Researchers Find Security Flaws In Backscatter X-ray Scanners 146
An anonymous reader writes: Researchers from UC San Diego, University of Michigan, and Johns Hopkins say they've found security vulnerabilities in full-body backscatter X-ray machines deployed to U.S. airports between 2009 and 2013. In lab tests, the researchers were able to conceal firearms and plastic explosive simulants from the Rapiscan Secure 1000 scanner, plus modify the scanner software so it presents an "all-clear" image to the operator even when contraband was detected. "Frankly, we were shocked by what we found," said lead researcher J. Alex Halderman. "A clever attacker can smuggle contraband past the machines using surprisingly low-tech techniques."
The x-ray machines are very successful (Score:4, Interesting)
They're successful when you consider that the point was to move tax revenue to crony pockets:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/... [huffingtonpost.com]
Re:Frankly (Score:1, Interesting)
There are lots of portable x-ray devices , usually for on the road or nursing home type fell and broke a bone situations, and it's friggin lovely when the neighbors use it on you. At my previous residence there was not a single spot in the whole place where I could be and not be sick, I usually ended up in the entrance lobby or the kitchen area, never in the bedroom, as, I figured out lately why, but not back then, there was a contractor van with two black dudes that always looked at me weird when they came out of the driveway right when I walked by on the sidewalk, and I did not understand why back then. I guess everyone got a job to do, and I'm not an angel either. So lucky me, I got a thick cast iron metal tub now on a top floor, so the only way to really irradiate me with microwaves or x-rays or whatever the heck goes through wooden houses like they are paper, so the only way to get me now is from an airplane, or if someone climbed the roof. But the house is really tall, so dark hour drone strikes are most feasible, but the good thing about that is that if they are low power, because you can't take up a huge amount of electric power, unless the plane itself is huge. But lately it's been getting better, I mean last week or so, a couple weeks ago the hits were really bad. But just like Chernobyl proves, like can take a whole lot of radiation dose, as long as it's within tolerance limits, and you get breaks to recuperate. Worst is when you get a job where they make you sit in one place or stand in one place, and xray you there too, then when you come home, it's the same thing, and you don't get enough breaks to recuperate, and get things like, swollen gums and loose teeth, stinky breath, tooth cavities, and cancer in your skin and meat that doesn't get fought off by your immune system. One of the reasoning behind it could be to force you into higher housing cost situations, the other to help the health care business every time you show up in the emergency room feeling sick, all aimed at undermining you economically. Because you're not allowed to make it, that's already guaranteed. We'll shoot your tires out on the highway to make you catch a taxi, we'll sell you a remote control car to smack you into an accident on the highway, but you will not make it, to where you accomplish a low cost comfortable living, and an income to basic expense ratio of at least 20x. That's a big no no. Then everyone else would want that for themselves, and the exploitation of everybody stuck in a 1.2-1.5x income to basic expense ratio would stop, and everyone would become free, and go in a thousand different direction doing whatever they feel like, instead of what they are forced to do by their circumstances. It all starts with one bad apple that spoils the bunch.