TSA Wants Video Game To Train Screeners; Will It Award Bonus Points For Surliness and Long Lines?

from the high-score dept

Fri, Apr 27th 2007 5:31pm — Carlo Longino

Apparently folks at the TSA are a little jealous of the Army having its own video game, so they're looking to create their own video game to train airport security screeners. However, as Wired's Threat Level blog points out, a web-based game of this sort already exists. It sounds pretty realistic, too, since players have to "keep up with capricious, senseless and ever-mutating security rules, such as bans on shirts, ice cream or cow skulls." Somehow, though, given the TSA and DHS' level of competence when it comes to computers, you'd have to expect they'll still manage to spend lots of money on something that won't end up working too well.

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15 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 27 Apr 2007 @ 5:45pm

yeah, then they'll put it all on a laptop - and lose it.
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Justine, 27 Apr 2007 @ 7:27pm

I have found the TSA screeners to be extremely polite and courteous. We have a severely handicapped child, and always have to go through an intensive (and intrusive) secondary screening. They know it's bullshit taking apart a four-year-old's wheelchair to search for bombs, and they are also required to do a pat down screening of her entire body. The TSA screeners have been very decent, polite and apologetic to us every time we've had to go through this charade.
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Jeep Video, 27 Apr 2007 @ 8:25pm

Anything to help train them is worth it.
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GoblinJuice, 27 Apr 2007 @ 10:03pm

o_O Video games? Technology won't fix anything, when the people and policies are the problem.
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Pwntastic, 27 Apr 2007 @ 11:56pm

Nah, the video game will just end up making the screeners make their own bombs and kill people. Because we all know that video games induce violence.
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The Swiss Cheese Monster, 28 Apr 2007 @ 4:07am

What if a TSA agent goes bonkers and kills people standing in line?

Will this video game just become a scapegoat?
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Chris, 28 Apr 2007 @ 9:15am

Calling it a video game, instead of a virtual simulator education and training tool, is going to give it a bad connotation right off the bat. If the developers of the "game" are able to make it realistic enough to mimic real life scenarios then it might actualy help. I don't hold out much hope for it though. Especially when they allow bigger problems like http://www.flyclear.com/ to exist.
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rEdEyEz, 28 Apr 2007 @ 12:34pm

A game on Profiling? Awesome
...I wanna play!

What about extra points for surreptitious cavity searches? congenial groping?

Recruitment numbers are bound to go up!
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Apr 2007 @ 12:39pm

I dont know what the fuss is about, I don't travel often but the few time i have in the past few years, TSA has not given me or my family any problems and we get right through the checkpoints releativaly quickly.
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Rob, 28 Apr 2007 @ 1:01pm

The airport makes a difference
#9, it really depends on the airport. At smaller, less busy airports, the ratio of screeners to passengers is much higher, and neither the screeners nor the passengers are as stressed out. Also, those airports can be choosier about who they hire. On the other hand, the huge airports like O'Hare, LAX, Dallas, etc., pretty much have to take whatever they can get, and those poor underpaid tortured souls have to deal with huge mobs of impatient passengers.
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Steve, 28 Apr 2007 @ 5:02pm

TSA Screeners
I've never really had a problem with the TSA screeners when flying in the States. I'd say they're no more surly than the screeners in Canada. Then again, if I had to deal with the number of just plain stupid people who go through security every day, I'd probably be none too pleasant either.
The TSA guys in Vegas seem to be the best of the lot.
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Justine, 28 Apr 2007 @ 6:33pm

Re:
Interesting web link. Just a question. Does anyone have an ethical problem with someone who can afford to pay an extra fee being able to zip through the security lines at the airport? For a single person, $100 a year isn't too much, but a family of five, who has an extra $500 a year to spend on a fast pass to get through airport security?
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Apr 2007 @ 3:00am

my passport says born in Beirut so i always get extra attention at the airports.

I have to admit the most polite screeners are in the US airport.

Worst being in France.
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Dosquatch, 29 Apr 2007 @ 9:21pm

How long
until Jack Thompson brings a lawsuit trying to ban it?
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Nate, 30 Apr 2007 @ 10:15am

Re: Re:
The pass is really intended for business travellers who are flying every week and such. I fly over a quarter of a million miles a year and really wish that program would be put into place in Phoenix.
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