Making Airport Scanners Less Objectionable 681
Hugh Pickens writes "The Washington Post reports that one of the researchers who helped develop the software for the scanners says there is a simple fix that would make scanning less objectionable. The fix would distort the images captured on full-body scanners so they look like reflections in a fun-house mirror, but any potentially dangerous objects would be clearly revealed, says Willard 'Bill' Wattenburg, a former nuclear weapons designer at the Livermore lab. 'Why not just distort the image into something grotesque so that there isn't anything titillating or exciting about it?' asks Wattenburg, adding that the modification is so simple that 'a 6-year-old could do the same thing with Photoshop... It's probably a few weeks' modification of the program.' Wattenburg said he was rebuffed when he offered the concept to Department of Homeland Security officials four years ago. A TSA official said the agency is working on development of scanner technology that would reduce the image to a 'generic icon, a generic stick figure' that would still reveal potentially dangerous items." Reader FleaPlus points out an unintended consequence: some transportation economists believe that the TSA's new invasive techniques may lead to more deaths as more people use road transportation to avoid flying — much more dangerous by the mile than air travel.
undo. (Score:5, Interesting)
If a 6 year old could do it in Photoshop, then the same 6 year old probably could undo it too. Just run the distortion with opposite paramaters (shrink where you stretched, and stretch where you shrank) and you end up with the original image again.
I seem to recall a few years ago, a police agency cracking a child pr0n case by undoing a distortion made on the perpetrator's face in the images.
Deadlier than the terrorists (Score:5, Interesting)
Quick Fix - Remove the Scanners (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously, since 9/11 we have gone from a "let the hijackers land where they want and don't fuss" mentality to a "kill the fucker" sport mentality. Hijackings, at least on US flights are a thing of the past. Sure, ok, finding an explosive is a good thing, but at what cost? The chances of being on a plane with a bomb are so tiny it isn't even worth worrying about.
Lets go back to metal detectors to get the obvious and maybe walk bomb sniffing dogs through often enough to deter would-be "terrorists". Oh, and scan checked luggage all you want, just stop stealing from it, ok?
Nude photos and fondling my (and everyone elses) man bits isn't making me feel safer, it's just making me want to fly less and make me loathe my government even more. I'm spending less and the government is spending more. What a great recipe.
Re:Oh sure.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Great...now just one more issue.... (Score:5, Interesting)
This would still not make it any less objectionable from my perspective. As long as the distortion is occurring in software, it isn't acceptable. As long as the non-distorted data exists for even a microsecond on some hard drive somewhere, the data can be:
And that's assuming that they don't just tell us that they're applying this distortion while not really doing so. Given the number of lies the TSA has told about these things so far, I don't trust these people as far as I can throw them.
Only one thing will make these less objectionable: not using them. If you're going to blur the heck out of the image anyway, why not replace those $170,000 machines with $4,000 infrared-based thermal imaging cameras and be done with it? They're 1/42nd the cost, and they do the blurring in hardware due to the nature of the energy emissions being detected. They're also much faster than the TSA's expensive toys---you could walk through like you do a metal detector instead of having to wait for a scan---and they're passive, so there's no exposure to dangerous ionizing radiation (and before you say that this is a small amount of radiation, I'll point out that no amount of ionizing radiation is safe [nirs.org] according to BEIR VII from the National Academies of Science).
No, these unholy abominations have to go. They're a fundamental invasion of our privacy, and a perfect example of wasteful government spending.
Flying vs Driving (Score:2, Interesting)
Italy is dumping scanners (Score:5, Interesting)
Italy has decided to dump the full body scanners because they are slow and ineffective.
http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/international/italy-to-abandon-airport-body-scanner-project [myfoxny.com]
http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-news/italy-to-abandon-airport-body-scanners-20100924-15pgu.html [smh.com.au]
http://www.euronews.net/2010/09/23/italian-airport-security-axing-body-scanners/ [euronews.net]
Seems to me that ought be a clear signal that they are just security theater.
Re:Deadlier than the terrorists (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Great...now just one more issue.... (Score:4, Interesting)
if it is true, and flying is already safer than road travel, then why do we need all the security?
Because folks have an irrational fear of flying. I mean, do you really need a live demonstration by a flight attendant on how to place the clip into the buckle? These procedures were written back in the day when Buddy Holly was a passenger.
Only one way to make then less objectionable (Score:3, Interesting)
I want hot women TSA agents. Not only would that make it NOT be a problem, it would make it a BONUS.
