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Comment by subterfudge44 | Hacker News Reader

One of the sad things about airport security is that there is no scope for private innovation. It is a military industrial complex of using substandard solutions for potentially non existent problems while wasting insane amount of money.

May be there is a need for the security theatre but then we can at least get good at it. Can Elon Musk design a better airport security ?

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Fuck Elon Musk, can you design a tool that would make airport security better? I bet in 15 minutes, most HN readers could come up with something that would be cheaper, more effective, and faster to use than the current tool set. There's indeed money to be made here (and good to be done), even if the easiest way would be to patent your idea and sell it to the military industrial complex you speak of.

Fun fact: the parent company of the company that makes the TSA body scanners (L-3) also owns the company that made "waterboarding" famous. It is, indeed, the military industrial complex.

There is a model that we already know works in practice but it's not cheaper or faster and it would generate a lot of income for security/airport renovation companies at the cost of much higher ticket costs to pay for it - the Israeli model. https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/01/adopting_the_...

There is an easier model called "less stringent security". Flying is incredibly safe. There is little evidence that the TSA's onerous security processes safe enough lives to be worth their massive costs.

The Israeli model requires ethnic and religious discrimination. It is not an option in the US, nor should it be.

Should it be an option there?

I don't live there, so IMO, I don't have standing to have an opinion.

That's for them to decide.

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