Engineer Shows TSA Nude Scanners are Useless

[cthulu2016]

Security Theater: Engineer Shows TSA Nude Scanners are Useless, Sues TSA

Meanwhile, there have been reports of U.S. Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) officials abusing the devices to make fun of peoples' genitals. And reports also indicate health risks and the possibility that the DHS may be storing nudes scans of people for later reference.

But the most damning piece of evidence against the scanners yet may have just landed, delivered by college-educated engineer Jonathan Corbett, who runs the blog "TSA Out of Our Pants".

Mr. Corbett has identified a weakness in the device, which essentially renders them useless. He reasoned that both the older backscatter machines and the new millimeter wave scanners all relied on contrast with the body to "see" items, such as weapons or bomb-making chemicals. So he decided to see what happened if a secret pocket was stitched into a shirt, well off of the body.

He tested the theory using a metal case stored inside a secret pocket. Had he put the object in his chest pocket, it would have been spotted in the scans and he would almost certainly have been detained. But by using the secret side pocket, which was not contrasted against his body, he eluded both the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport's backscatter machine and the Cleveland-Hopkins International Airport's newest millimeter wave machine.

http://www.dailytech.com/Security+Theater+Engineer+Shows+TSA+Nude+Scanners+are+Useless+Sues+TSA/article24179.htm

[Turbineguy]

1. Put a

zucchini down there. That should help.

[Swede Atlanta]

2. This doesn't surprise me at all....

I swear our government has some of the most stupid people working for it. There never was any basis to believe these expensive machines would do anything to improve security. Now we know a secret pocket will work. What about simply putting plastic blow-up stuff in a condom and inserting it up the rectum. Tie it off with a piece of string and let the string hang out of the anus. All you do is remove yourself to a private place such as an aircraft bathroom, extract the blow-up stuff and do the deed.

We waste more money and time in this country. It is no wonder we have a deficit.

[gratuitous]

3. Those machines aren't useless

Unless, of course, you bought the notion that the scanners were supposed to be used to enhance "security." But if you re-purpose the machines, they are quite useful. The folks who make the scanners make a butt-load of money. The TSA officials get a chance to laugh at your small penis or ogle your large breasts. For those uses, the scanners are quite useful.

I suppose we could ratchet back the hysteria over security, implement workable, common-sense approaches, and focus our time and energy on being a better world citizen so that "terrorists" wouldn't be so anxious to kill Americans in retaliation for our military and economic misdeeds.

Naaaaahhh!

[aikoaiko]

4. Isnt the fix simply to scan the sides of the body too?

[cthulu2016]

7. It's not that the pocket is on the side

It's that the pocket is out away from the body. The scanner looks through clothes so by making an object distant from the body surface the scanner sees through it.

[SATIRical]

10. Yes

Randomly putting some people at 45 degree angles would still allow them to see everything and would defeat this strategy.

[emulatorloo]

5. "Some People Say" TSA agents are making fun of people's genitals.

You have to watch out for all this "Some People Say" stuff. Remember the ultimate goal is to discredit the TSA and "privatize" it.

[TransitJohn]

6. They're not useless....they're very, very profitable for a Chertoff-backed corporation. eom

n/t

[pipoman]

8. Kick

Civil liberties may actually be restored on this issue..

[Gormy Cuss]

9. Cool, but that took an engineer to figure out. What's the chance that terrorists know engineering?

The scanner are and always have been about two things: 1)security theater,, and 2)lining the pockets of the manufacturers.