Viral Video About Body Scanners

http://blog.tsa.gov/2012/03/viral-video-about-body-scanners.html

by maverhick • 14 years ago

448 198 14 years ago

blog.tsa.gov

maverhick• 14 years ago

"around the interwebs" "baggies of drugs" "things that go BOOM"

Seems legit.

slamdunc• 14 years ago

Agreed. The TSA Out of Our Pants guy goes to the trouble of giving specific examples in a well-articulated video and they respond with some catchy, hip-sounding interwebs keywordz... I feel safer already.

famousactress2• 14 years ago

Wow. This blog post makes me WAY more afraid of the TSA than the original video did. I can't wrap my head around the language used. "Things that go BOOM" ???!?!?! Are you fucking kidding me? These are the people that are supposedly acting in the interests of our safety? Disgusted.

Whoever wrote or approved this post ought to be fired. Fast.

grandalf2• 14 years ago

That language is intended to resonate with people who look at cat pictures on the internet and who are (obviously) the people whose clicks made the video in question go viral.

rooshdi2• 14 years ago

The TSA isn't Reddit, we're talking about people's real security at stake here. Them joking about "things that go BOOM" is just downright distasteful, especially when people are expecting them to confront the security concerns more seriously. Them joking about this makes them look like a joke.

mckoss• 14 years ago

On a flight last week I overheard the TSA agent joke about the "torture" procedure he was about to inflict on my son when he opted out of a body scan. I don't find anything about the TSA to be humorous.

sounds2• 14 years ago

But remember!

If you joke about carrying a weapon, about violence, or anything the TSA does not like...

Immediate grounds for (at best) a thorough pat-down. Or being added to a no-fly list. Or being tossed out of airport security. Or being detained away from your family.

Deestan• 14 years ago

> Whoever wrote or approved this post ought to be fired. Fast.

Thus solving the problem once and for all.

famousactress2• 14 years ago

Of course I'm not arguing it's a complete solution.. but I would argue that a complete solution would include this. Also note that I didn't suggest that whoever wrote it be fired alone, I think anyone who had any oversight into this line of thinking should go.

It's indicative of a culture of arrogance, disrespect, poor decision-making, and anything but reverence for the value of the service that the organization is charged with.

monkeypizza• 14 years ago

I hate the TSA as much as anyone, but this type of gallows humor is pretty common - in private, it's common for doctors to joke about dying patients, etc, because keeping things deathly serious all the time is emotionally impossible.

akl• 14 years ago

Are you sure that's a reasonable comparison?

mrhyperpenguin• 14 years ago

But as you said yourself, there are situations in which this 'humor' is appropriate. The official blog of a government agency is definitely not the place. I would expect this type of language from a no-name blog by a person with the grammar of 16 year-old.

klausa• 14 years ago

Yes, but that's the key - in private. There are jokes I use with my friends, that I would NEVER use in public situation.

einhverfr5• 14 years ago

Nah, the humor wasn't the scary part. Their trust in pre-deployment testing and so forth..... That was the scary part....

einhverfr5• 14 years ago

I did too but not for the reason of the language.

The guy is substituting pre-deployment testing for on-going penetration testing by a diverse group of independent individuals. If this was Microsoft's attitude towards security, Windows 8 would still be as secure as Windows 95....

biot• 14 years ago

On the contrary, this individual should be promoted to the head of the TSA and be required to make weekly public TV appearances.

teyc• 14 years ago

They are impossible to fire.

If no one slips a bomb past them, they've done their job; If someone slips a bomb past them, they'll only grow bigger and more menacing.

sophacles• 14 years ago

Worse still: If no one tries to slip a bomb past them, they must ignore the obvious and declare they need more power to catch the evil-doers. If someone is successfully caught by them, we obviously need to up security, because this display of effectiveness may not be enough.

trapexit• 14 years ago

"Things that go boom" must be official TSA terminology. I've heard it used by screeners on multiple occasions at different airports.

They're probably not permitted to use the "b-word" out of concern for spooking passengers, much as passengers are not permitted to use the "b-word" out of concern for spooking the screeners.

thaumaturgy• 14 years ago

I've never felt more like I was living in a prequel to Idiocracy than I did while reading that.

grandalf2• 14 years ago

One imagines the Idiocracy intro showing how TSA evoled into TGB (Things Go Boom).

tuxguy2• 14 years ago

TTGB (things that go boom) to be precise

FTFY :)

sold• 14 years ago

Sometimes YouTube comments give me also that feeling.

Jimmie2• 14 years ago

I read the first paragraph, scanned the rest of it and assumed that it was satire. Checked the url, that looked right so I thought maybe they got hacked. It's unbelievable.

philk• 14 years ago

If their security is as good as their blogging it's time to consider travelling by bus.

Also their "20 layers of security" chart[1] is an unintentionally hilarious masterpiece. Note the arrow they've drawn circumventing every layer of security apart from passengers. So really, we can't say they didn't warn us.

[1] http://www.tsa.gov/what_we_do/layers/index.shtm

mcantelon2• 14 years ago

The authorites are working on that angle, too. ;)

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/20/nation/la-na-terror-...

pizza• 14 years ago

When I saw the 20 layers chart, I thought it was a troll blog because the graphic looks like it has planes crashing into towers.

