The Things He Carried | Hacker News Reader

The Things He Carried

theatlantic.com

127 pointsstretchwithme28 comments

It's worth noting that since this article was published (2008) the TSA has begun scanning boarding passes at the checkpoint (at least at some airports) and confirming the name that appears on their screen is also the name on the boarding pass and the ID. The 2D barcode on the pass is encrypted to prevent the Photoshop trickery.

But, it's only taken them years to even attempt to plug this gap. Schneier wrote about the issue in 2003[1] and a kid got his house raided by the FBI in 2006[2] for making a fake boarding pass generator. I wonder why they didn't raid Adobe's headquarters, I hear they produce a wonderful tool for forgery too...

[1]http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0308.html#6

[2]http://www.boingboing.net/2006/10/28/fbi_returns_to_fake_.ht...

It's not really a fix. It's nothing a convincing fake ID couldn't fix--then everything matches.

The worst part is that George Carlin's rants from the '90s can be taken, copy-pasted verbatim and still not lose poignancy.

"Airport security is a stupid idea, it's a waste of money, and it's there for only one reason: to make white people feel safe!"

There's a growing protest against the TSA's unconstitutional new searches:

Check out http://www.wewontfly.com

excellent point. there was also a revolt against the TSA back in 2004/2005 and i think this one is shaping up even louder. airlines, pilots, flight attendants, passengers, parents, and seniors are all on the same side here. and politically, beating up on the TSA is going to be popular on both sides of the aisle.

From the article:

"all frisks that avoid the sensitive regions are by definition symbolic"

I'm inclined to agree.

There's a reason this article could only be written by a Jeffery Goldberg and not an Ahmed Jalaluddin.

That's a good point, but not entirely true. I'm half Lebanese. Despite being "randomly selected" often, my Beirut-born brother has taken a box cutter on every flight he's been on since 9/11 just because he can.

TSA is quite uneffective.

I have heard about a lot of people who have inadvertently carried things on flights, including a 12 inch knife on two separate flights.

Regardless, if someone is doing this on purpose, but without malicious intent, you may want to avoid naming them on a public forum.

"Shhh, we can't talk about it" is the root of most social problems.

I am all for talking about it if it involves you. Go public and say: Here's what happened. Here is why security sucks. This ensures that you get attention and reduces the chances that the govt. will stupidly punish you (aka punish the messenger) for having broken the law.

But given that the govt. is gung ho about prosecuting anyone who so much as mentions something about attacks on the Internet (see recent GPS tracking of Redditor by FBI), I don't recommend making 3rd parties with innocent intentions public without their permission and subjecting them to trouble.

Agreed that this is sad.

What about a Jeffery Jalaluddin?

As an adult white American-born male who's subjected to the same "security theater" idiocy, I have to discount this sort of racialist argument.

You in Al Q tee at airport checkpoint: a harmless, if idiotic, expression of irony.

Dark-skinned Jeffery in the same shirt: a worldview or political statement of potential jihadist.

Racialist generalization.

There is a "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" aspect here, and frankly the TSA's, and the average anxious air traveler, have an appreciation of irony I could only describe as absent. I wouldn't be surprised at being asked to turn it inside out. Or surprised at a Middle Eastern college student raising a cry of profiling/discrimination.

In ideal world there would be no racial profiling at security checkpoints. In reality there is, even if it's not institutionalized. The whole security escalation from 9/11 is related to hostilities from people of Middle-Eastern origin, and deep down every TSA guard knows that. TSA might have policies in place to avoid profiling, but everyone knows that it's planes from Saudi Arabia that trigger bomb scarces, it's Yemeni flights that are checked extra good, and it's overwhelmingly Arabic names on the no-fly list.

Nope. In an ideal world people would honor each other as individuals and prosper in civility, not fight murderous, destructive ideological vendettas.

You can consider profiling to be the collateral damage from the aberrant behavior of unchecked few.

Please elaborate

My guess is that he meant that the TSA typically treats certain people differently because they're threats, and adult white guys somewhat more deferentially than everybody else.

Goldberg has continued to blog and write about this topic. here's his most recent: "The War on Terror Meets the War on Pedophilia; Terror Wins" http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/11/the-war-...

I think he's referring to TSA officials not being trained very well, and that their biggest indicator of a potential threat is the name and race of the passenger.

Its probably articles like this one that pushed TSA to go to its current extreme.

What I don't understand is that they are screening pilots for weapons, who once they pass the screening, are then given control of the plane, which itself can be used as a weapon.

Some have said we can trust those working at the airport not to place dangerous things on planes because they get background checks. But apparently the ones entrusted with a very big weapon, the pilots, have to be checked for small objects.

And, of course, these scanners don't do cavity checks, another way things can get on the plane. Are those coming next?

I'm just glad they have those bomb-proof plastic bags to contain exploding liquids that do get through security.

Of course, the real problem is that we are afraid to give more attention and ask a lot of questions of passengers that certain criteria. Seems all we know how to do is look up names on a list. Anything more complex is too much to handle.

As I understand it, Israeli security asks suspicious passengers a lot of questions about their trip and background. And they've had very few problems considering the hostile situation they're in.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101102/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel...

What I don't understand is that they are screening pilots for weapons, who once they pass the screening, are then given control of the plane, which itself can be used as a weapon.

Because there are often two or three crewmembers in the cockpit. If one of them is subverted and can carry weapons aboard, they can establish control over the cockpit by killing the other crew. By preventing weapons from entering the cockpit, one is preventing this scenario. The problem is that searches of the pilots are easy to circumvent. Simply have a terminal worker sneak in a weapon and give it to the pilot. If this ever happened, the reinforced cockpit doors would very much work against us. This is a very good reason to pay pilots much more than $19,000 a year!

Yes, one pilot could kill the other. Or they could just do the deed while the other pilot is in the bathroom.

This only works if that pilot leaves behind the keys to the reinforced door, or if there's a way of disabling/jamming the lock.

"Its probably articles like this one that pushed TSA to go to its current extreme."

This logic is flawed. Security by obscurity isn't security. If the article wasn't published someone sufficiently clever just as well could have come up with the same ideas.

I didn't mean to suggest the article shouldn't have been published but that the TSA is politically driven instead of reality driven.

From the article.. -- I once asked Michael Chertoff, the secretary of Homeland Security, about this. "We actually ultimately do have a vision of trying to move the security checkpoint away from the gate, deeper into the airport itself, but there’s always going to be some place that people congregate. So if you’re asking me, is there any way to protect against a person taking a bomb into a crowded location and blowing it up, the answer is no." --

The implications of this reality have to be considered. The TSA does not exist to protect passengers on the planes. The TSA exists to prevent terrorists from getting the planes themselves and using them as weapons. If terrorists wanted to kill you, the passenger, then they would indeed do so as you waited to be screened through security. I guess you can take some comfort in the fact that they don't hate you, personally, for your freedoms...

> We actually ultimately do have a vision of trying to move the security checkpoint away from the gate, deeper into the airport itself

Like at Schiphol?

Or CDG or ATH or many other (if not most) European airports.

Screening at the gates makes a lot of sense in terms of traffic flow, as you don't get huge queues, and airline personnel hold the plane if there are security hold-ups. Also if there is a breach, you only have to shut down a few gates rather than the whole airport.

The problem is that this will br very difficult to retrofit in many existing US airports because they weren't designed with that in mind.

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