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)
Re:Eliminate it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Eliminate it? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Eliminate it? (Score:4, Funny)
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:Eliminate it? (Score:5, Informative)
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I think this kinda misses the point of a big part of airport security: the airport itself.
Exactly - And it goes further. On 9/11, our planes were a soft target and useful weapons. Now, they're a significantly harder target (of course far from perfect - we've all got schemes that could defeat the security measures - but... harder.) Planes at this point would be very difficult to hijack and fly into buildings, so why would anyone bother trying? If you bomb a plane, you kill a bunch of people, make headlines, and scare the nation/world. But, there are a lot more cost-effective and better ris
Re:Eliminate it? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yes, a rather important one in fact. If people stopped thinking about the big scary planes and started thinking about the zero security at their town's water reservoir or there child's elementary school or the mall or the movie th
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Well it isn't like this money goes to a compa
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, Interesting)
I swear I'm not trolling here, just venting, but this post may earn me a couple of
The purpose is fear (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The purpose is fear (Score:5, Insightful)
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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:The purpose is fear (Score:5, Interesting)
No. That's the purpose behind the ever-popular bad security, popular with tinpot governments and nasty IT departments the world over.
Real security is supposed to let legitimate users get on with their jobs, stopping bad guys in their tracks, and being as invisible as possible.
If you want a good example of real security, go to London Heathrow airport. It's nice. It's pleasant. It's a giant shopping mall where airplanes land. You never see anything there but happy tourists and
the odd lightly armed police officer.
That's an illusion. Hundreds of people are around to make sure that nothing goes sideways there.
I heard a FOAF story about someone who "tripped the alarm" (in this case, walking through a door plainly marked "Do Not Enter")
The results were amazing.
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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: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.
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* plenty of chemicals of interest can't be detected by dogs
* good facial recognition software is not fooled by a change in expression
* putting a person with a gun (hopefully a trained person) is far from a perfect solution
A Faraday cage is an interesting approach, but it's expensive, particularly since all of the communications equipment in the plane would need to be moved outside the cage. At that point, suicide bombers or timed bombs are a much more
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* good facial recognition software is not fooled by a change in expression
I don't think so. You have personal experience with such software? Link please! I suspect that the ones not fooled by expressions are the ones that rely heavily on parts of the face that do not change, such as the distances between the eyes, ears, and nose. I would guess those sorts of techniques do not scale well. Not enough measurements to distinguish everyone when the number of faces grows to tens of thousands.
We don't have any Optical Character Recognition software that can match what people ca
Remote Control Tazer Suppositories... (Score:2, Funny)
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....
How about (Score:5, Funny)
You only get one bullet. It's preloaded, can't even be unloaded, maybe small caliber, maybe fairly low velocity, and has a 75% chance of being a blank. Tag the bullets, and maybe ink-tag the gun so it sprays the user when the trigger is pulled. Maybe even a point-blank "contact trigger", kind of like a nail gun -- you'd have to put the gun directly on someone to shoot them, avoiding aim problems in a crowded plane.
Turn them in at the end of a flight -- everyone got one while boarding, everyone better turn the same one over when leaving.
Anybody tries anything on the plane, and *bang* -- if a dozen passengers shoot at him, at least a couple are likely to nail him.
That's security through strength in numbers.
Who do I go see about collecting my $500,000?
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Hurm, maybe it's a good idea after all...
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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
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I'd have let mine fly during the driving test.
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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 e
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Anyway, if you look at it rationally these guns are for defense, so if you think of buying them as another way of saying "defense appropriations" our current president should be willing to pay Halliburton about $35,000 apiece for them!
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Yet, when it comes to airplanes, why isn't the TSA *mandating* guns on airplanes. That would only be consistent, no?
Those guns are called "Federal Air Marshals" and "Armed Security Officers".
http://www.tsa.gov/lawenforcement/programs/fams.shtm [tsa.gov]
http://www.tsa.gov/lawenforcement/programs/aso.shtm [tsa.gov]
As I understand it, ASOs are the lite version of Air Marshals
I know you were trolling, but there is a serious answer to your question.
Re:How about (Score:5, Funny)
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( It's a common mistake; the government does it all the time. )
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.
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Rolls off the tongue.
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I know! (Score:5, Insightful)
Do I win?
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Exactly how can someone have "personal responsibility" for others on a plane? While I believe a lot of the current security is unnecessary or at the least far less useful than everyone thinks, I wonder how you would take responsibility for someone who simply decides to take a gun on board a plane with you and shoot you. Are you going to insist that all the passengers sharing the plane with you let you search them? Some minimum lev
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.
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.
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The terrorists would never know if their plane had the real Chuck Norris or a fake one, but Allah help them if they guess wrong.
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How about. (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, trained dogs..
Dogs can smell fear, and many chemical substances. You just have a pack of em and train them to bark ferociously when they "sense" trouble. Police dogs already have that kind of leeway.
Re:How about. (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, I have worked with dogs, and police dogs specifically, and I don't find their purported "detection" ability to be as good as public opinion makes it out to be.