Terretta• 14 years ago

> Each one of these layers alone is capable of stopping a terrorist attack.

Well, we were vetting crews before 911. How many attacks did that layer stop? The sentence needs a qualifier: "...through that vector."

JonnieCache• 14 years ago

I immediately thought of the phrase "twenty herbs and spices," and that product doesn't even exist here.

einhverfr5• 14 years ago

My guessing is that their testing of the scanners is about as good as their blogging......

mattdeboard• 14 years ago

Beyond disturbing. Equivalent of, "u mad?" Rebuttal with no refutation. Embarrassing and useless, but just enough to placate the placid and ignorant.

pg• 14 years ago

There is something chillingly unconvincing about their attempts at informality.

Big Brother jokey is a lot more frightening than Big Brother bureaucratic or Big Brother bombastic. Too bad this insight wasn't available to Orwell or he could have made 1984 even scarier.

jfoutz• 14 years ago

That's because Huxley was right. (http://www.recombinantrecords.net/docs/2009-05-Amusing-Ourse...)

armandososa• 14 years ago

I think the current reality is more of a mix between "A Brave New World" and "Farenheit 451". Bradbury deserves a mention there.

chimeracoder• 14 years ago

Aside from the fact that that comic misrepresents the argument behind 1984, they're not really at odds with one another the way the comic makes it seem.

Orwell was writing within the context of his time - the late 1940s. So if he were writing today, it's not too hard to imagine him writing about banning websites (ie, SOPA), or the similar actions that are going on today.

If Orwell were writing today, I imagine 1984 might look more like Cory Doctrow's 'Scroogled'

> http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-09-17-n72.html

(The one main difference between the two that Orwell may have gotten 'wrong' is that it is the corporations, not the strictly the government, that serve as Big Brother in Doctrow's case - or rather, a coalition of corporations and the government. Then again, in Neal Stephenson, the corporations eventually become the government, so that's not as significant a difference as it really might seem.)

stock_toaster• 14 years ago

I think it depends on the culture, and geopolitical region.

Huxley might have been more right for many places (certainly seems so for 'the west'), but Orwell seems to have been pretty dead on about some of the more oppressive regimes of the world - North Korea for instance?

yuhong• 14 years ago

That is when "not every press is good press" is a good thing.

Natsu• 14 years ago

Sometimes I wonder if we would be better off if 1984 and the like had never been written. It feels like people have been using them as a how-to manual.

sounds2• 14 years ago

The idea of a dystopian state was already old in 1949 (when the book was first published).

Wikipedia lists literature back to 1835, though I think ancient Romans would have been able to write awesome dystopian literature: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dystopian_literature

pyre• 14 years ago

Unfortunately, the idea that there is a controlling mastermind using 1984 as a guide book is only nice insofar as it makes the dynamics of large groups of people and emergent behaviors seem controllable (or at least fixable) without long painful attempts to reshape the fabric of culture/society. The reality is that books like 1984 are commenting on human tendencies. Tendencies that would exist regardless of the existence of the commentary.

jff• 14 years ago

Well, at the very least we wouldn't have to hear it referenced every time a government or company does something, so that's a plus.

nagrom2• 14 years ago

The tone is a little similar to GlaDOS in the portal games. "Friendly sinister". I don't believe the dismissive message, either.

I cannot imagine a scenario where the TSA becomes 'popular' now; where the populace as a whole gets respect back for them. I half expect the US government to perform a rebranding exercise within the next 5 years and hope that a change in the letterheads and badges resets the clock on an ever-more resentful populace.

temphn2• 14 years ago

The spelling and grammatical errors tell you within 5 seconds that this person is not very intelligent.

  For obvious security reasons, we can’t discuss our 
  technology's detection capability in detail, however TSA 
  conducts extensive testing of all screening technologies 
  in the laboratory and at airports prior to rolling them 
  out to the entire field.

This is a run-on sentence.

  Imaging technology has been extremely effective in the 
  field and has found things artfully concealed on 
  passengers as large as a gun or nonmetallic weapons, on 
  down to a tiny pill or tiny baggies of drugs.

"on down" is faulty parallelism.

  It’s one of the best tools available to detect metallic 
  and non-metallic items, such as… you know… things that go   
  BOOM.

Two ellipses in one sentence? Leave aside the "BOOM".

  With all that said, it is one layer of our 20 layers of 
  security (Behavior Detection, Explosives Detection 
  Canines, Federal Air Marshals, , etc.)

Extra comma and the capitalization feels bizarre.

  and is not a machine that has all the tools we need in one 
  handy device. We’ve never claimed it’s the end all be all.

The phrase is "the be all and end all" or "the be-all and end-all". One can go on, but almost every sentence here displays this person's low level of intelligence. Leaving aside the content, it's just poorly written.