Oh and to be fair, ripped guys for the ladies. Just recruit a bunch of Jersey guidos and throw some (more) oil on them.
Re:Deadlier than the terrorists (Score:5, Interesting)
You get about one mrem per kilomile when flying. Emphasis on the word "about".
The problem with using "a dental xray" as a measuring stick, is depending on the technology level used, it varies by about one order of magnitude. Then there's another order of magnitude of B.S applied depending on which side you're propagandizing for, such as "do you mean per full dental set (and what is a full dental set anyway, it depends on insurance company, country of residence, and dentist preference) or do you mean per individual snapshot?). But as a total BS estimate over a large 1st world population you'll get about ten mrem per dental xray (although individual experience will vary by a factor of about 5)
The mystifying part is my teeth are thinner than, say, my wallet or my belt buckle. Yet the nudie body scanner claims to use a hundredth the dose to hit an entire body. On the other hand a diagnostic dental xray is probably higher res needing higher intensity. On the other hand the efficiency of the flux (forget the name) is probably way the heck higher for a dental xray than a nudie scanner.
I'm thinking just from a purely engineering standpoint, aside from all political statistical BS where both sides are lying to control peoples opinons, that they're about the same dose within an order of magnitude.
Re:This misses the point (Score:3, Interesting)
Unfortunately, I bet a lawsuit with this argument wouldn't hold up in court. Pick any destination within the US. In all likelihood you can get to that same destination by car or other transportation that wouldn't require you to pass through an airport terminal. Air travel is just more "convenient" and I'm sure the counter argument would be framed that way.
Re:Great...now just one more issue.... (Score:3, Interesting)
> if it is true, and flying is already safer than
> road travel, then why do we need all the security?
Quite simply, because politicians and bureaucrats (a) aren't subject to the same security measures, and (b) don't worry about losing their jobs when entire families die in flaming car wrecks or train derailments.
Of course, (b) ignores the fact than in reality, very, very few politicians and bureaucrats have ever been significantly punished for massive failures to protect people. But people are stupid that way.
Re:Great...now just one more issue.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Great...now just one more issue.... (Score:1, Interesting)
Not me. They don't fondle your privates, they just pat you down.
and you don't get exposed to unnecessary cancer-causing radiation. Link [wikipedia.org]
Re:Deadlier than the terrorists (Score:3, Interesting)
An interesting analysis, but why does it assume a dose for backscatter X-rays? These should be well-known.
Numbers I can easily find say 5-10 microrem. Dental X-ray is 2 millirem. So, that figure is off by a factor of 2 to 4. For every billion passengers screened, 4-8 will die from cancer as a result.
Of course, the same background-radiation argument applies here as well, but in an interesting fashion. Added radiation exposure due to flying is something 0.3 mrem / hr. I have no data on hand for average flight time, but even if it's only an hour (which is a short flight), then for every billion airline passengers, 240 will die of cancer as a result of the added radiation. So, just getting on an airplane where nothing goes wrong is more deadly than the terrorists. Nature wins this round!
Re:Deadlier than the terrorists (Score:3, Interesting)
One flight-hour of added radiation is about 30 times higher than than radiation from a backscatter X-ray, and the radiation from flight exposure is already below occupational exposure limits. It doesn't really make the health risk to crew any more substantial.
Re:Deadlier than the terrorists (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Great...now just one more issue.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Ascribing it to a malevolent elite (reptilians?) makes the problem intractible. It's easier to solve when you realise that the people making these horrible decisions are the same kind of hacked-together animal brain as the rest of us, operating on similar drives toward similar objectives. That's not to say there aren't malevolent entities amoungst them, but those are the parasites, not the organism, and certainly not the pathology.
Re:Deadlier than the terrorists (Score:3, Interesting)
"... assuming that the radiation in a backscatter X-ray is about a hundredth the dose of a dental X-ray, we find that a backscatter X-ray increases the odds of dying from cancer by about 16 ten millionths of one percent. That suggests that for every billion passengers screened with backscatter radiation, about 16 will die from cancer as a result."
"Given that there will be 600 million airplane passengers per year, that makes the machines deadlier than the terrorists."
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/11/tsa_backscatter.html [schneier.com]
I'm no statistics genius but is his logic correct ? Scan of 1 person increases his risk with 16 ten mill%, so given a billion scans, 16 people WILL die ?
As far as I know my statistiscs, in this type every scan of a person is a singular event that doesn't have a relation with the next one (ie throw a coin for heads or tails, and the chance is still 50% no matter how many billion times you've thrown before) ?
