civilian (unlike someone trained in the use of firearms), I'd say that means pretty good odds that pointing a gun at the stewardess, the fatty next to you who should have bought two tickets, or the kid who is playing rap music at 110db over his headphones, thereby aggravating your migraine will do nothing but scare them straight.
God help us the first time some idiot does that and s/he's the one with a loaded gun.
The fallacy of these sort of solutions (I would use the l-word, but it would just piss people off) is the belief that all humans are rational players. This is indicative that you really need to spend more time around humans.
Re:I know! (Score:5, Insightful)
OMFG. How can one be so paranoid about foul play on an airplane? You know, this same guy who wants to shoot you on the plane could just as easily shoot you:
Now please explain to me why we need this bullcrap draconian security theatre to board a plane, but we don't need it at all those locations I listed above? I dare you.
Standardize Bar Codes across Airlines (Score:1, Insightful)
A 2d barcode would allow enough data space for crytographic signing, and standardizing would allow for a scanner at the security checkpoint to verify who the boarding pass is for, and display the name for the TSA agent to check against the traveler's ID.
If you had that level of accountability, I would assume that some of the other requirements could be relaxed, providing the time savings. A sort of poor man's "registered traveler" program.
Re:Eliminate it? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Eliminate it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not really, no. While we focus on aircraft they'll focus on something else while we're distracted.
What about an entirely different commerce disruption activity, such as threatening communications (e.g. recent undersea cable mystery) or even critical infrastructure points (e.g. the California Aqueduct)? Are we spending sufficient of our anti-terror effort on things that the enemy have not drawn our attention toward?
Look at the Secret Service guarding the President. They don't all stare at they guy they're guarding, or the place where the last attempt was made. They're looking everywhere and they're trained to cover the zones. If we fixate on aircraft as a point of vulnerability we're in danger of ignoring the other possibilities. We need to think, not react.
Re:Eliminate it? (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought the job of the TSA was to make it safe to fly....catch potential terrorists. What does that have to do with detecting drugs? Do they think someone smuggling a couple of joints with them, is going to fire them up, and bring down the plane?
I'm surprised they aren't wanting to detect large sums of cash....we all know THAT will solve a lot of hijacking problems.
It'll sure show those MIT blackjack whizzes a thing or two...no more strapping money on your body to go to Vegas with....
Re:Denounce Mohammad (Score:3, Insightful)
So, I'll reply instead, on the off-chance that it was a serious question.
I am not a Muslim. Hell, I'm not really much of anything. But I've picked up a few things about religions in general and people in general. Regardless of their religion, people will act as people do - and that often means having the strength to do what they believe is necessary and appropriate to the circumstances. Whether that's "right" or "wrong" to you depends on how it affects you or people you know or your belief structures - again, that's human.
Many Muslims believe lying is prohibited, regardless of whether the person being lied to is a muslim or not. That's fine, many other religions hold similar views about lies - the Ninth Commandment, anybody?
However, there appears to be room for a practice called al-Taquiyya (see http://www.al-islam.org/ENCYCLOPEDIA/chapter6b/1.html [al-islam.org] ) Other religious scholars in other religions have likely held similar views - the early Christians under Rome kept their beliefs secret, as a matter of self-preservation. I wouldn't mind betting that Jewish theologians have debated things like "passing for non-Jewish" in the Third Reich. A strange form of Christianity evolved in Japan between when the Jesuits were kicked out and when Japan started to become more open again, because families had to keep their beliefs secret or face persecution. People will do what's necessary.
Now, on the surface, there appears to be nothing wrong with al-Taquiyya at all. Indeed, in times of persecution or harassment, what's wrong with hiding matters and keeping private things private for the sake of your survival and the survival of your family? Allah will know your intentions, and won't object if it's a matter of survival. No hypocracy required - it's better to be alive and a good person who told a necessary lie than a dead good person who never told a lie in their life. You can't do more good works if you're dead.
The trouble is, people are people - and interpret things differently, and have different priorities. One person might interptet al-Taquiyya to permit them to do what's needful - to denounce the Prophet and Allah in order to avoid being stoned by an angry mob, for example, but only in direct self-preservation or direct preservation of another. Another might perhaps interpret it as permitting the denouncement of Allah and the Prophet in order to gain access to an aircraft, because they believe it's necessary to gain access to and blow up a passenger aircraft to advance the cause of muslims everywhere. From their perspective, they'd be thinking of the bigger picture.
So, no. Asking people to denounce the Prophet of Islam wouldn't do you any good as it wouldn't necessarily reveal those you wanted to reveal - they'd perhaps consider it necessary to speak words other than those in their hearts. It would, however, probably reveal a lot of people of other faiths who believe it's inappropriate to denounce other faiths. Let's see, false-positives, false-negatives... not particularly useful.