The punchline is that the TSA's budget is double that of Facebook's $3.7 billion in revenue. $8.1 billion in tax dollars for a gang of complete morons.

kzrdude• 14 years ago

Uneducated. "That's, like, uniquely american!" -G. W. Bush.

corin_4• 14 years ago

Thinking that you can judge someone's intelligence by their spelling and grammar is so incredibly wrong. And I don't mean wrong in a moral "don't be that guy" way (though that too), I mean wrong as in technically inaccurate.

matthew-wegner• 14 years ago

The entire blog post is meant to be as colloquial as possible. What makes you think they wouldn't deliberately include spelling/grammar errors to support this?

nollidge2• 14 years ago

> This is a run-on sentence.

No, it's not. A run-on is when two or more independent clauses are joined without a conjunction or the like. So "I went the store I bought bread" is run-on. In your example, "however" functions as the conjunction. It may be overly long and unwieldy and could perhaps do with a few more commas, but those are style issues.

> "on down" is faulty parallelism.

"As large as...on down to..." Not sure how that's faulty, sounds fine to my ears. If anything, this sentence should be criticized for seemingly talking about "passengers as large as a gun" at first parse. Not strictly grammatically wrong, but it's painful to make sense of.

> Two ellipses in one sentence?

Also not a grammatical error.

> The phrase is "the be all and end all" or "the be-all and end-all".

Says who, the great deity of idioms? I've heard and read it as "end all be all", although I'd prefer it was rendered as something like "end-all, be-all" or "end-all/be-all".

> Leaving aside the content, it's just poorly written.

Agree 1000%: it's unbecoming, tone-deaf, and totally off-putting. But those are stylistic criticisms, not grammatical ones.

jlujan• 14 years ago

Writing and grammar aside, I think the buddy-buddy way in which the TSA blog is written is condescending. There is a difference between trying to put a friendly face on the TSA and addressing the public in a tone of familiar conversation with pre-teens (no-offense to the youth as they probably see through this BS too). It is arguably worse than the McCarthyisms spewed by Napolitano, Pistole and countless Senators in defense of the tactics.

shin_lao• 14 years ago

I don't think there is any attempt at anything.

It's just written by someone not very intelligent supervised by someone of similar intelligence swimming in a sea of mediocrity.

ktizo2• 14 years ago

...wallowing in an ocean of despair, on a planet of delusion. ;)

betterth2• 14 years ago

Exactly. Someone got assigned to "blog duty" at the TSA, of which TSA management has no idea what a blog is, or why it is important, but there is a regulation somewhere, or a rule, that says the TSA must maintain a blog. So someone maintains a blog.

This is my estimation of the situation.

A Hanlon's Razor moment: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

joshz• 14 years ago

Just a way to make you feel good about not having a say.

tobinfricke• 14 years ago

"A video is making its way around the interwebs this morning from some guy claiming he figured out a way to beat our body scanners (imaging technology)."

I couldn't read any further.

stfu• 14 years ago

I have the slight suspicion that the TSA is going to remember the name of "some guy" very well when it comes to letting him board a plane anytime soon.

khafra• 14 years ago

Alignment: Affable Evil

DanBC2• 14 years ago

If people haven't read 1984 recently they should give it another go.

> But always — do not forget this, Winston — always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless.

This appears to describe behaviour of a small[1] number of border guards and customs agents seen in a number of recent HN threads.

> If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever.

At least Big Brother worked. I don't know what's worse about the jokey incompetence of the blog post: the fact that it hopelessly missed the mark for correct tone; or the thought that maybe they actually believed it; or that most people will just shrug their shoulders and think "meh, so what?" and do nothing more about it.

[1] for various values of small, possibly including "most of them".

bootstampface• 14 years ago

> most people will just shrug their shoulders and think "meh, so what?"

AKA, Ipad3 is out, let's go shopping!

tomkin• 14 years ago

> It’s one of the best tools available to detect metallic and non-metallic items, such as… you know… things that go BOOM.

This is uncharacteristic - for a national security organization - even as a blog post. When people question authority, and the emperor has no clothes: resort to fear-mongering and keywords that incite panic? Check.

This blog post is going to be archived and referenced for the next decade. I'd say some restructuring is about to be pushed down TSA's throats. BOOM indeed.

charlieok• 14 years ago

One of the best images I can recall that capture "big brother jokey"

http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20091026215221/harrypo...

shalmanese• 14 years ago

That would be Terry Gilliam's Brazil.

wtvanhest• 14 years ago

This person's quote from the comments about sums it up.

"This was such a carefully worded blog post that one can safely conclude that the vulnerability described in the video is true.

I especially like your use of phrases like "some guy" and "crude attempt" in an attempt to discredit the allegations without actually addressing the allegations themselves."

drivebyacct22• 14 years ago

>It is completely safe and the vast majority use a generic image that completely addresses privacy concerns.

Well that makes me feel great. Guess they decided they been caught blatantly lying on that point before so they decided to reiterate it, just with sufficiently vague qualifiers.

Maxious• 14 years ago

"Imaging technology has been extremely effective in the field"

Isn't it 30% effective in auditor tests.... oh wait you have a post that claims 30% is inaccurate but doesn't actually disprove the figure or provide accurate figures: http://blog.tsa.gov/2010/12/70-detection-failure-rate-being....

philwelch2• 14 years ago

"Vast majority", eh? Yeah, I guess the "vast majority" aren't the young, attractive women you always hear about them disproportionately scanning.

drivebyacct22• 14 years ago

Is this the case? It's not terribly surprising, I just hadn't seen stats for that.

tsigo• 14 years ago

If this weren't on a .gov site I'd think this was satire. As it is, it's just scary and sad.

