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.
Rule 34? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Rule 34? (Score:5, Insightful)
apparently they forgot that all they have to do to make these scanners less objectionable is to get rid of them.
Re:Rule 34? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Rule 34? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Rule 34? (Score:5, Insightful)
As for bombs; We have trained dogs, x-ray machines for packages, and all manner of technology for checking packages, but not all packages are checked. We need to implement higher controls on the baggage side of airport security, not the passenger side. Train more dogs, get more baggage x-ray machines, and train more TSA agents for the behind-the-scenes security procedures.
What we don't need is 40 year olds rent-a-cops with authority issues touching the crotch of seven year old kids before they get on their trip to Disney World in case their hiding a kilo of Cemtex in their pants.
Re:Rule 34? (Score:4, Insightful)
I never understood why after somebody hijacked a plane with some fucking knives, we decided to make sure nobody could possibly defend themselves when the one person we are worried about brings a functioning laptop, breaks it and uses the sharp plastic to slit the throat of the guy next to him to show it can be a weapon, and quickly take a hostage. Everything can be a weapon if somebody wants it to be. The only thing the TSA has ever done is made it less likely anybody would survive an actual incident. Period.
Re:Rule 34? (Score:5, Insightful)
"In some ways, if we're relying on airport screeners to prevent terrorism, it's already too late. After all, we can't keep weapons out of prisons. How can we ever hope to keep them out of airports?"
-Bruce Schneier
Re:Rule 34? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Rule 34? (Score:4, Insightful)
What's so objectionable about the scanners? From what I can tell, the radiation they give off is infinitesimal, the pictures they make are barely more detailed than silhouettes, and going through them is a quick and painless procedure. Maybe there are details I don't know, but I've been surprised at the outrage over the full-body scanners.
First off, you're using "infinitesimal" wrong. Regardless, there are numerous stories about how it's not as benign as it's being portrayed as. No matter the dose, people should not be forced into exposure.
But what it boils down to is that:
1. Citizens in a free nation should not be forcibly and deliberately exposed to radiation.
2. Citizens in a free nation should not have nude images taken of their bodies without their explicit permission.
3. Citizens in a free nation should not be have their bodies, including their genitalia, groped by strangers without explicit permission.
Specifically, this should not be a standard practice used on innocent citizens in a free country. Especially not as a prerequisite for something as common as air travel.
I can't fathom how anyone can find this ok. I find that to be one of the most disturbing aspects of this whole mess and it serves as a good reminder of why it's so important to stop these things early on. There are just far too many citizens can be relied upon to cry for more oppression by the state.
Re:Rule 34? (Score:5, Insightful)
Some people can be titilated by some really grotesque images. There's porn of old women, fat women, etc.
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 to use road transportation to avoid flying
They already did when they started making everyone tale their shoes off and go through all the security theater. They're just raising the death rate further.
Odd how a transportation safety administration causes travel to be less safe. perhaps they should call it the Transportation Security Theater Administration?
3,000 people died on American soil from terrorism in this decade, but meanwhile 45,000 people die on the highways annually.
Re:Rule 34? (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry, but there is an xkcd about rule 34. He is officially legit on this one.
http://xkcd.com/305/ [xkcd.com]
Great...now just one more issue.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok, so now figure out how to make that image without exposing me to extra radiation.
Honestly, this whole thing is a joke and just shows how becoming too PC is a weakness. If we would just profile we wouldn't need half the security we have.
Re:Great...now just one more issue.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep profiling seems to work for the Israelis. Or eliminate the search completely (other than the standard Xraying of suitcases). Your American odds of dying in an airplane bombing are 1 in 500,000. That is about the same as your risk of drowning in a tsunami or getting hit by a meteorite. I think I'd rather take that vanishingly-small risk, rather than take the 1-to-1 risk that some TSA officer will be playing with my ___, touching my wife's ___s, and/or fondling my kid's ___.
