Security experts have cloned all seven TSA master keys
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
Some by evidencing it.
Seals and zipties help evidence access, though not perfectly as the many references to ballpoint defeats of zippers on this article show.
[1] Not actually true, but I did bring home a set of lock picks from a conference once that had been wrapped as a gift, and they had been unwrapped by "somebody" (and no, there wasn't the TSA leaflet in my bag)
You might want to see this (opening a suitcase with a ball pen):
In fact he points that a mere nailcutter works fine for removing those too.
His main point is just that its not any better to bother with luggage locks and a zip tie can be even simpler.
I'd rather know. Ignorance is bliss and all that, but I'd rather know.
Especially, as it is, that I find the security theater of the TSA both absurd and to be a gross and unnecessary invasion of privacy. But I am faced with the alternative of simply not traveling, and being forced to choose between the two... well, like I said - to me, anyway, there's some small comfort in knowing this time, at least, some dignity remains.
I realize it may be illogical, but emotions often are.
"I love crypto; it tells me what part of the system not to bother attacking" - Drew Gross
"You stole my sweater!" "No we didn't."
They aren't going to replace the sweater. And if you're packing cameras or other valuables in checked luggage, you're a fool.
a thing that discourages or is intended to discourage someone from doing something.
able or intended to deter.It's at least pretty good proof that these checks aren't random (which is truly a good thing).
I suspect it probably hasn't changed much.
The only odd thing I can think of is I have a tiny pair of pliers in one pocket due to an iffy zipper. I also typically put a laptop in there instead of carrying it. Maybe that combo sets something off.
I regularly travel to conventions with a checked suitcase full of merch. I, and most of my vendor friends, have an ever-growing collection of these things. We all seem to just leave them in our bags for next time.
I mean, yeah, they don't have to be leaving it, but experience shows that they do.
If the case had a simple anchored fabric loop that the lock could be fed through, then this would keep the sliders in a fixed position. It obviously wouldn't stop the case from being opened, but it would stop the zipper from being re-meshed afterwards. I've seen this on a few cases and bags, but it doesn't seem common.
When I travel with a large snowboard bag I used to get one of these every single time. Presumably it was too big to fit in the security scanners so they were required to open it.
TSA employees looking to steal the contents of the bags might.
http://livestream.com/internetsociety/hopeconf/videos/130717...
http://thewirecutter5.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/upl...
https://www.amazon.com/Travel-Accessories-Lockdown-Triple-Se...
https://www.amazon.com/Travel-Accessories-Lockdown-Triple-Se...
It's also the case that making noise about occasional, topical referrers is going to be less useful than the occasional, topical link. Of course it shouldn't be okay to make work out of posting them, but who cares if someone adds one to a link that is worth posting otherwise.
In my opinion, the TSA itself is nothing more than a "peace of mind" device.
Even as late as 2015, on returning to America after not having hands stuffed down my pants in any other airport in the world, America still doesn't disappoint.
Fuck the TSA. Airport security should be handed back over to the airlines and airports.
A lot of it is about training. Many, if not most, of TSA's airport employees are the same poorly trained security staff that were laid off (and subsequently rehired) after the TSA's creation.
The answer is a better security organization, perhaps modelled after a functioning organization, like Israel's (I've studied the country's security practices, and it readily comes to mind). The answer is not regressing to poorly trained and poorly organized DIY security operations.
The answer was reinforcing and locking cockpit doors. Everything after that is just for show.
No
>> The answer is not regressing to poorly trained and poorly organized DIY security operations.
The answer lies in not giving up essential liberty for promises of safety
The goal of Terrorism is to scare people so badly they give up their own way of life "voluntarily" because they are scared, in that the terrorist have won
Why not? They could hardly do worse than the TSA:
http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/01/politics/tsa-failed-undercover...
> According to a report based on an internal investigation, "red teams" with the Department of Homeland Security's Office of the Inspector General were able to get banned items through the screening process in 67 out of 70 tests it conducted across the nation.
More often than not, the TSA will want to hand-inspect firearm-containing baggage (with you present), and I couldn't say what they'd do if they didn't find the firearm in the bag they were breaking their routine to check.
Just buy a flare gun or a starter pistol and declare it if you don't want to or can't use the real thing.
I'm kidding, of course. There are probably multiple reasons that wouldn't work. But this whole notion that by molesting passengers sufficiently and putting on a big enough show, we can significantly reduce casualties from terrorism is laughable.
At some point there has to be a tradeoff between safety and convenience, or no one in their right mind would drive a car.
Of course it goes without saying that I only carry laundry in my checked luggage. Laptop, chargers, camera, etc goes in a carry on backpack.
And if you have a valuable thing in sight, then even with the fanciest locks, you're running the risk of broken windows. Just easier to keep nice stuff out of that 'public place'.
The unlocking in the hopes of preventing a window smash.
Leaving the car open is mostly to forestall people opportunistically smashing the window and looking for valuables.