AdleyEskridge• 14 years ago

I had the same reaction.

My eyes kept twitching from "things that go BOOM" to the URL, to the conceivably-fake logo, back to "things that go BOOM", back to the URL, back to the logo, etc. It took me a good six to seven seconds before reality sunk in.

I'm really hoping that this is simply an example of an organization that neither takes its blog seriously nor provides much oversite over its content. If anyone at the TSA read this post and signed off on it—wow.

The author of this post made no attempt to dispute the video, instead focusing on the fact that their are other security measures. Oh, and the author inexplicably felt it would be important mentioned that you can opt-out of the scanners if you want. What did I just read?!

sharth• 14 years ago

To be honest, I'm still not sure if the post was because the blog was hacked.

mcantelon2• 14 years ago

"Body scanners don't work, but we do other stuff too." Jesus.

Jimmie2• 14 years ago

This is a succinct, hilarious and accurate summation. I salute you.

functionoid• 14 years ago

Tax payers money...billions...not sure what testing they did before buying or they knew it and still bought them because they got their cut.

ryguytilidie• 14 years ago

"We're actually safe, I'm not going to give any evidence of this, just trust me".

Seems fair.

brevityness• 14 years ago

So, this is where our tax payers' money is going? Sigh.

shingen2• 14 years ago

That last paragraph is a doozy.

Completely addresses privacy concerns; is completely safe; oh and hey, it's completely optional, assuming you don't prefer molestation and possibly randomly missing your flight.

otterley• 14 years ago

... and nowhere do they deny that the method presented actually works.

shingen2• 14 years ago

The fascinating thing about their claimed 20 layers of security, is also that a failure by any single layer can result in a terrorist attack succeeding.

They surprisingly don't point that out. (har har)

stretchwithme• 14 years ago

yeah, get all your info about the government FROM the government. No conflict of interest there.

So, why did they defer those safety studies anyway? Just a scheduling conflict? Too busy with an election?

The things that we have to be subjected to just to satisfy campaign contributors.

ard0r• 14 years ago

This is a non-serious response. I think I'm going to talk to my congressperson about this.

AgentConundrum• 14 years ago

I can't believe that this is the official TSA blog. I can understand trying to take steps to avoid the usual ridiculously dry press release style articles that governments and big businesses normally have, but.. this was just unprofessional.

You have "Blogger Bob" telling us to ignore the video "some guy" made and that everything's fine because this is just one of the way they protect you from "things that go BOOM".

Also, the blog never disputes the video. There is no text that tries to say that the video was faked or anything, or provides any indication that the video and the vulnerabilities contained therein aren't exactly as they appear.

Finally, just because I'm feeling particularly nitpicky tonight: they're using Blogger's favicon and are hosted on Google's servers (DNS resolves to ghs.l.GOOGLE.COM). Maybe it's just me, but that strikes me as a touch unprofessional as well.

rogerbinns• 14 years ago

Guess how many of the people who work on the ground airside are scanned?

In any event the TSA is not taking enough credit here. Did you know their scanners have prevented meteorites? They have also prevented tiger attacks. Since installing them there has not been a single instance of meteorites hitting planes or tiger attacks on planes. I think the US government should borrow even more money so we can get them to also prevent giraffe attacks.

cskau• 14 years ago

Also snakes.

wpietri• 14 years ago

Shorter TSA: We're not going to deny that this guy can bring whatever he wants through, but having screened 600m passengers in the last year, we did once find a gun and some drugs. So you're safe! And if you don't think a dose of radiation is a good trade for pretend security, you can always wait another 15 minutes for a grumpy person to grope you.

newman314• 14 years ago

The flippant behavior exhibited makes me both alarmed and angry.

Here's an interview with Blogger Bob that Google returned: http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20063825-281.html

Apparently, being snarky on the government dime pays quite well. Dude appears to be rocking a Rolex.

DevX101• 14 years ago

I'm almost impressed by the linguistic gymnastics taken here to avoid saying outright that they got caught with their pants down.

The post concludes on an entirely unrelated point to the premise of the post

|Anybody can opt out of the body scanner for a pat-down.

Sure, I'm carrying in a gun in my shirt pocket I'd like to get on the plane. Let me just request the patdown to make sure I get caught.

brlewis• 14 years ago

That sentence was there for the benefit of people with safety questions about the scanners. For more information on the medical uncertainties, follow the link labeled "completely safe" to the Archives of Internal Medicine article and look under "Related Article".

suprgeek• 14 years ago

This has got to be one of the stupidest and (unintentionally) scary responses ever to a serious attempt to question security.

- Ad-Hominem attacks on the person raising the questions

- No direct refutatio of the specific points raised in the Video

- Co-relation and causation confusion (we have found x hence we are effective against the things in the video)

- Pathetic attempt at informal tone of voice

- Appeal to Stats and big impressive numbers when none is justified

In short - Americans need to be really upset that their security is handled by these buffoons. -

meow3• 14 years ago

the tone really got me.. it's like an alien infested corpse trying to mix with normal humans...

eplanit• 14 years ago

"tiny pill or tiny baggies of drugs" go BOOM?? I can't help but notice the glossing over of the mission creep.