If you really want to be afraid, fear your car. Odds of dying in a car is 1 in 100.
Re:Great...now just one more issue.... (Score:5, Insightful)
The funny thing is, we don't really even need that! There were some very good measures put in place after 9/11 that prevented the use of commercial airliners being used as missiles against us, namely a locked and reinforced cockpit door and armed air marshals. This also prevents hijackings for any reason, such as extortion and the like. Either way, as long as these measures are in place, planes being used as missiles is mitigated. And I firmly believe I will not see it happen again in the US in my lifetime.
Now that the threat to the general public is diminished the only thing a terrorist can do to a plane now is blow it up, and to that I say: so what? It's a waste of a terrorist organization's resources, they can accomplish much better kill and terror rates on other vectors. I don't even think the TSA should be the one scanning the people at all, it should be the individual airlines. That way you can choose to pay for your security if you really want it, and competitive practices can find the optimal solution.
Re:Great...now just one more issue.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Like blowing themselves up in the security checkpoint line, for example.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Great plan to clear up the checkup lines! Next time I need to fly I'll send a terrorist ahead to blow away the line.
Re:Great...now just one more issue.... (Score:4, Informative)
The reason you are surprised is that terrorists are far more rare than you've been lead to believe.
Of course the government is doing its very best to manufacture domestic terrorists so at some point you must assume that they will be successful.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Cannot work, because they share a "post-screened" area. Therefore, all of the planes are at the security of the lowest common denominator.
But empirically, that's wrong. In the 1970's there were a lot of terrorists on planes, hence security. The problem is you're neglecti
Re:Great...now just one more issue.... (Score:5, Informative)
In Schiphol, Amsterdam airport, the final screening (metal detector etc) was done at the gate. That airport has a shared area for both incoming and outgoing passengers. So also transit passengers.
Having airliners themselves do the screening becomes fairly easy to organise with such a layout.
Re:Great...now just one more issue.... (Score:5, Insightful)
the only thing a terrorist can do to a plane now is blow it up, and to that I say: so what? It's a waste of a terrorist organization's resources, they can accomplish much better kill and terror rates on other vectors.
And yet they don't... no one has walked into an airport and blown that up, even though it would work GREAT. It's as if there isn't a vast network of resourceful bombers looking to cause as much harm as possible... only a handful of amateurs. It's exactly as if that threat was overblown in order to gain power though fear.
Re:Great...now just one more issue.... (Score:5, Informative)
Profiling, how the Israelis do it, isn't what Americans consider profiling. Americans consider it "oh, he's Middle-Eastern looking, search him." What I've read is that Israeli profiling is "talk for a few minutes with a highly trained expert, who uses your reactions to profile you." I would probably work, but would also involve replacing a lot of $8/hr TSA grunts with $?/hr TSA interviewers.
And the standard magnetic scan. That can catch a lot and isn't invasive.
Re: (Score:3)
Before 9/11 this was an issue. Post-9/11 I dont think there is a real credible threat to air travel by someone's shoes, a person carrying a lighter or having a bottle of shampoo.
If anyone is acting suspicious or tries to take over the plane you got what is it 5 terrorists say vs 100-200 passangers. It used to be the passangers feared being shot as hostages. Now they have a more reasonable fear of being used to run into buildings and most people put in that situaationof their life or thousands of lives will
Re:Great...now just one more issue.... (Score:4, Informative)
Actually your odds are a bit high. The Wall Street Journal says:
The odds of dying in a terrorist attack on a plane in a given year are 1 in 25,000,000.
The odds of a Westerner being killed by a terrorist in a given year are 1 in 3,000,000.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703481004574646963713065116.html [wsj.com]
The NTSB says the odd for car accidents are:
The odds of dying in a car accident in a given year are 1 in 18,585.
The odds of simply being in a car accident in a given year are 1 in 5,889.
http://www.ntsb.gov/ [ntsb.gov]
Re:Great...now just one more issue.... (Score:4, Informative)
I used to think the same, until I found-out that scientists are warning these machines can cause skin cancer. See my message further below.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You can find scientists that warn lots of stuff. There are many more scientists that are telling those first scientists to shut up.
