TSA Out of Our Pants -- FAQ | Hacker News Reader

TSA Out of Our Pants -- FAQ

tsaoutofourpants.wordpress.com

86 pointsddelphin33 comments

Be sure to read the TSA's official response on their blog. [1] The comments there are priceless.

[1]http://blog.tsa.gov/2012/03/viral-video-about-body-scanners....

What morons, they use the word "interwebs" in the first sentence to make themselves look hip to the internet.

The whole tone of this blog post though really rubs me the wrong way. it comes across as a post from defensive asshole teen who was caught looking like a fool, as opposed to a federal agency funded with BILLIONS of free money they take from the citizens which they spend in ways which are completely unaccountable to said citizens, and the results of which inconvenience, for no reason, the same citizens -- with methods which are proven to be lacking to say the least.

I am so tired of security theater. These people are fucking dolts, amateurs themselves and are skimming billions of dollars from programs we actually need; like science, research, education and health.

FUCK the TSA.

Nobody will ever be happy with blog posts. If they wrote it like they were writing a tax document, someone would say "look at these boobs lawyerizing every word". If they write it like a kitteh, it's "look at these idiots trying to be hip". I found the tone funny, but regardless of whether or not they assume their audience knows what lolcats are, the TSA is still a waste of money. You don't need to read their blog to know that!

skimming billions of dollars from programs we actually need

How many failing bridges could have been replaced with the $60 billion we've spent on the TSA? Those would be some nice skilled jobs for people dropping out of our flagging manufacturing sector...

Here's a few FAQ'ish type links:

Body scanner proven ineffective video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idICUSiGcqo

Body scanner has 54% false positive rate https://www.propublica.org/article/sweating-bullets-body-sca...

Cost of the body scanners http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2012/03/07/what_tsa_se...

Some pretty interesting numbers here:

"Of these, 18 airports handle fewer than 1,000 passengers daily but were equipped with 21 scanners at an estimated installed cost of $7.3 million to screen 9,538 passengers per day."

The way the system is set up, all airports are only as secure as the least secure airport. Once you go through security, you can fly around the country from one airport to another without going through again. Thus, if the tools were effective but you somehow made an exception for small airports, you just invite terrorists to use those small airports for sneaking their weapons through, which can then be used on bigger, more visible flights later.

I think these machines are a waste of money and the threat of terrorism vastly overblown in general, but if you make the assumption that the machines are desirable and useful, you can't make an exception for small airports.

But the point is alternate and arguably more effective methods exist, particularly scaled to a smaller airport. I would say that even if you patted everyone down at the airport, the cost would be less but that's just speculation on my part.

However, I would like to post an excerpt from the last link that I shared.

"TSA acknowledges that it takes 10-12 seconds per passenger to go through the scanner while only 2 seconds is needed for the metal detector. Since the scanners have a 54% false positive rate, approximately half of those using the scanners receive some form of pat-down, further slowing the process. When hundreds of people are in line, that additional 8 to 30 seconds each adds up, resulting in substantial delays.

So while TSA claims that the scanners speed up the screening process, the opposite, in fact, is true."

54% is an astonishingly high number. Any idea what the false negative rate is? I wonder if the scanners are any better than just flipping a coin....

Well, a false positive rate of 54% essentially means it is in fact just coin flipping.

For any other product on the market, a failure rate of 54% would be cause for a complete recall if not a wholesale scrapping of the product but apparently does not apply in this case.

You need to know the false negative rate to evaluate it against a coin flip. For example, a hypothetical machine with a 50% false positive rate but 0% false negative rate could still be really useful, if the machine itself is cheap/fast and the subsequent screening slower/more expensive. With such a machine, you know that the 50% who pass are clean, thus reducing your followup screening load by half.

Of course, a machine with ~50% false positive and negative rates is indistinguishable from flipping a coin.

Why don't they just install a background behind the subject that produces a checkerboard pattern? This is exactly why programs like Photoshop use a checkered background to make it trivial to detect transparency in your images.

Wouldn't that render the exploit this guy found obsolete?

If it does make his exploit obsolete, then it also has a side effect of the TSA admitting that the backscatter machines have been ineffective for 2 (3?) years now. That is something they will never admit.

Not sure, it might actually make it harder to tell where the body ends and the checkerboard begins, because the resolution is so poor. Either way, this was but one exploit I found. :)

Install a background? Photoshop? You do realize that the backscatter machines aren't taking a picture right? There isn't a "background" to change. It's basically an X-ray machine, throw some radiation, see what bounces back.

I'll let you figure out why building a backing that is made up of different materials that reflect radiation in a checkerboard pattern won't work.

I'll let you figure out why building a backing that is made up of different materials that reflect radiation in a checkerboard pattern won't work.