[quote from article] ... Imaging technology has been extremely effective in the field and has found things artfully concealed on passengers as large as a gun or nonmetallic weapons, on down to a tiny pill or tiny baggies of drugs. It’s one of the best tools available to detect metallic and non-metallic items, such as… you know… things that go BOOM.

tnuc• 14 years ago

I for one feel a lot safer thanks to this blog post from the TSA.

Keep up the great work TSA and thank you for putting my worries to rest.

-- Do I need to put sarcasm tags?

rythie2• 14 years ago

In any case, surely the weakest link is airports in less developed countries, which always seem to be much less secure to me.

einhverfr5• 14 years ago

I dunno. They have different threat profiles, and usually implement security to suit that threat profile.

hub_• 14 years ago

You work for TSA? 'cause that the kind of reasoning coming from TSA.

rythie2• 14 years ago

Is it? I don't much about them since I live in the U.K. it just seems generally when I've been travelling, mostly to less developed countries, that the airports aren't really that secure.

warren-g• 14 years ago

Not that I'm condoning the machines, and perhaps I'm missing something, but...

Couldn't this "vulnerability" be fixed if they took two scans? Take one of front/back (current approach) and then ask the person to turn 90 degrees and take another scan? to see the sides?

replax• 14 years ago

Yes it could.

The problem with that is, that it a) doubles the amount of time needed to scan one person and b) doubles the duration of exposure to radiation.

therefore, we'd be better of with metal detectors. Aside from that, the TSA would have to explain, that body scanners are useless without scanning twice and we therefore need to expose you to the double amount of radiation...

toomuchtodo• 14 years ago

Doesn't the current scan take 3-5 seconds, and then you have a wait upwards of 20-30 seconds to get the "all clear" from the TSA agent in front of you who was radioed from the agent viewing the body scanner image? Ridiculous.

evan_• 14 years ago

If I had to turn 90° I would hide contraband in the loose sleeves of my shirt, and I would hold my arms forward slightly, so that when I was turned perpendicular with the beams, the contraband was forward of my center of mass.

gaius• 14 years ago

Stand back people, TSA Blog Team is on the case!

More seriously, these jokers let terrorists waltz on board planes (e.g. The Shoebomber) and only the passengers, treated like criminals by TSA, stop them.

Time to send the rentacops back to the mall.

endersshadow• 14 years ago

The Shoe Bomber took a flight from France, which is not under TSA jurisdiction [1]. It's important to note that the TSA only operates in US airports.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Reid_(shoe_bomber)#Bomb...

mrmaddog• 14 years ago

2 days ago, from a BusinessWeek article about the author of the blog post:

“I call it the corny dad approach. I’m basically the Bob Saget of blogging,” the 41-year-old tells Bloomberg Businessweek. “This isn’t really the most exciting subject, so I thought I should inject some personality into it.” Three years removed from working the security lines himself—he used to train TSA officers at the Cincinnati airport—Blogger Bob has clearly gained some perspective on the experience. [1]

Whether or not entertainment has a place in government blogging is an argument for another day, but I think we can all agree that under no circumstances should this type of blog post ever be allowed as an official government response.

[1] http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-03-05/why-cant-the...

Linka4356• 14 years ago

Surely he means "Danny Tanner," as Bob Saget is hardly a "corny dad." Not surprised at the mistake though.

epoxyhockey• 14 years ago

For those that have not seen the real Bob Saget: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HW4mPZmKPM

plf• 14 years ago

If there was any doubt as to whether the original technique described in the original video worked, this blog post has just confirmed it.

InclinedPlane• 14 years ago

Number of terrorist attacks detected and thwarted by TSA measures since 2001: Zero

Number of terrorist attacks attempted since 2001 over US airspace: MORE THAN ZERO

tsaoutourpants• 14 years ago

Blogger Bob is just another part of the TSA's layered approach to bullshitology. I'm glad it's transparent to all, and thank you again for covering this issue.

steve19• 14 years ago

You, sir, are a hero!

(tsaoutourpants is Jonathan Corbett)

stewbrew• 14 years ago

It seems they don't watch German television shows: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrKvweNugnQ

quink3• 14 years ago

OK, this is the most shocking thing I've seen in a while...

I've never seen anything so awesomely refuted. Even if you don't speak German, watch it. Basically, they do a scan of the man, who claims to be carrying a swiss army knife, and only find a mobile and the microphone transmitter on the back that's inevitable since they're on TV.

However, the man is carrying thermite (three vials), an igniter for the thermite, a vial that can contain even more explosive and a normal igniter.

They claimed that in an airport situation he'd be wearing the jacket and that they'd also have done a side view. Which is funny because these scanners can penetrate clothing while showing skin - that's the whole point of them... and a side view wouldn't have helped much considering that he was carrying something in his mouth and near his lower back.

They take the stuff (which is made from materials available in any pharmacy for a 'few cent') outside that he carried in his lower back area and set it on fire, which melts through the pan.