Research is ongoing as to which group should actually shut up, of course, but most info points toward the backscatter being less of a risk than the radiation you get during the plane ride.
Re:Great...now just one more issue.... (Score:4, Insightful)
>>>There are many more scientists that are telling those first scientists to shut up.
Okay I provided a link to the USC scientists who mailed a letter tothe White House and warning about the increased skin cancer risk. Where is YOUR link for scientists telling the USC scientists to shut up?
(waits)
Doesn't exist does it?
Your claim is false.
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:Great...now just one more issue.... (Score:5, Informative)
The only possible reason you've heard
absolutely no science to back that statement up.
is either because you are deaf, dumb, or lazy. The research is pretty clear. Flying causes skin cancer, but has little to no effect on the incidence of other kinds of cancer. Thirty seconds of google-fu brings up:
http://www.cancerhelp.org.uk/about-cancer/cancer-questions/airline-staff-and-cancer [cancerhelp.org.uk]
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC124549/ [nih.gov]
http://oem.bmj.com/content/57/3/175.abstract [bmj.com]
Re:Great...now just one more issue.... (Score:4, Funny)
Not me. There is no way to convince me that these machines have been properly tested.
I'll opt for the pat down, and if the screener goes to feelin' me up, I'm going to bill him and the TSA just like one of my regular customers.
(They're acting like they're doing a great service for our country, but I can't see why that would entitle them to a freebie.)
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:5, Insightful)
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?
Re:Great...now just one more issue.... (Score:5, Insightful)
if it is true, and flying is already safer than road travel, then why do we need all the security?
1) The elite prefer, at this time, to control the masses by fear. Americans are carefully social engineered to be cowards, and the elite like it that way. Otherwise, all the lives ruined by the elites might want to take a few with em on the way out. So, keep them scared.
2) Do you have any idea how much freaking money that "security theater" costs? Lots of campaign contributions later, it turns out we have a need.
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:Great...now just one more issue.... (Score:5, Informative)
I mentioned this on the last TSA thread, but it bears repeating: In fact, campaign contributions were unnecessary for this, because the DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff who started this move had significant investments manufacturer of the naked-scan machines.
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.
Re: (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 t
Re: (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 (eve
Re:Great...now just one more issue.... (Score:5, Funny)
In the US, flying is definitely safer than driving. Especially to Europe.
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.
Re:Great...now just one more issue.... (Score:5, Insightful)
On a per TRIP basis, cars, trains, and buses are all safer than airplanes.
That's because takeoff and landing in a plane is FAR more dangerous than "takeoff" and "landing" in the other modes of travel. That raises the per trip fatality rate higher for planes.
but that type of incident isn't going to be stopped by the govt fondling people.
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: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.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That is my objection. These images are stored and since it was a government project they are running windows and are easily hacked.
In 12-18 months non distorted images of celebreties and politicians will be on the Internet.
Re:Great...now just one more issue.... (Score:5, Informative)
Wrong on multiple counts:
Please take the time to learn about the technology before attempting to lecture people about how it works.
Re:Great...now just one more issue.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Great...now just one more issue.... (Score:5, Insightful)
If we would just profile we wouldn't need half the security we have.
What do you mean by "profile"?
If you mean "apply extra scrutiny to certain ethnic and religious groups", that's completely and utterly useless.
If you mean "put all of the passengers under intense stress and watch their reactions", like the Israelis do, well, that works very well... but makes the security screening vastly more manpower-intensive and time-consuming. And, frankly, much more unpleasant than being briefly groped. I've flown out of Ben-Gurion airport a few times and I'd rather have a prostate exam.