Only if the same person is scanned a few million times he will die from cancer as a result ?
But scan a billion different persons and the chance for each of them to die of cancer has increased an (insignificant ?) amount ?
Re:Great...now just one more issue.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Like blowing themselves up in the security checkpoint line, for example.
Re:This misses the point (Score:3, Interesting)
My coworker left her ID at the hotel about a year ago and was treated with a 45-minute interview with a sheriff's deputy (but yes, they did let her through). Things may have changed between 2007 and 2009.
Re:Deadlier than the terrorists (Score:3, Interesting)
Dental X-rays are transmission X-ray images. The airport scanners are backscatter X-ray imaging machines, which use the Compton backscattering effect. Backscatter X-ray imaging is a newer technique that lets you use a very low X-ray intensity, but it can only image close to the surface of an object.
Re:Great...now just one more issue.... (Score:3, Interesting)
the last line of the summary says it all
if it is true, and flying is already safer than road travel, then why do we need all the security?
Your question goes to the heart of half the waste in human society - humans are REALLY BAD at risk assessment. We'd be better off scaling back airport security and putting a tenth of the saved resources into looking for plots, if at the same time we seriously enforced traffic safety laws (including speeding, reckless/aggressive driving, and seat belt use), and hey, while we're at it, stop feeding our kids so much high fructose corn syrup.
Get into the habit of looking both ways before crossing a street (even one-way streets), wash your hands before eating, use a damn condom! Wear a helmet on your bike or motorcycle.
All of these simple precautions will do more to save lives than subjecting people to more invasive searches at airports.
But that won't happen, so just go back to pounding Jagermeister and thinking, "nah, I'm okay to drive".
Re:Great...now just one more issue.... (Score:4, Interesting)
So the point is there is a subset of flights for which a person has to make a rational choice: should I go by plane (which is fast in the air but still takes quite awhile because I have to get there early, there is airport security, risk of delays, ground transportation to my final destination on the other end, etc.) or should I go by car (which might take a bit longer but is more fully under my control). As flying becomes more and more annoying, more people will decide to take their car (at least for a certain subset of trips), which will increase the number of deaths overall.
This is a problem. It's also a problem that the radiation from a backscatter x-ray machine increases your odds of dying from cancer. And because terrorist deaths are so rare, it turns out that the scanners will probably increase the number of deaths overall, since they will create more cancer deaths than they can possibly solve by reducing terrorism deaths.
So the scanners increase the death-rate in the US in at least two ways.
Re:Deadlier than the terrorists (Score:3, Interesting)
If you assume linearity and have a large enough pool of people, the statistics are fine. If you increase the chance of one person dying by k and apply this to N people, then *on average*, kN more people will die as a result. (The standard deviation for the number of additional people dying is sqrt(kN).)
Studied suggest that treating radiation exposure as linear at low exposure levels is reasonably accurate. This is the "there is no safe level of ionizing radiation" claim.
Re:America is suppose to be a free country (Score:1, Interesting)
Oh, it's called Rapiscan, is it? So clear now.
Re:Great...now just one more issue.... (Score:1, Interesting)
Total time: 40 min. drive + 90 min. security/waiting + 20 min. typical delay + 72 min. in air + 10 min. for runway taxiing (on both ends) + 20 min. wait for luggage + 15 min. taxi = 4 hours and 27 minutes.
Driving the same distance (from downtown to downtown) takes 4 hours and 23 minutes [google.com] if you don't hit traffic. Of course this route typically does have traffic, so you're looking at a drive of at least 5 hours and possibly more. Let's say it's 5.5 hours, on average.
Still, those are remarkably close. A traveler has to decide between a ~4.5 hour flight or a 5.5 hour drive. Even though the drive takes a hour longer, some people might consider that worthwhile for avoiding airport security and other hassles, and being more in control (able to stop and eat whenever they want).
Flying is liberating because it is so fast and allows us to access areas we wouldn't otherwise travel to. But it is also used for quick commutes between not-too-distant cities (think of the number of businesspeople who travel between nearby big cities frequently). Flying is often used to satisfy this need. But as flying becomes more onerous (security lines taking longer, the general annoyance/hassle becoming larger), more and more travelers on these edge cases (where the difference between driving and flying is 0-2 hours) will decide to drive.
Re:Great...now just one more issue.... (Score:5, Interesting)
the last line of the summary says it all
may lead to more deaths as more people to use road transportation to avoid flying — much more dangerous by the mile than air travel.
if it is true, and flying is already safer than road travel, then why do we need all the security?
