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Comment by pierrefar | Hacker News Reader

Great headline based on a simulation. Says so in the second sentence of the abstract. Is it hard to do a test using real machines? What's stopping them?

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Why should the company that makes these machines allow access to them?

Shouldn't the airports or governments (or whoever is paying for these) test them properly?

That's true if their main concern is security, as opposed to security theatre.

I'm not even sure security simulation is the main concern at this point. it rather seems to be giving as much tax dollars to the companies who helped politicians get into office in the first place.

To me it seems that at this stage it's purely a matter of refusing to back down on any "security" measure because that could be interpreted as "letting the terrorists win" by political opponents or voters.

The money allotted to the TSA for the scanners was specifically part of a stimulus package (ba-da-bing!). It didn't directly have anything to do with security, more pass through grant to the scanner companies.

I'm really curious about this. People on HN are saying "oh it's just security theater" as if the TSA purchasing officials are knowingly disingenuous. I suspect the testing procedures are badly flawed and the TSA has no clue whether the devices that they buy work. Right now I don't haven enough data to say either way - lying or stupid. Both hypotheses fit the facts.

Security experts are saying it's security theater. And they're right.

I completely agree. I'm questioning whether TSA knows that or not.

Well they could add up how many terrorists they have caught

Suppose as you hypothesize the TSA really doesn't know whether or not they work and whether or not they pose radiation risks to travelers and TSA employees. But they've told the President and Congress that this is the only way to keep us safe and we absolutely must spend $2.4B.

Would you consider that 'lying' or 'stupid'?

I was proposing two hypotheses. First, TSA knows exactly what is going on and they are lying about it. Second, TSA's testing procedure is flawed so they don't know what is going on, but they may think that they do. So if they are using a flawed test without being aware of the flaws, 'stupid'. If they are using a flawed test and they know it, 'lying'.

The government and the manufacturer refuse to give people access to the machines.

And the government has refused to release testing data; EPIC's currently got a FOIA suit.

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