Fencing a whole car is much harder than fencing some smaller loot.
Reminds me of a joke.
I leave my car with a sign hanging from the mirror that clearly states that no valuables are inside.
One day I go to my car with a broken window and a new sign that says "just checking".
What I would be worried about when leaving my car open is eg other people sleeping in it. (I wouldn't mind too much, as long as they are clean. But that's too much to ask for.)
Fortunately, I do not own a car in the first place.
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2013/05/23/sfo-baggage-hand...
(SFO is notorious and most of the airlines keep lax enough records that they'll even deny that you checked a bag in the first place, much less that the contents were anything more valuable than old t-shirts)
In Europe you get the tracker code of any luggage that you have checked in.
These consumer products are ‘peace of mind’ devices, not part
of TSA’s aviation security regime.
In other words, you might as well not use locks at all.
Like most things concerning security in general and airport security in particular, it's a sham, meant for appearances only.
Everyone loves to bust on the TSA, but small controls can add up. If you live in a home without barred windows and a reinforced door and locks, anyone can enter your home in seconds. Yet we still lock our doors, and they are still effective.
The only purpose of the TSA key is to facilitate searches without damaging the lock or bag. That's it.
So I lock my door, especially car doors, and I don't have problems anymore :)
Security systems, chained doors, automatic lights and deadbolts are also a huge deterrent that prevent plenty of break-ins. Yes all of those combined will NOT stop someone who wants to get into your home really badly but at that point I can't imagine they want to simply steal something. That's a lot of effort to go through and would seem far more personal to me.
To be honest, I don't own anything very valuable, and I value my convenience more highly than the remote chance that somebody is going to clean out my house. Particularly since the criminal element is almost nonexistent hereabouts, and what there is tends to center on small-scale marijuana growing and dealing - although maybe that will become a problem if the heroin epidemic continues.
Locking and unlocking a door two or three times a day adds up to a considerable amount of wasted time over the course of years. Not to mention insanity like I've seen in Germany, where people lock the outer gate, lock the outer door, deadbolt the door, lock the inner door, and then roll down huge armored shutters over the windows - in an upper-middle class gated community...
Cruising house-to-house checking for unlocked cars and doors would take a prohibitive amount of time; easier to do that in suburbia, where you can cover a dozen houses on foot in five minutes.
But in NYC, I've always locked my apartment door, because it's trivially simple to follow someone into an apartment building, and not much challenge to go door to door, listen for signs of habitation, and try the door handle.
Micro-optimizations are rarely useful in terms of software development or in real life (unless you're at considerable scale which is statistically unlikely in both cases). Granted I can't know for sure how long it takes you to lock or unlock a door.
Going from my own experience locking and unlocking a door, combined, takes about 1-4 seconds depending on if I'm entering or leaving. So let's take the most (4 seconds). Let's say I unlock and lock 3 times a day (a busy day but again taking the highest numbers here). So that's 4,380 seconds (73 minutes) used per year at the maximum time. So yes it adds up but saving the 12 seconds per day wouldn't make me more productive that day (it's not like you gain that 73 minutes in a useful chunk of time) and statistically keeps myself, my family and our stuff safer.
So yeah I get the convenience factor but I don't get the whole "wasted time" piece. Certainly depending on where you live it may be unnecessary but another thing to keep in mind is there are always times for firsts (so just because your area may be historically crime free doesn't mean it'll stay that way).
Perhaps I'm just too paranoid but something so small seems fine to me :)
Use Shamir's secret sharing strategy (or similar) to share your private key with 500 other people, cooperation of an 400 people necessary to retrieve the secret.
This way law enforcement can look at your stuff with a warrant ('nothing to hide' after all) but not in secret: they will have to contact a few hundred people, that's hard to keep hush-hush.
The thing that crystallizes what HOPE is about, for me, was that their closing ceremonies opened with a fifteen-minute talk about the network situation -- the cabling they had to run, the 1.5Gbps DDOS they withstanded, and then chastised us for not using enough bandwith, saying the ISP that donated a 10 gig line threatened to downgrade it next time.
"For security", we need more guns flying round everywhere.
Not a big deal with the TSA because honestly these tiny, flimsy locks were never about security but to ensure the casual encounter with someone unknown doesn't get into your bag and possibly steal something (anyone who really wants something from your bag can cut these with the tiniest of bolt cutters). Also they can be handy with keeping annoying zippers together.
"peace of mind" devices, that pretty much sums up the "security theater" charade that is the TSA. If its not important why do they have master keys at all?
Similar to how they randomly select people sometimes to use the pre-screen lines.
I guess this is the relevant commit: https://github.com/Xyl2k/TSA-Travel-Sentry-master-keys/commi...
In this case, the greatest threat is still the TSA agent or hotel maid entering your room, since you shouldn't be leaving your bag unattended with anyone else.
Trust baggage handlers about as far as you can throw them.
You probably forgot the elves. If I had a nickle for every time I forgot the godamn elves...