Backscatter Millimeter Wave Naked Scanners Confused By Folds In Clothing
from the feel-safer? dept
We're still waiting for anyone at the TSA to explain what they've caught with the naked
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Filed Under: backscatter, malfunction, scanners, tsa
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Millimeter wave, not backscatter
The scanners use millimetre-wave technology to produce outline images of bodies, with each scan lasting less than three seconds.
The millimeter wave scanners are a different technology than the x-ray backscatter. I hate both technologies and feel that they should have a very limited role at best in our airports. However, if you're going to complain, you kinda need to get the complaint right.
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Re: Millimeter wave, not backscatter
Whoops. Fixed.
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Re: Millimeter wave, not backscatter
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Re: Re: Re: Millimeter wave, not backscatter
Pre-moistning your pants might be a fun trick as well.
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Re: Re: Millimeter wave, not backscatter
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Scanner issues
For those of you that don't wear them, wander into the women's section at Target or a similar store some time... probably 75% of the bras have underwire.
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Re: Scanner issues
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You see, overseeing the implementation of ever more numerous and ridiculous knee-jerk reactions to a perceived threat that's been blown far out of proportion in a manner that would actually catch one or two of these fuckwits before their half-baked schemes end in embarrassing failure requires a certain amount of intelligence, wisdom and foresight.
However, anyone with enough intelligence, wisdom and foresight to make said restrictions work will eventually recognise them for the waste of effort and tax dollars that they patently are, and find another job. Eventually, the only people left to sort out the details of making them work are the stupid and the insane.
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Low dose of radiation.....
Go read about the Therac-25 radiation therapy machine that was designed to SAVE lives but instead took them:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25
Then imagine how many people could be hurt from a malfunctioning full body scanner in a single day.
I sure hope these are not connected to a network of any kind, imagine terrorist hackers who modify the firmware to increase the radiation levels.
I'm sure someone will point out that there are likely safeguards to prevent such problems. To that I'll point out that the unsinkable Titanic, sank.
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Re: Low dose of radiation.....
Wow.. that's a fantastic level of evil. Didn't they say all the images are reviewed remotely? Meaning it's plugged into a network. Forget intercepting drone surveillance, Osama Bin Laden can now kill Americans without leaving Afghanistan. Thanks TSA
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Re: Low dose of radiation.....
Nonetheless, having sold machines like the Therac 25, I am sure that profits and pocket stuffing were a more important consideration than was public safety was in the implementation of this technology.
You can be sure that members of Congress will not be scanned. You can be sure that former government officials will profit from this program.
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Cars can drive themselves. Why not Airplanes?
Secondly, are humans really needed to fly planes anymore? Why don't we just replace pilots with robust drone software? Consider bolting the cockpit door closed; which can only be disarmed and opened remotely.
Google, I just identified your next project.
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Re: Cars can drive themselves. Why not Airplanes?
One more qualifier that might be good to add: check to see if they have life insurance.
Suicide means no payout, so a suicide bomber probably doesn't have life insurance. So don't let people without life insurance buy same-day one-way tickets for cash.
Problem solved.
You can close down the TSA now.
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Re: Re: Cars can drive themselves. Why not Airplanes?
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Re: Re: Cars can drive themselves. Why not Airplanes?
Sorry... I was an insurance agent for a life company. need to correct a small point to this: Suicide within the first two years = no payout. After those two years, it'll pay.
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Sweet sweet irony.
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Re: Sweet sweet irony.
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Only Folds of Clothing?
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If its passive, there is no problem with safety..
Rapiscan Systems’ Graphical User Interface (GUI) is an easy to understand tool - operators can identify hidden objects without confusion or delay. With training, a WaveScan 200 user can identify and locate hidden objects in realtime by observing event icons and detection boxes on a fullmotion video images. Each event’s video and passive millimeter wave images are digitally archived for later review, analysis, or evidentiary use. The JPEG images stored are millimeter wave images with no anatomical detail, thereby addressing privacy concerns."
Note that it is a PASSIVE system, there is no antenna, or radio or x-ray source, AT ALL.. no ionising or non ionising radiation at all..
Its just a video camera that sees at EHF extra high frequencies, and what it is looking at is your own bodies natural radiation at those frequencies, as you are alive and hot you radiate energy..
But if you have a lump of 'stuff' strapped to you, that will absord your natural radiation then that can be detected.
So there is no safety worry about being x-rayed constantly, so all you are complaining about is having a picture of you taken with see through clothes.. live with it.. I will.
I would refuse an x-ray scan, because its bad for my health, but this is nothing.. let em have their toys.. and cheap thrills..
Its a sure sign you lost that war on terror you had once upon a time..
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Re: If its passive, there is no problem with safety..
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WAKE UP ALREADY
Now will someone in Congress please please please wake the hell up and realize how many more murders are committed in the the US by US citizens vs the amount of casualties caused by terrorism against the US in the past 10 years.
In other words, the police are not allowed to violate our civil rights to "make us safer". The TSA is just setting a trend that may expand if its accepted without a fight.
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Re: Re: Re: Cars can drive themselves. Why not Airplanes?
This is why I don't agree with this supposed "Security" industry. Just because someone's hypothetical ideas are captured and turned into analysis, in has the ability to become a threat even if it's never demonstrated in real life.
This same procedural sequence and requirements to be a supposed security expert are the same needed to be a "Creative Director" at an advertising agency or scriptwriter. It's like producing a movie. Much like when a movie hits the theaters, only when the solution is launched, are all the datapoints captured and the risk is quantified.
What happened on 9/11 was a reverse "breaking of the fourth wall". My perspective is that 9/11 was an event which would have only allowed stories to be played out on stage could then be accepted as fact. So in response, what was created was an entire industry called "Security" based on something that should be caught on film with actors. This was the incorrect way to address the issue.
Now, what we need are more MythBuster-type people to test supposed hypotheticals before billions are spent putting in place systems which only add overhead expense and what amounts to government-mandated submission. Today, these are solutions put into place to solve problems dreamed up by people who should be in the scriptwriting business.
Another way to look at it: Consider that the financial provisions put into the Patriot Act didn't really help prevent the last financial melt-down. The monied interests needed permission to grope your financial records to determine risk, and ensure people who are sold derivatives and futures will stay around long enough to be profitable as a major factor to the extreme leverage was the little-known fact that financial obligations expire under death of the obligator. By having access to full financial records can a company determine potential life expectancy date. At the same time, they are able to accurately determine additional things such as political affiliation, and frankly, you're silly if you think some of the things we're starting to see aren't politically motivated.
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Kleenex, too
The last time I got scanned by one of those things, the security officer standing next to me got a transmission on her walkie talkie. She looked very serious and said things like, “uh-huh...okay...something in the pocket...” She looked me up and down and then said, “You have something in your pocket. I need you to empty your pocket.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out the weapon in question: a neatly-folded kleenex. “This?”
“Oh. It’s just a kleenex.”
Um, yeah.
So, apparently, kleenexes look like guns under x-ray machines.
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