Man Flies with Someone Else's Ticket and No Legal ID
schneier.com
schneier.com
One way tickets cost as much as round trip tickets. So people would buy a round trip ticket then sell the return ticket. This was standard practice And they never used to ask for picture ID when you flew.
The requirement for picture ID was instituted on the behalf of airlines seeking to end the practice. It wasn't about security. It was about money.
Incidentally there is no actual law requiring picture ID. Well, the FAA says that it exists, but won't tell anyone what it is. (I wish I was making this up.) This was the subject of a lawsuit that was lost in the 9th circuit and not heard by the Supreme Court. See http://www.papersplease.org/gilmore/index.html for more.
Are you sure their claiming it's a law and not a regulation?
Assuming you have a driver's license and the TSA has access to the same technology the Border Patrol does, name and address and a five-second search ought to be sufficient. Any extra inconvenience or unpleasantness they inflict on you is probably only intended to make sure you don't make a habit of forgetting your ID.
1. I would consent to their searches if I did not have to identify myself (and they made no attempt to identify me). This seems practical, as Schneier suggests, because your identity doesn't really matter as long as you've been screened.
2. They adopt rigorous authentication procedures and authorize me to pass without undressing, scanning, swiping, etc. My hunch is that this wouldn't be too effective a preventive tactic, but what do I know...
I'm much more into (1), personally, but I'll take anything that makes travel less cumbersome.
FWIW I took a short trip recently and opted for groping over porno-scan at both airports. No one touched my junk (though they came close), perhaps because when they asked if there were any parts of my body that were sensitive I said, "Yes, my nuts."
I've also found that their security systems have problems with edge-detection. I inadvertently brought a razor-sharp piece of metal in my carry-on with me from Canada to the US once, and only realized it when I was unpacking. The article is correct: mistakes happen all the time, but it's not a security concern I'd worry about.
I'd more complain about the multiple times I get stopped by customs. US Customs held me at DC for 3 hours because I had too many types of US stamps on my passport. After waiting 3 hours and saying "I was a student", they let me go.
I flew out of Boston Logan on Sunday. The TSA (?) guy just before X-Ray machine and free groping took my passport and boarding pass, shining a little black light Maglite at my first name on the boarding pass and passport, put a check mark next to my first name on the boarding pass, and then proceeded to do the same for my last name. Black light was also shined on the flight number and a couple of other things, and each was check marked. He then turned to the next blank page in my passport and had a good look at that with his black light.
Probably took less than 30 seconds, but he was very thorough in making sure my ID matched my boarding pass and neither had been tampered with.
The one time I lost my ID (LAS in 2007 or 2008), I was allowed through security, but only after extra screening.
I think you nailed it. Obviously not all of the TSA's actions can be explained this way, but the insistence on ID that matches the boarding pass is so beneficial to the airlines that it's hard to ignore the possibility of 'regulatory capture'.
In India, if you look like an Indian, you can pay $20 and get a passport with obviously-faked documents. You can get a driver's license for $5 without ever driving anything.
If you are a woman, it's the simplest thing to take a small-sinister-object past airport security. Buy a large book, cut a small-sinister-object-shaped hole, put the thing inside and pretend to read the book while waiting for security checks. You are asked to place the book on the table while they check you. They don't look into the stuff you put on the table, unless it's a wallet.
Sometimes I wonder if I miss it all.
I can't help but wonder if his accent helped him get through security and on the plane. It's hard to catch someone in a lie when you're struggling to understand what he's saying.
I can order a copy of my drivers license and change the address to "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC" and they'll ship it to me quick as can be. If you happen to find somebody who looks a lot like you (or you can modify your face to look like them) you can just get their social or drivers license # and order a copy to a different mailing address. The original owner is never notified.
If you want to just make yourself a brand new ID under someone else's identity you can get a new driver's license under someone else's name. Bring two forms of ID (a birth certificate which you can order with a SSN or a faked certificate of US citizenship along with a faked insurance card), a faked telephone or utility bill, and a proof of social security number (a faked payroll statement and a faked insurance or IRS statement with name and SSN). Then make an appointment at the DMV and get a fully valid new government ID with your picture and someone else's name.
That's something a terrorist could do without much trouble once they had someone to target. You don't even need Photoshop to fake those documents; just a Kinkos, MS Word, Paint and some scissors. Just get the guy's name and SSN (which thanks to LulzSec there are plenty of leaked to the internets) and go to town. Should take about a week, maybe two if the fake birth certificate takes a while to ship. You can also do without the birth certificate if you just order a copy of the person's drivers license.
So yeah. The fact that the TSA doesn't check your ID past glancing at it and putting a mark on your ticket isn't that scary to me, since anyone who really wants to can get a valid ID which will pass all checks in a couple weeks.
>I can order a copy of my drivers license and change the address to "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC" and they'll ship it to me quick as can be.
some states (e.g. New Jersey) mark the new license as a duplicate copy, which causes increased scrutiny by police officers and other ID checkers. And most states do send something to the old address, if only a simple notice stating the change of address.
Likewise, USPS sends a notice to both addresses if you activate their mail forwarding service, so you can't forward somebody's mail to your address and reorder their license. (Unless they are on vacation...) All of that is mail fraud which is a federal offense and probably a felony.
That all gets you a license with somebody else's picture, so you need to be a very close match with them to be able to use it--LulzSec isn't dumping pictures of their targets yet, so that means for a lot of facebooking.
As for a brand new ID, I wouldn't say it's impossible to jump through all the hoops you have described in para 3, but you'd have to pick somebody that does not already have an ID in the state you are getting a license from, and somebody that you are sure will not be contactable as a result of all your shenanigans (i.e. missing without a death certificate), or your fake license is bound to be useful for only a short period until the IRS and credit agencies catch up with the real person and that victim files a report of identity theft, freezing/suspending it. The next time you get pulled over with that license, it's lights out. Additionally, you can't just walk out the door of a DMV with a new license, you have to wait for it to be shipped a real address and if your forgeries are detected before then, police may be waiting to see who picks it up. That risk probably serves as a sufficient deterrent, no?
Neither send notice after changing the address on the license. There's no USPS address change required here, so no notification.
Honestly, it's not hard to find somebody with a beard with kinda-close skin color, and go to a party store and buy some makeup. Again we're talking about somebody who just wants a quick fake and not, say, a terrorist or drug dealer who can pay for a really good counterfit.
Why would they not already have an ID? You just get a reissue, or yes, go to the state next door and get a replacement (which may void out the other state's ID, but maybe you don't care if they find out after? I dunno).
As long as you don't use the stolen identity for anything but travel I don't see how anybody would find out.
Also, i'm preeeeeety sure they do make new IDs at the DMV so you don't have to wait for it to be mailed. I think I got one handed to me, but that was a while back. Anyway, just specify a different mailing address for them to mail it to ("i'm moving and i don't live there yet"). edit And seeing as Arizona will hand you one as below commenter says, i'm 85% sure Florida does too.
Every 3.8 seconds someone has his or her identity stolen. This indicates to me that there is not enough deterrent. Perhaps there are even easier ways than what I outlined but I am not a criminal so I have no idea.
Watch what happens at the end (about 1:40), when they get tickets in the names of "Terry Wrist" and "Al Kyder".