The truth is that we simply don't need half the security we have. We should just roll it all back to pre-9/11 levels, keeping only the cockpit door locks. That plus the passengers' understanding that allowing their plane to be hijacked is likely to get them killed will mean that terrorism on airplanes will be restricted to killing passengers, making planes a low-value target. It's possible that the occasional Bad Thing will happen on an airplane, but it'll still be safer than driving.
Porno is not the only concern (Score:5, Insightful)
They'd still cause cancer deaths at a rate exceeding the terrorist threat.
TSA won't use it. (Score:4, Informative)
Doesn't fix the Radiation problem (Score:5, Informative)
"A group of scientists at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) raised concerns about the 'potential serious health risks' from the scanners in a letter sent to the White House Office of Science and Technology in April... 'While the dose would be safe if it were distributed throughout the volume of the entire body, the dose to the skin may be dangerously high,' they wrote."
Continued - http://www.prisonplanet.com/naked-body-scanners-may-be-dangerous-scientists.html [prisonplanet.com]
Updated - http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-11-naked-scanners-airports-dangerous-scientists.html [physorg.com]
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.
Patented (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, so easy a "6-year old could do the same thing", and yet:
"The Livermore laboratory sent off a final application to the U.S. Patent Office on Nov. 23, 2006"
That provides insight to the absurdity of the patent process. Take something obvious, simple, and widely used, then say "Look! This is a brand new technique, just because no one has applied these algorithms to these sorts of images before."
Give me a break.
Oh sure.... (Score:5, Funny)
Then the TSA will be swamped with job applications from fetishists who like funhouse-distorted body images...
"Will you look at the size of her feet!!"
Re:Oh sure.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Oh sure.... (Score:4, Informative)
Deadlier than the terrorists (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Deadlier than the terrorists (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Deadlier than the terrorists (Score:5, Insightful)
Matters not. Radiation exposure risk is cumulative over your life. If this kills more people than the terrorists, it really doesn't matter if something else unrelated also kills more people than the terrorists; there are still the same number of additional deaths directly attributable to these machines and only these machines.
Re:Deadlier than the terrorists (Score:4, Informative)
Okay, here's a relatively recent citation to get you started:
[Cumulative Radiation Exposure Shows Increased Cancer Risk For Emergency Department Patients [sciencedaily.com]]
That said, it has been common knowledge in medical and scientific circles for decades, so it really doesn't need a citation.
Re:Deadlier than the terrorists (Score:5, Insightful)
Same thing with analogies to medical xrays...people assume the risk of a chest X-ray because they have some medical problem and they voluntarily decide that undergoing a small amount of radiation is worth the information they will learn from the imaging. Any comparisons between the amount of radiation received from a medical x-ray and the amount of radiation imposed upon one by the federal government as a condition of using modern transportation is a gross category error. I don't care if these machines are the equivalent of 1 billionth of a chest Xray. The government should not be forcing me to be subjected to 1 billionth of a chest Xray. The government is not free to decide how much radiation I shall be exposed to. Or rather, it shouldn't be.
Re:Deadlier than the terrorists (Score:5, Funny)
That's exactly what the government wants you to think.
Re:Deadlier than the terrorists (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course, we're assuming that the numbers given by Rapiscan are in fact true - they didn't use cigarette company scientists to do their numbers.
No, I don't believe the FDA when they say that the scanners are "safe". I firmly believe they took Rapiscan's numbers at face value or adjusted their recommendations to be favorable to to Rapiscan - like they did for the Tuna industry and mercury intake. The FDA is beholden to industry.
Re:Deadlier than the terrorists (Score:4, Informative)
For a typical cross-country flight in a commercial airplane, you are likely to receive 2 to 5 millirem (mrem) of radiation, less than half the radiation dose you receive from a chest x-ray.
So you may be right about that. However, the observation posted by commodore64_love above about the concentration of the scanner dose in the skin does alter the picture a little.
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: (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: (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: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (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
Re: (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
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
No, he's assuming that "dying from cancer" has a 100% mortality rate. Sounds pretty fatal to me.