TFA didn't give any guesstimates of numbers, so I ran a few. If 5% of the 800 billion air miles in this country (as of Sept 09 to Aug 10) are replaced by highway miles, then that's something like 500 extra highway deaths. I'm using NHTSA and BTS statistics on fatality rates and air travel statistics.
Naturally there are a lot of assumptions, like just how many air miles we might lose to people not willing to go through the enhanced intrusiveness and increased wait times. Certainly, not every lost air mile is made up with a highway mile. Many people would drive to a nearer vacation spot. Business that would have been conducted face-to-face might happen another way. Some people might just skip the trip altogether.
Nevertheless, if the deaths are in the hundreds then that could easily exceed the lost of a single plane. These deaths would be spread out though throughout the year and across the country, so wouldn't make the news. So we'd feel safer even though statistically aren't.
Forget that (Score:3, Interesting)
As someone else said, "who controls the TSA?" From the appearances of things, nobody. Either that, or the Executive branch has a lot to answer for.
I don't care if this makes it 'less' objectionable. In my mind, it doesn't. It's largely the principle of the matter to which I protest, but the implications are thus:
* The backscatter radiation is of highly questionable health implications. There are many places in the world where microwaves have not been adopted (for good reason): they change the molecular structure of fats and destroy vitamins. Aside from the direct radiation impact said 'scanners' have on our bodies, what are they doing to our fat and vitamin content?
* Inconvenience
* I'm paying how much for all of this?
From now on, I'm driving or taking the train. It will mean several things to me and my family:
* I'm investing (yes, investing) in a larger vehicle with a diesel engine. Something old but reliable (think: Chevy/Ford vans). My family will be able to drive in comfort at nominal per-mile cost.
* When not driving, we will be taking the train. Somehow (where it is available) long-distance train fares remain relatively low (eg. $150/person for a Denver-San Francisco round trip) - though there are implications such as vehicle storage to contend with here, as well.
* As a result of the time requirements (our families live on the coasts; we're in the Black Hills), we will not be traveling as often.
Their security theater was somewhat tolerable before. It was just barely quicker to fly 500 miles than it was to drive (eg. Rapid City to Omaha), but cost a bit more. Now, it appears to take significantly longer, it's more inconvenient in a dozen different ways in addition to time, and cost is through the roof.
I suspect that if we got the FAA and the TSA out of things, air transit would once again be cheap and reliable. But that will never happen.
I think it's time to see this country instead of just flying over it.
Re:Great...now just one more issue.... (Score:1, Interesting)
There are many more scientists that are telling those first scientists to shut up.
Really? Who? All the third-party experts I've heard have been either warning against, or saying they don't have enough data (hence warning against from a cautionary perspective).
Any scientist saying that these scanners are safe is either wrong or has inside information from which to make this assessment. The reason being that the scanners are proprietary and thus far not enough information has been released for public scientists to make an assessment. Thus far, they've had to make educated guesses about what the intensity of the x-rays probably is. But the fact is we don't know what the baseline level is, and we don't know what safeguards exist in the machines to prevent higher doses. For instance, according to some, the operator can actually adjust the resolution. Higher resolution means a beam scanning more slowly, taking more data, and/or being more intense. In either case the overall does is increased. Without full information about how these machines have been designed, we can't assess how safe they are. Which is why any respectable expert in the field is advising caution.
Moreover, the problem is that what numbers have been released by the scanner manufacturers are talking in terms of whole-body dose. There is a huge difference between whole-body dose and concentrated dose. The point is that different types of radiation need to be thought about differently. The whole point in backscatter x-ray is that you use a wavelength of x-rays that doesn't penetrate too deeply, so that it bounces back and you measure that. But this means that the x-ray dose is mostly being deposited in a thin layer of the skin. So even if the whole-body-effective dose is quite small (and comparable, say, to the effect of cosmic rays at altitude), the concentrated dose in the skin could be very much higher.
In particular, this presents a risk for skin cancer, breast cancer, and testicular cancer, because the local dose can be quite high (the danger is especially pronounced for those at risk, e.g. cancer survivors).
But the really important question is about tradeoffs. Let's say these scanners help reduce the 1-in-30-million chance of dying from terrorism (and even that is debatable). If they increase the odds of cancer by 1-in-20-million, then whatever minimal risk they add on top of the risks of flying (including danger of crashes and cosmic rays), they are not worth it since they will cause more deaths that they solve. And even though 1-in-20-million is a seemingly small risk, the sheer number of air travelers the US has means these machines will probably be responsible for a few cancer deaths every year.
