One Hundred Naked Citizens: One Hundred Leaked Body Scans | Hacker News Reader

One Hundred Naked Citizens: One Hundred Leaked Body Scans

gizmodo.com

42 pointsIndyan15 comments

Worth pointing out for those who don't read the article: These scans came from a far less powerful scanner that was used in a court house. The images that come from airport scanners are much more "revealing" than these.

Though given that just like the airport scanners, these weren't supposed to be storing images makes me think a leak of TSA scanner images is inevitable.

Here is what the backscatter scans look like:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-20022861-10391704.htm...

Why such an highly annoying video with random, needless panning? Just write an article and display the pictures.

Hardly "naked". I think the uproar about this isn't what can be seen, but the future of this. If we can see blobs of people as public images on the internet, if it ever does get to be "naked" then it could be bad.

At this point, I really wouldn't give a rip if someone published an image of my "naked" blob.

These are from a far less revealing scanner than the new backscatter machines at airports. The larger issue is that the government and the vendors said falsely that there would be no way to save the images for later use.

It may be that this scanner setup has a way to save the images, because they're so blobby and indistinct, but which was removed from the newer model because of the higher fidelity images.

The older tech... who cares if they save images, because you can't see anything. It probably wouldn't occur to me that it would be a privacy violation for someone to see pictures that make everyone look like a Star Wars Stormtrooper.

I wonder how many of those people are going to end up with cancer because of these scans?

Orders of magnitude less than will end up with cancer because of the altitude jets fly at.

Backscatter radiation delivers a more serious payload on the skin.

Also you are assuming the machines are working properly and not overdosing people.

Would it be possible to crank up the radiation (intensity or hardness) to peer deeper into the body?

There are three problems with that statement.

1) Short trips tend to fly at much lower altitudes than transatlantic flights, e.g. 10,000 feet vs 40,000 feet, which is about 1/35th the exposure. It takes time (and fuel) to climb to high altitudes with a full complement of passengers.

2) The superficial nature of backscatter scans means the dose is absorbed by the outermost tissues, instead of distributed throughout the volume of the body. Thus the effective dose is higher.

3) The dose is received over a period of seconds instead of minutes or hours. From higher-dose research, we know that a high dose in a short period of time is more damaging than the same total dose spread out over a longer time period. There is a lack of data for low-dose exposure, which causes a rift between safety agencies and industry spokespeople.

Additionally, we should be using independent testing and dosimeters instead of relying on manufacturer's figures. AFAIK nobody has walked through one of these with a dosimeter yet.

"David Brenner, the head of Columbia University’s Centre for Radiological Research, says the concentration on the skin – one of the most radiation-sensitive organs of the body – means the radiation dose is actually 20 times higher than the official estimate."

http://www.news.com.au/travel/news/naked-scanners-may-increa...

Check my comment history for a more thorough review of these issues.

But still more than would have if the machines did exist right?

None, because it's not an X-ray device. These particular images are millimetre-wave radar.

Do you have published source for that?

It's prominently mentioned in the article with a link to the manufacturer's page with full details.

You did at least read the article before leaving comments, right?

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