One of the body-scanner people calls the whole thing 'limitedly funny'. Then he says that "I don't know if we're well advised if we say 'look how stupid the terrorists are' if they'd do it like a professor advises, 'then we could bring down a 747'".

The professor moves the pan a bit and the whole thing ignites a bit more. The whole screen turns white before the camera person decides to move back a little.

rpstrong2• 14 years ago

If anything, the video supports the use of the TSA's active screening technologies (backscatter and millimeter wave devices). The scanner being used is neither of these, it is an entirely passive device - see: http://www.thruvision.com/Products/TS4_Sub_Pages/TS4_Product... for a brief explanation of their technology. While ThruVision's scanner is arguably safer, it is clearly deficient in detecting threats.

And it isn't being used by the TSA. In fact, ThruVision's website does not cite a single instance of their scanner being used anywhere in the world for passenger screening.

In other words, the video has NOTHING to do with current screening technology.

kristofferR• 14 years ago

It's subtitled in English here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idICUSiGcqo

grepherder3• 14 years ago

OK, I will play the devil's advocate.

Yes, he does not deny or dispute whether the method works as claimed.

The otherwise hip language is not helping nor does it sound sincere, I agree.

But, if we want to stay objective:

1) He describes the demonstration in the video as a "crude attempt", which is in certain ways true. Neither is the attempt too sophisticated, nor the documentation of it, or should I say especially the documentation. The video itself is lacking in scientific argumentation, and makes up for the lack thereof with unnecessary political rhetoric that I don't need to be fed to see the simple "flaw" he claims to have discovered - more about that now...

2) The person in the video may or may not be sincere about his claims, but he definitely is not the first person to point out this "flaw". It was known publicly for a very long time, and it is reasonable to assume people who developed and approved the system were well aware of it.

3) Everyone is pointing out that there is no attempt at a "scientific" refutation in the blog post. Well, he is right in stating that their claim never was that they can catch any single concealed object with the body scanner. I don't see what it is exactly that he needs to refute. It is indeed part of a layered system, and I can't see how anyone can disagree with this concept. I'm not saying the scanner is a reasonable layer or that it should stay - but if your argument is "it has to work 100% or it has to go", it is pretty weak. He doesn't really evade any serious accusation here - he simply points out the obvious and reinstates their claim: what was shown in the video is uninteresting, because the body scanner was never about catching metal boxes sewn to the side of a shirt with 98.5% confidence.

You can argue the body scanner is an economical disaster, dispute it on the basis of privacy or bring up health concerns, but I like to stay objective. There is nothing wrong with this post, as a response to the demonstration in the video, beyond the silly language.

meow3• 14 years ago

the % would not matter if you can fool it 100% in a well defined flow...

grepherder3• 14 years ago

I understand that. The point is there are very few (if any) single security layers, physical or digital, that can claim otherwise, i.e. that can't be "fooled 100% in a well defined flow". People here should be aware of that more than most.

beagle33• 14 years ago

What you wrote is true. So is e.g. the statement that there is an infinite number of numbers. And they are almost equally relevant to the discussion here.

> You can argue the body scanner is an economical disaster, dispute it on the basis of privacy or bring up health concerns, but I like to stay objective. There is nothing wrong with this post, as a response to the demonstration in the video, beyond the silly language.

The post does not address the main criticism in the video, which is that the body scanner does not actually help with security.

> It was known publicly for a very long time, and it is reasonable to assume people who developed and approved the system were well aware of it.

That is true. And a reasonable conclusion, advocated by the video as well, is that the people who developed and approved the system don't actually care if it offers any security advantage.

The TSA's post only makes sense if you live in a world where the TSA's job is to grow, expand, gain more power, influence and budgets. And so does your analysis of it.

grepherder3• 14 years ago

> The post does not address the main criticism in the video, which is that the body scanner does not actually help with security.

I think it is the majority here that fell for the causation-correlation fallacy. Just because you can cheat a security system with high confidence does not make it obsolete on that grounds alone. Imagine a hypothetical security system that keeps you from taking any kind of firearm, but lets knives pass through. Well, yes, then the "terrorists" can still arm themselves with katanas and wreak havoc, but it did stop them from doing the same with Uzis, which might decrease the impact of such an attack.

> The TSA's post only makes sense if you live in a world where the TSA's job is to grow, expand, gain more power, influence and budgets. And so does your analysis of it.

It is a dangerous thing to evaluate rational argumentation in a political context - sadly something we see too often - especially if you want this argumentation to hold universally, including extending it to the Congress. All I'm saying is if you base your argument against TSA on the premise presented in the video, you aren't likely to be taken seriously by the same fraction who approved of this system in the first place and continue to support it. There are many good arguments against the body scanners and the TSA in general, focusing on a hyped viral video lacking a sound rationale only weakens your cause.

quink3• 14 years ago

Tagged this in delicious.

Wondering if it'll show up with my tags... http://delicious.com/quink

Can someone else tag it too with my tags and it might show up on their page...?

marcamillion• 14 years ago

This definitely looks like the beginning of the end for at least the body scanners.