Flap over invasive (Score:5, Insightful)
I am embarrassed by people. Not because they're outraged about the scanners. But because it's over a little virtual nudity.
Worry about the incredible cost in hardware and training. Worry about some idiot cranking up the power, or a hardware flaw doing it for them. Worry about the infinite spiral of ineffective hoops in the security theater. Worry about what you're going to have to supper.
But, good grief, stop with the omg-naked and think-of-the-children crap.
Re:Flap over invasive (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
People aren't outraged about the nudity itself, they're outraged that they are (basically) being rendered nude against their wishes*. That's an entirely different issue, and quite a legitimate one. I've got no objection to a good steak but I'd still get pissy if an armed man started throwing slabs of beef at me before he'd let me on the bus.
*The choice between scan and "enhanced pat-down" amounts to coercion, IMO.
Easy? (Score:5, Funny)
"'a 6-year-old could do the same thing with Photoshop... It's probably a few weeks' modification of the program.'"
There are six-year olds who can undertake a multi-week programming project?
I can't believe my parents were wasting my time making me read Dr. Seuss when I could have been doing this shit!
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:A false argument (Score:4, Insightful)
So, your argument boils down to: if we drop the theater and go back to metal detectors only, then 9/11 style hijackings in the US would be "common" again (mind you they only ever happened once on US soil, hence the date describing them)? Also mind you, they had no explosives, etc. Just box cutters.
Sorry, but no. Case in point, even with "enhanced" security we still had shoe and underpants bomber "terrorists" get through. Security hasn't gained us anything. Awareness of the fact that not all hijackings end up in safe landings has forced the public's hand in dealing with the threat in the air. We all but kill them now.
The attitude shift _alone_ will stop hijackings. Now random bombs in bags, ok, screen bags with dogs and sending them through scanners. Problem pretty much solved, or at least reduced to near zero, just as it was before.
Israel (Score:4, Insightful)
Airport scanners are a joke. Unless they can detect anything in and out of a person's body they can and will be bypassed when needed. So here's the plan, rather than creating a softcore security theater, we copy the security methods of countries that do it effectively. Namely, Israel.
Of course we could just keep doing crazier and crazier scans as people progressively game the system, only to fail because their devices are faulty, not because they really had any trouble getting on the plane.
Re:Israel (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason the US doesn't have a system like Isreal's is because they've taken a systematic look at the problem and have implemented a comprehensive, multilayered, efficient solution. In the US, we prefer one-step, silver-bullet type "fixes". Anything more complex would be argued out of existence.
Re:Israel (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Israel (Score:4, Insightful)
A reason why the US doesn't use the Israeli system is that it might offend some people. The US prefers to offend everyone to make it look like they aren't profiling.
Re:Israel (Score:5, Insightful)
Why don't we just go back to what we had before and just accept the fact that flying will never be 100% safe, but remains the safest form of transportation available? A hijacking will never be successful again, not after what happened the last time. People won't just sit there when somebody jumps up with a box cutter. Explosives will always be a threat, but realistically what's to keep a terrorist from walking into an airport with an explosive vest and detonating it in the security area? Will we install body scanners at all entrances and exits then? It's just ridiculous. Of all the ways to die in this world why are we making such a big deal out of this one?
At this point I don't believe it has anything to do with public safety, not really. I think terrorism is embarrassing to governments. A small group of people can't possibly be allowed to "beat" one of the greatest countries in the world with some home made explosives and box cutters. It's just plain embarrassing. So lets just keep ramping up security to show those miscreants who's in charge here, put them back in their place so they'll never make fools of us again.
America is suppose to be a free country (Score:5, Informative)
Stick Figures? (Score:4, Informative)
Second, I heard this stick figure display was already being done in Europe, but it still doesn't make me feel safer or less worried about anything.