Re:Great...now just one more issue.... (Score:1, Interesting)
Oh you mean the ozone that protects everyone here on earth is suddenly gone when flying?
No, the ozone isn't gone, but you are flying partly outside of its protection. At ground level, the entire atmosphere offers you maximum protection from cosmic radiation. The higher you go, the more you'll get, and aircraft aluminum has little to no shielding effect.
The "ozone layer" is not something like a Star Trek shield that offers 100% protection from everything until it suddenly vanishes. Protection from cosmic radiation is offered because the Earth has a very thick atmosphere and most (not all) cosmic radiation is absorbed into that atmosphere at various levels. While it is true that the actual ozone layer offers a lot of the protection, the rest of the atmosphere plays a significant role, and the higher up you go the more your exposure to radiation.
Fortunately, even at 50,000 feet, it's not a massive megadose of radiation, but if you fly a whole lot (like, say, a pilot), it's something you need to be aware of.
I have heard lots of people saying that but absolutely no science to back that statement up.
According to the EPA, radiation exposure on a cross-country flight is 2-5 millirem(1). The World Health Organization agrees with that number (2). The FAA has a web page dedicated to the levels of exposure for their pilots (3). NASA is even more concerned about the radiation exposure on polar flights, where protection is even weaker (4).
(1): http://www.epa.gov/radtown/cosmic.html [epa.gov]
(2): http://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/env/cosmic/en/ [who.int]
(3): http://www.faa.gov/data_research/research/med_humanfacs/aeromedical/radiobiology/reports/ [faa.gov]
(4): http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/AGU-NAIRAS.html [nasa.gov]
If you mistrust scientists and want to see the science for yourself, carry a radiation dosimeter on your next flight (provided you buy one that measures in millirem or lower) and test it for yourself.
Re:Great...now just one more issue.... (Score:5, Interesting)
My wife and I were talking about this yesterday. We would rather be one of the many thousands of people a screener sees "naked" instead of one of the people being publicly fondled.
That's pretty much how they're counting on you thinking. Naturally a public groping is less appealing than a quasi-anonymous screening. However, your tacit agreement that this type of search is necessary in the first place puts you at a disadvantage to start with for it means you've dismissed option 3 out-of-hand.
That also leads to suggestions like those in TFA -- not to eliminate the searches, but to make them "less invasive". Too many people seem to think that the major issue here is nudity. A subset of people claim to be concerned about the radiation, but I think many of them are doing this to avoid sounding too radical about the real issue: for me (and I think many others), the issue is "unreasonable search" -- and as long as we continue to consent to the searches, they're allowed to do them. [wikipedia.org]
Of course, you're free to fall in line and know your place. As for me, I'll speak with my wallet and contacting my representatives. I've already stopped flying unless the drive was more than 12 hours -- after all, 12 hours is close to break-even when you factor in flight time and security. (One one recent occasion I drove 500 miles and made it home before my flying colleagues.) I can and will stretch that to 24 hours, even though it inconveniences the hell out of me.
I'm just glad that the media is picking up on this issue. I only hope their attention span lasts longer than it takes for some administrator to soothe them by saying the searches will be "less invasive" from now on.
Re:Great...now just one more issue.... (Score:3, Interesting)
wrong (Score:3, Interesting)
Press Release – FAA Announces Decision on Child Safety Seats
Re:Great...now just one more issue.... (Score:3, Interesting)
It's been explained to me that the cosmic rays and high-energy x-rays mostly pass through the body and don't cause any damage. But these low-intensity x-ray machines in the airports are low enough energy that the radiation is mostly absorbed by the skin and the rest of the body. This difference apparently makes the dosage equivalent models invalid because they were designed with the idea that the radiation is high enough intensity so that it passes through the body.
Re:Great...now just one more issue.... (Score:5, Interesting)
So? Who cares? If there ever was a use for Plato's noble lie [wikipedia.org], it's this. I'm spreading that shit around, because maybe it'll make people wake up a little bit.
Also: your chances of dying in a hijacking are something like one in a million or less. What are your chances of getting skin cancer from this device? If they're greater than one in a million (which is entirely possible), then it is not worthwhile to use these devices.
This is the same reason why the new breast cancer screening recommendations for women over age 50 say that they should get mammograms only once every two years, instead of once a year - the chances of detecting breast cancer are outweighed by the chances of causing breast cancer when you take a mammogram once a year.
Re:Israel (Score:1, Interesting)