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Comment by FaceKicker | Hacker News Reader

In my experience, the TSA agent you have to show ID and boarding pass to at the security checkpoint also scribbles something with a marker or highlighter on your boarding pass.

But even aside from the fact that this is obviously and trivially forgeable, I don't think the person who scans your boarding pass at the gate even looks for the scribble, as I've used a different boarding pass to get on the plane than I did at the security checkpoint before (because I had printed one out at home and also printed another copy at the self-service check-in machine, and just happened to use different copies each time I needed to show it).

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They definitely don't look. Several itineraries have multiple legs, and the TSA only ever looks at - much less scribbles on - your first leg. Even that aside, you can easily get a boarding pass from an agent inside the terminal, without it ever having been checked by the TSA.

I've actually gone through TSA with one boarding pass on one flight, and boarded a completely different flight before (not just a separate piece of paper) - back when I could book flights for free on JetBlue and had already booked another flight that night. I merely decided once I was in the terminal that I'd hop on a different flight I had also checked in to.

I do a lot of flying and have long though about this. It's total theatre. They could fix it by implementing some cryptographic code that's scanned at TSA entry points, verifying the actual document (boarding passes are a far cry from a verifyable document).

> They could fix it by implementing some cryptographic code that's scanned at TSA entry points, verifying the actual document (boarding passes are a far cry from a verifyable document).

Yeah, I tend to believe that they really aren't serious about it. It seems trivial to include a data matrix barcode that encodes the traveller's name and flight data.

Wait, what? Are you saying barcodes aren't used in the US? Here in Norway at least all major handling agents issue boarding passes with barcodes, so you can board a (domestic or intra-Scandinavian) flight without interacting with anybody human except the security agents just by scanning the barcode at the gate. No idea if it's also used for security purposes, though.

The ticket has a barcode, but it's usually scanned by the airline before you board the plane. The TSA checker just looks at your ticket and your id, no computers involved.

And presumably the passenger's name is encoded in the barcode, which I guess is why the OP suggests printing the original ticket with the name of the friend that bought it instead of just using the "forged" ticket at the gate. Though I'd also guess that the airline employees who scan the ticket at the gate almost never check that the name on the ticket matches the one displayed on their screen when they scan the barcode, so you'd probably be fine using the forged one.

This wouldn't work for international flights, since they often check your passport before boarding.

This is probably like when the security guard at the exit of a shop checks your receipt and scribbles on it. I'm sure it's more to hold the guard accountable - so they don't wave people through without some semblance of checking.

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