Why distort the image? (Score:5, Funny)
I mean, these are average Americans we're talking about. Most of my countrymen and women are already distorted into something grotesque so that there isn't anything exciting or titillating about them. But seriously, though... if there were mass boycotts of the airlines for even a couple of days in protest over the scanners, I bet we'd see them removed right quick. Economics trump national security, after all. Plus, apparently economics are a national security issue in this post-cold war, post-columbine, post-9/11 world.
Irrelevant to the health issues... (Score:3, Informative)
It would also be "less objectionable" if we were not exposed to significant dose of ionizing radiation.
http://www.npr.org/assets/news/2010/05/17/concern.pdf [npr.org]
This misses the point (Score:5, Insightful)
This misses the point. First (and least important), if you can distort the images, you can undistort them.
More importantly: people finally seem to be waking up to this simple fact: The government has no right to search you unless it has probable cause and a warrant. TSA, in fact, does not even have the right to demand an id. The right to interstate travel without government interference has been upheld by the courts: flying is a right, not a privilege. Nude scanners (even if distorted) and genital gropes violate your fourth amendment rights. Trying to make this violation more palatable is the wrong approach.
The right approach is to eliminate the TSA (and all of its regulations) and let the airlines and airports be responsible for their own security. As private companies, they have an interest in finding ways to guarantee security without humiliating their customers.
Fourth amendment, folks, use it or lose it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly. Even if there were a safety exemption to the 4th amendment, this would not qualify. Air travel is the safest form of travel, even counting deaths due to terrorism.
Re:This misses the point (Score:4, Insightful)
Here is an article about how the TSA does *NOT* have the right to ask you for ID. Even their own in house legislative guy says this. There is a copy of the letter he sent out on TSA letter head stating that.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13739_3-9769089-46.html [cnet.com]
http://files.dubfire.net/warner-tsa.pdf [dubfire.net]
Should make for some interesting fun at the airport if everyone starts doing this. LOL
Re: (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: (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:This misses the point (Score:4, Informative)
First (and least important), if you can distort the images, you can undistort them.
That's only true if the distortion is reversible and doesn't result in the loss of information. Distortions that result in information loss can't be un-distorted.
Do I Trust It? (Score:5, Insightful)
Do I trust the scanner to:
- Actually mangle the image?
- Not save a "raw" image internally or transmitted someplace?
- Actually be mangled as described in front of out-of-sight invisible surveillance agent?
No, I don't. They've already been caught lying on all these issues, actually.
Wrong problem (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is not that anybody will see the naked images, the problem is not even that these scanners are probably worse for your health than the terrorists, the problem is even not that somebody is touching 'your junk' and the problem is even not that none of these procedures are making anything any safer (they are not.)
The problem is that you are a human being, and if you allow yourself to be treated like cattle, they will.
The problem is that those Freedoms and Liberties are eroding and you are allowing them to take the Freedoms and Liberties away.
People died and killed others for this kind of stuff because it matters. You only have one life, do you want to be cattle or a human?
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.
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.
Larger City (Score:4, Insightful)
Any poor soul that gets a rush out of viewing those body scans needs to move to a larger city where getting laid is more than a twice in a life time experience.
Who controls the TSA? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
That's ok think about all the carbon dioxide that won't be released into the atmosphere, the little polars won't drown and the low lands won't flood. Why do you hate polar bears?
Re:A long losing battle (Score:5, Insightful)
Keep in mind that a terrorist (sorry, "freedom fighter") used an ass-bomb in an unsuccessful attempt on the Saudi Arabia's counter-terrorism minister.
Backscatter won't detect it. Groping (short of a finger up your asshole) won't detect it. Nope, we can only be safe if you drop trou and pull a goatse or let the TSA watch you take a shit.
Re:The problem isn't the scanner (IMHO) (Score:4, Insightful)
Look at the terrorist plots that have been foiled since Sept. 11.
Who foiled the shoe bomber? Passengers. Who foiled the underwear bomber? Passengers.
The TSA is meaningless; what we need, and for the moment have, are other people flying on planes who are willing to prevent another Sept. 11.