If that video brought on so much heat that they had to respond like this and drop the ball so much, queue more public outrage and major back-pedalling in 3.....2.....1....

beagle33• 14 years ago

If only that were true.

Can you think of a case in history where continued government incompetence (or outright malice, depending on your point of view) that was demonstrated and gained a lot of valid criticism and public outrage, actually resulted in a change?

toyg• 14 years ago

Their "20 layers of security" reminds me of your usual "7 proxies" and "over 9000": meaningless over-the-top numbers with no relationship with reality.

aprescott• 14 years ago

Astonishing blog post.

Imaging technology has been extremely effective in the field and has found things artfully concealed on passengers as large as a gun or nonmetallic weapons, on down to a tiny pill or tiny baggies of drugs.

This reminded me of part of the recent TSA Fail post by a former FBI agent.

Civil libertarians on both sides of the aisle should be appalled at an unauthorized use to which TSA is putting their screening: Identifying petty criminals--using one search method to achieve a secret goal. This is strictly forbidden in other government branches. In the FBI, if I had a warrant to wiretap an individual on a terrorism matter and picked-up evidence of a non-terrorism-related crime, I could not, without FBI Headquarters and a judge’s approval, use that as evidence in a criminal case. But TSA is using its screening devices to carve out a niche business. According to congress, TSA began to seek out petty criminals without congressional approval. TSA have arrested more than 1,000 people on drug charges and other non-airline security-related offenses to date.

http://gmancasefile.blogspot.in/2012/01/tsa-fail.html

guynamedloren• 14 years ago

Today, I am not proud to be an American. Thanks TSA.

danssig• 14 years ago

Why were you ever proud of something that just happened to you having nothing what so ever to do with any actions you took yourself?

prodigal_erik• 14 years ago

Some people say "proud of X" when they mean "refuse to feel shame about X". It bugs me a little also.

justanotheratom• 14 years ago

Can someone post a link to the viral video they are referring to? I can't seem to find it (I live in a cave).

meow3• 14 years ago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olEoc_1ZkfA

johnx123-up• 14 years ago

http://tsaoutofourpants.wordpress.com/2012/03/06/1b-of-nude-...

Animus7• 14 years ago

> For obvious security reasons, we can’t discuss our technology's detection capability in detail...

The way I read it:

For obvious job security reasons, we can’t discuss our technology's detection capability in detail...

Anyway, I sure feel safe knowing that the security of my life is entrusted to obscurity, and I'm thankful for the trolling TSA blog posts that remind me of this.

user24• 14 years ago

> For obvious security reasons, we can’t discuss our technology's detection capability in detail...

Yes, because security through obscurity is an effective policy.

neilmiddleton• 14 years ago

"things that go BOOM"

nagrom2• 14 years ago

The pie-chart on the delete-o-meter on that blog sidebar doesn't reflect the numbers underneath it. At present, there are 50k accepted comments and 17k deleted, but the deleted slice is much less than 25%.

tuxguy2• 14 years ago

As an Indian, i am always envious & jealous of how govt agencies & systems work so much better in the US than in India. So i was really shocked to see this blog post, after the said govt agency's credibility has been seriously damaged (by the viral video)

"... things that go BOOM"

Are you f*ing kidding me ? Is that how a govt official is supposed to communicate ? Leave alone the content, but the tone of the post is very crass, insensitive & insulting.

Unfortunately, this is becoming increasingly common, even in some of the most liberal cities in the US & the world.. San Francisco bay area.

Check out http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2890052 & http://bit.ly/bartisevil on the high-handedness of BART PD (Bay Area Rapid Transit)

whalesalad• 14 years ago

Uhh am I the only one here who isn't planning on reading too deeply into this? Seems like TSA got pwnt by lulzsec or anonymous?

Uchikoma2• 14 years ago

The most interesting thing in that post was on what they focus. One would have that it was terrorism, but no, they spread their attention by looking for drugs with those body scanners. Feeling safe now.

adrianwaj• 14 years ago

Confidence Trickster Bob should go through a con artist scanner. It'd explode.

jcromartie• 14 years ago

This is even worse than I thought the scanners were. THIS is what the operator sees? http://www.tsa.gov/approach/tech/ait/privacy.shtm

That means that it's a complete black-box and if you just beat the scanner's algorithms, you beat the scanner operators too.

What a complete and utter joke.

einhverfr5• 14 years ago

The blog article is extremely funny.

I keep thinking, "If this were a post by Microsoft about a security vulnerability report, I'd be in business doing Linux migrations for the rest of my life."

reader5000• 14 years ago

Just astounding. As soon as I read "interwebs" I had to check to make sure this was an official communications channel of a Federal agency. Mind is blown. Is this the same level of people running the CIA/FBI? What is going on?

philwelch2• 14 years ago

The TSA are clowns, but the CIA/FBI are deadly serious by all accounts I've heard. They're far more dangerous to be on the wrong side of.

mattezell• 14 years ago

It would appear that Wired came to the same conclusion as the blogger - http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/qn0su/wiredcom_con...

methoddk• 14 years ago

What an ignorantly worded blog post. By the TSA?! Come on.

If anything, this post does nothing but give the impression that the flaw in the scanners IS true.