Re:Normally I don't respond to AC (Score:1, Insightful)
Additionally, while you dont think the O2 masks in the cabin are particularly useful, that doesnt change the fact that theyre attached to a system of pipes carrying pure oxygen at anywhere up to 1800 psi.
"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."
typically airliners cruise at around 35,000 feet, "breathable atmosphere" for the average person anyway, stops at about 15,000 to 20,000 feet. so your statement that the airliner is capable of decending 15 to 20,000 feet in 90 seconds is clearly false. The FAA frowns on descending at more than 1000 fpm as it is likely to cause discomfort, 10,000 fpm can cause all sorts of health problems & a pilot would have to be crazy to try a suicidal dive like that anyway, you would redline the airspeed in no time.
Re:Normally I don't respond to AC (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:How about (Score:5, Insightful)
This was perfectly acceptable, as, as private entities, they are well within their rights to set whatever terms of doing business they wish, with very few exceptions. I.e., some requirements that are to onerous, or unreasonable disclaimers of liability are not enforceable, but the particular terms they chose don't fall under that category.
You still had your second amendment right, but you agreed to refrain from exercising it as part of the terms of the ticket.
Following September 11, 2001, Federal agencies took over the rule-making and enforcing, and were able to violate constitutionally protected rights because travelers had gotten used to the restrictions when they were made by an organization that actually had the authority to request them. That's why the second amendment stops at the airport gates.
Fortunately, you don't actually have to cross the airport gates to travel by air. Private charters, buddies, etc, can all fly without ever connecting to a terminal. You can, of course, take whatever you want with you on those flights (as long as the charter company or your friend don't object) GA, the best kept secret of the aviation industry.
Already solved. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not an issue - the problem of airplanes being hijacked and used as weapons was solved at 10:03 AM on 2001-09-11 over a field in Shanksville, PA.
'Average' Americans figured out the security equation just more than an hour after the first plane hit Tower 1.
Everything since is a distraction.
Re:The purpose is fear (Score:4, Insightful)
Somehow the words "a more perfect union" don't quite embody what I'm seeing here.
Re:I know! (Score:5, Insightful)
You're confused. Air travel security is NOT about protecting passengers. It's about protecting the airplane (expensive), the airline (big corporations), the perception of air travel in general (industry), and anything the airplane may crash onto (collateral damage). The people are of little consequence and the government cares little about you/us.
Re:amendment++ (Score:5, Insightful)
We haven't seen them, but sadly, this is only because the people in power have gotten smarter about hiding they. Now, they put these camps in Cuba, various European countries, etc. Sure, they're not rounding up every Muslim in the U.S. this time, but they are periodically treating folks who live in Muslim communities like criminals, and it is highly likely that there are people who in the U.S. internment camps like Gitmo who shouldn't be there.
It's the New American Way: reduce the head count and offshore everything.... *sigh*
Re:Normally I don't respond to AC (Score:3, Insightful)
First of all, when you fire a weapon there is a good enough chance that you will miss the target and your bullet peirces the ceiling. Not to mention that the chances increase exponentially if you have never fired before and it increases 5 fold if its a shotgun.
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.
Now, assume the bullet hits the ceiling and almost immediately the aircraft will start de-pressurizing (venting oxygen too) which is a very bad thing (read Hypoxia). In general, commercial aircraft are pressurized at a maximum cabin altitude equivalent to about 8,000 feet, where it is possible to breathe normally without an oxygen mask. This is when the oxygen masks come in handy as you are venting oxygen into the atmosphere.
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.
Are you kidding me? Why do you think people who climb mountains carry oxygen masks? What is this air that you are talking about? The air is so thin at high altitudes you can hardly breathe. And no, the plane will not descend so rapidly if it was just a bullet hole. What makes you think the plane will descend within 90 sec? The ceiling hull will surely hold if its just a bullet hole.
They don't want good ideas (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The purpose is fear (Score:2, Insightful)
This doesn't sound like any Heathrow airport I've ever been to.
Re:There is good stuff already out there (Score:3, Insightful)
Even just having the same person who scanned your bag searching it would be an improvement. I recently took a trip through Heathrow, Schipol and Narita airports. I thought the whole liquid thing had been relaxed months ago, so I'd packed some stuff in my hand luggage that it turns out I shouldn't have. There were also some liquids in there that were OK under the current rules. Every airport flagged my bag up for a hand search as it went through the scanner. At Heathrow, they found one of the bottles that was OK, and flagged me through. Transiting at Schipol, they found the bottle of overpriced water I'd bought airside at Heathrow, confiscated it and flagged me through. At Narita, they found everything, but only by putting my bag through the scanner about 5 times.
In each case, the person searching my bag had no idea what they were looking for, and only Narita had a policy of putting hand searched bags back through the scanner to check that they'd found everything.
Re:Normally I don't respond to AC (Score:1, Insightful)