Uh. Why won't it work? From what I recall of the images, they're sort of gray-scale. The brightness of a body drops off as it falls away from the camera (i.e. the outline of your body is a darker gray than, say, your forward-facing bellybutton region), since, presumably, as we wrap around to the sides of your body, more energy is bounced out to the sides than to the 'camera'.

So, I assume it's depicting the amount of radiation reflected back to the 'camera', right? So, if you make a checkerboard background of materials that bounce differing amounts of energy back (either due to composition of the tile or its angle), why wouldn't it work?

The phrases "You do realize that" and "I'll let you figure out why" are condescending. The tone of your post is rude. Moreover, you're clearly the one who doesn't understand: The prior poster was proposing a checker pattern of reflective material on the background.

What are the estimated costs of getting a lawsuit to the Supreme Court?

I'd love to know that too. I just threw in $100 (via the donation button on the top right of the linked article), but I'm glad to donate more if he needs it.

I really wish I had time to tilt at this particular windmill, so I'm very grateful that this fellow is being so relentless.

Thank you for that! The cost in filing fees, printing, and mailing for SCOTUS I estimate to be near $2K. If it's accepted, I need to travel to DC for oral arguments. All this in addition to dozens (or more) hours of missed work in order to research, write, and handle things.

Even if I got no donations, I would self-fund this suit, so no worries about donating more... anything anyone wants to contribute is much appreciated!

I'd encourage you to get a professional lawyer with supreme court experience involved in this. Perhaps the EFF can recommend someone?

just FYI, the idiom "tilting at windmills" implies an imaginary opponent. TSA is very much real, unfortunately.

"Tilting at windmills is an English idiom which means attacking imaginary enemies, or fighting unwinnable or futile battles."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilting_at_windmills

isn't it from Don Quixote?

Yes, it is.

That's a poor definition which you won't find repeated in any other reference (really, take a look). The entirety of the meaning of the idiom concerns the misperception of ones opponents.

That's incorrect. A number of other sources say that it also means exactly what I mean: "to pursue an unrealistic, impractical, or impossible goal". E.g.:

http://www.word-detective.com/2009/03/10/tilting-at-windmill...

A quick peek at Google News also shows plenty of people using it that way:

E.g.:

http://articles.mcall.com/2012-03-08/news/mc-pat-toomey-jobs... http://jurist.org/forum/2012/02/brian-landsberg-affirmative-... http://www.idahoreporter.com/2012/barbieri-wont-run-anti-tsa...

You should get some assistance from the ACLU or similar organization because you are not a lawyer and you will end up spinning your wheels. The U.S. Supreme Court only hears 150 or so cases each year. Except in a very small range of cases (such as cases between states) they are not obligated to hear any cases. You would have much better luck with the Court of Appeals. If the facts are not developed on appeal, you can ask the Court to appoint a special master. The matters you raise are important and merit judicial consideration. But get a professional to help.

2 words: Ethiopian rat

This species can detect all kinds of weapons, explosives, drugs, everything.

It can even tell if a person has a contagious DISEASE.

And best of all its cheaper to train and maintain than dogs, and more friendly/less intimidating for the passengers.

These are already being used in some African countries to find landmines that dogs and electronic detectors can't see.

If you think rats are less intimidating for passengers then I invite you to test your hypothesis by walking around an airport with a rat on a leash and a dog on a leash, see what gets the most response.

Have you seen the average bomb dog? is not a labradoodle...

And google ethiopian rat, is not that ugly/scary like black rats and others.

I'm not sure how to compute the average bomb dog but Labradors are in fact very common sniffer dogs:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2010-09-30-1Adogs30_ST...

Lots of German Shepherds as well and plenty of other breeds. No, the're not 'doodles' but a pack of angry Jack Russels isn't a pic-nick either. The point is that people are somewhat used to bomb sniffer dogs because they associate them with the dogs they already know. With rats they will also associate them with the rats they already know, and that association is not going to be a good one.

That rat looks like this:

http://www.viewchange.org/videos/africa-bomb-squad-rats

So, you'll be testing your rat-on-a-leash in a crowded airport ---->>> there

and meanwhile I'll be

<-------- over there.

I hate being trampled by screaming tourists.

Well look at this way: if you don't like the scanner then you're getting a very intimate patdown, which depending how you take it could end with a surprise cavity search.

Now the rat doesn't sounds that bad does it?

What's supremely confusing is that the back scatter machines were meant to protect us against the growing threat of non-metallic weapons and yet many TSA demos show how effective they are at finding things like guns and knives. Such objects would be passively and reliably detected by a metal detector and now we find they can be easily taken through a back scatter machine.

We've put incomplete tech and massive room for human error in between people and air planes. It's worse than security theater, it's a full digression in our our actual security. We're actually less safe than we were 15 years ago. If this man's video is to be trusted, it's now easier than ever to bring a box cutter onto an airplane. Boggles the mind.

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