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The security we have now isn't as good as public opinion makes it out to be; dogs couldn't be much worse. Also, terrorists may not be afraid of setting off a metal detector, or getting pulled out of line for manual inspection and possible detention, but they'd probably be more wary of the risk of being attacked by a pack of police dogs. Remember, any terrorist who's going to hijack a plane has been convinced that suffering a near instantaneous death is worthwhile; convincing that person to suffer through ge
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True. I concur, but we could play upon this unknown by creating "Dog Intelligence" by claiming they can smell fear and many chemical concoctions that create explosives. Only the few in law enforcement would know otherwise, and they wouldn't want to talk.
I'd rather 'trust' a dog with not much in terms of bias than a TSA agent with a bone to pi
air marshalls.. (Score:2)
Re:air marshalls.. - Not that much (Score:3, Informative)
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.
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And thats not to mention administrative costs, etc. Plus you can build in about 50-200% extra just because its being done by feds who don't care about their bottom line.
Smoke a joint and mellow out (Score:5, Funny)
Air Marshel and a gun. (Score:4, Interesting)
Put a seat facing the passengers, put an air marshal with a pistol and a shotgun. Give him mirrored shades.
Create a secured cockpit door.
Go back to the more general pre 9/11 security
Profit..I mean Done.
Maybe a lock down code on the auto pilot, so you can land the plane w/o pilot intervention. Auto pilot landing can be, and is more then most people know, done today.
oh, wait, you mean maintain the theater of security and speed it up? no, those two things are opposites.
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Reinforced cockpit doors. We've already done it. It's virtually impossible for 9/11 to occur again via the same mechanisms.
To take it to the next level, you could even separate the cabins completely so that the pilot cannot move between the cockpit and the rest of the plane without physically leaving the aircraft (eg. there are separate exterior doors).
If you were *really* paranoid, you could even separate the individual cabins within the plane.
I'm also not totally opposed to a
Normally I don't respond to AC (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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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.
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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 save
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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
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:How's that then? (Score:4, Informative)
There is good stuff already out there (Score:5, Interesting)
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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 wa
bomb sniffing dog (Score:2)
Customs I believe employ beagles for drugs.
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Speed Improvement at No Cost (Score:2)
There you go, huge speed up, zero cost.
Also, you overzealous Denver TSA agents, making me remove my sweatshirt isn't helping things either. It's not baggy and if I was going to hide something unde
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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 th
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Sedatives (Score:2)
Or get rid of the plane and use mass teleportation.
Or how to foil this (Score:2)
This would be a simple as dragging a sligthly leaking luggage bag around outside the building, and with all the other travelers hauling luggage won't be noticed for sure.
Whether the airport uses spectroscopy, dogs, or other sensors, everyone who
A large tank of water (Score:5, Funny)
Soup Nazi Style (Score:3, Insightful)
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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'.
Thats easy (Score:2)
1 - RFID tag every human on earth. ( to allow tracking and scanning )
2 - All passengers must remove all clothes before debarking their vehicles. ( to avoid having to search )
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...
Another one: (Score:5, Funny)
The contest is not TSA (Score:2)
Honestly, if they're not helping all air travelers, then it's really not something I'm interested in. This type of treatment is rife with inequity and is just another step towards a consummate terror state.
If you really want to increase throughput on all lanes, all you have to do is i
Real democracy (Score:2)
Have a large room with plenty of tables near the gate. All passengers go in with their luggage. They can work it out among themselves. When all passengers are satisfied, then they board the plane.
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
Simple (Score:2)
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
A certain winner (Score:2, Interesting)
Colorblind glasses (Score:2)
jeff
Dupity-dupe. (Score:2, Informative)
Didn't we discuss this only six weeks ago?
Well what do you know -- we did! :)
Yaz.
(Tagged appropriately).
The Vegas Solution (Score:2)
Every passenger gets $50 of chips, more chips can be purchased, chips have no value off the plane. Chips can be used for movies, gambling, arcade games, drinks, or [name your entertainment]. Gambling tables over the wings, kids arcade near the back, bar down the middle of the plane. Anyone not having a good time is either a radical fundamentalist with no joy in life left to live for and will be immediately sedated; or they are an IRS tax auditor and will be immediately sedated.
Not only will this cost less
You're not going to like the answer... (Score:2)
Currently, we search "randomly" to make sure the numbers balance out at the end of the day, because we can't admit that we've got no individualized suspicion about the Syrian in C-6 or any of the other passengers on the plane, but we know to almost a certainty that if the
I know, I know! (Score:2)
As well, we should considering having all lights in the airport powered by weights ("gravity"). Passengers will be forced to cooperate in lifting 900lbs weights 6' feet high so that can see well enough to move around the airpor
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Problem not solved. If something happens and the crew all get simultaneously ill, they can't open the door to get Robert Hays [imdb.com].
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Put the door to the cockpit on the OUTSIDE of the plane.
I'm not sure that's a concern. The equipment needed to get through that door would be much tougher to sneak through security than a bomb and, after 9/11, there's no way a pilot's opening that door even if the entire service crew and all of the passengers are slaughtered. After all, at this point it's not unlikely that we'd just shoot down a hijacked plane rather than let it be used as a weapon.
But, I'm not against having an armed Air Marshal on every plane. That would be a better use of $$ than some of
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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 "r