CF_riseAbove• 14 years ago

Methinks thou dost protest too much TSA

GBond• 14 years ago

Tone is baffling... only explanation is the official blog is trying to spoof their spoof?

https://twitter.com/#!/tsagov (TSA satire)

jroseattle• 14 years ago

Well, Bob (original author) -- as if the situation couldn't be more magnified, your post has simply added to the impression that the TSA is mostly public hand-waving in the place of real security.

"Crude" attempt? "you know… things that go BOOM"? I sincerely hope you take anyone's claim seriously, public or otherwise, that they can circumvent any security measure put in place by the TSA. The tone of your blog post smacks of disregard; if you thought it would invoke confidence on the part of the reader, you thought wrong.

The biggest defense put forth: well, we have other security detection methods so, hah!

Don't you get that the point about the body scanners is that they can be beaten? That they're superfluous to the security regimen? That if you can't defend them directly, they serve no real purpose? That's the point of the video, and it's completely lost on you (and obviously others for whom you speak.)

As is the impression among so many travelers, the TSA confuses "feeling safe" with "being safe" and it appears your post simply reinforces that view.

Visions of the SNL parody skit from years ago come to mind.

xster• 14 years ago

I have a feeling this response is doing them far more harm than good. It's just a simple admission that everything stated was true and I'm going to make it into a high school argument and call you some guy with some crude video that's irrelevant.

erode• 14 years ago

I've never believed something less than the words in this blog post.

RealAmerican• 14 years ago

The really funny thing is that this guy is probably making between $93,00 - $142,000 (paid by us). Look at this job listing for a TSA program analyst: http://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/311287200

...with tasks like "You will develop and approve solutions to current and anticipated problems"

I think Blogger Bob is writing some of these job descriptions, too.

Makes me sick.

Here are the benefits Blogger Bob gets: DHS offers competitive salaries and an attractive benefits package, including: health, dental, vision, life, and long-term care insurance; retirement plan; Thrift Savings Plan [similar to a 401(k)]; Flexible Spending Account; Employee Assistance Program; personal leave days; and paid federal holidays. Other benefits may include: flexible work schedules; telework; tuition reimbursement; transportation subsidies; uniform allowance; health and wellness programs; and fitness centers. DHS is committed to employee development and offers a variety of employee training and developmental opportunities. For more information, go to www.dhs.gov/careers and select "benefits."

ojosilva• 14 years ago

To me the bad thing about the TSA, and counterterrorism in general, is that every day that goes by without an attack reinforces whatever methods and expenses they might incur.

But the worse is that only a terrible event could prove them wrong and stop the nonsense.

hgasdasdgdj• 14 years ago

All the comments here sucks ass

"It’s one of the best tools available to detect metallic and non-metallic items, such as… you know… things that go BOOM. "

If you shat out an emotion frmo that sentence, you too much of a baby to use the internet, LEAVE.

presto8• 14 years ago

I was at the airport last week and got randomly selected for the backscatter x-ray machine. I was told to remove everything from my pockets, including things that I would normally keep for going through a metal detector (passport, papers, wallet, etc.).

The scan went fine, but on the other side, the TSA agent noticed that due to the fold of my jeans, it looked like I had something in my pocket. He said he had to pat me down to make sure I didn't have anything in there.

Which made me seriously doubt the efficacy of the backscatter machines. What's the point of the machine if something could slip through that would still necessitate a physical body search?

rbanffy• 14 years ago

What shocks me most is the abundance of anonymous comments, probably fearful of how the TSA can make life miserable for them.

reidmain• 14 years ago

"For obvious security reasons, we can’t discuss our technology's detection capability in detail"

Security through obscurity.

Are they afraid that if they disclose information people would somehow be able to find holes? If this is the case then why is this technology used? Why have gapping holes already been pointing out by numerous people?

Thinking that "the terrorists" don't have the ability to break this system without understanding the intricate details of it is just downright stupid.

mangoman• 14 years ago

The post mentioned that the scanners are one of 20 layers of security and mentions Behavioral detection, Explosive Detection Canines, Federal Air Marshall etc as some of the other "layers" of security. I wanted to see what these 20 layers were, and I really didn't see anything that would "protect" against someone exploiting the scanners like the video demonstrated. In fact one of the "layers" of security was "Intelligence". How comforting. If you want to see some serious security theater, check out http://www.tsa.gov/what_we_do/layers/index.shtm.

This blog post is just feels forced, and makes me a little quesy...

ghshephard• 14 years ago

" down to a tiny pill or tiny baggies of drugs. "

Is this for real? When did the TSA start doing drug searches? Can they effect arrests?

I'll be honest - I'm a little shocked that a supposedly "official" blogging site is writing like a half-tweaked 13 year old and is bragging about doing drug searches at a supposed check for weapons.

It's also pretty irresponsible to make claims about the scanning system like, " It is completely safe " - I suspect that "Blogger Bob Burns" neither has the background, nor the authority to make such claims (let alone the knowledge). About all he(?) should be doing is suggesting which certifying authority has provided a clean-bill-of-health on their scanners.

All in all the most disturbing thing I've read in a couple weeks.

Viral Video About Body Scanners

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