German Police Admit That Full Body Naked Airport Scanners Suck; 35% False Alarm Rate
from the that's-worse-than-useless dept
We've noted all sorts of privacy and health problems related to full body "naked" scanners -- but there's a separate but important question: do they actually work? There's been some evidence presented that they wouldn't have spotted a variety of recent terrorism attempts, but now German police have noted that the machines also have a ridiculously high false alarm rate:The weekly, Welt am Sonntag, quoting a police report, said 35 percent of the 730,000 passengers checked by the scanners set off the alarm more than once despite being innocent.I would argue that this is actually worse than useless, in that providing a significant number of false positives makes it much, much harder to spot the actual positives. It desensitizes agents to assume that any alarm is a false alarm.
The report said the machines were confused by several layers of clothing, boots, zip fasteners and even pleats, while in 10 percent of cases the passenger's posture set them off.
[....]
In the wake of the 10-month trial which began on September 27 last year, German federal police see no interest in carrying out any more tests with the scanners until new more effective models become available, Welt am Sonntag said.
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What do you want to bet?
On the other hand, you know there was major lack of due diligence from the US government because of some lucrative government contract farmed out to a major campaign supporter.
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Re: What do you want to bet?
Receipt? We don't give no steenkin' receipts!
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That's just because there haven't been any courses that teach children proper posture anymore.
I'm sure if we mandated a "government approved posture program", we will see a sharp drop off in false positives due to posture.
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Well said comrade.
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The Full Body Naked Scanner that Cried Terrorist.
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Re:
The Emperor's new Blocking System
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more than once?
How many set it off only once, despite being innocent?
"they trigger an alarm unnecessarily in seven out of 10 cases"
Is that seven out of ten passengers screened set off an alarm unnecessarily? Or only that 70% of the alarms are false alarms?
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Re: more than once?
"Their biggest drawback is the so-called alarm rate. It lies, as it says in the "Welt am Sonntag" this confidential report, at 70 percent. In other words, in two out of three controlled passengers struck the detector."
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.welt.de/politik /deutschland/article13516870/Der-Pannenscanner-viel-Kleidung-viel-Alarm.html
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Re: more than once?
10% of the total triggered the alarm because of bad posture.
70% of the cases where the alarm triggered were false positives.
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Re: more than once?
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dream job
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Just like the alarms at the exit doors of Wal-Mart
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Re: Just like the alarms at the exit doors of Wal-Mart
I have no idea why they even have an alarm if they're not allowed to do anything about it ...
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Re: Re: Just like the alarms at the exit doors of Wal-Mart
You really can't accuse someone of stealing, but the alarms, the aisle walks, etc exist to give lifters the impression that they are being watched.
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Re: Re: Re: Just like the alarms at the exit doors of Wal-Mart
Strangely enough, it doesn't hurt business to kick out those folks who were costing you money every visit. Who knew?
It doesn't surprise me that wal-mart has such a high shoplifting rate . . .
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Re: Re: Just like the alarms at the exit doors of Wal-Mart
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Re: Re: Just like the alarms at the exit doors of Wal-Mart
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Re: Just like the alarms at the exit doors of Wal-Mart
This is also what happened at Chernobyl.
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What are the standards for a false alarm? The unit blocking an area for further checking? Hmmm, that sounds more like "areas that the machine can't accurately check that require manual inspection" rather than a false alarm.
Is there like lights and a siren and stuff, or just an operator going "check this person some more"?
Mike, I know you want these machines to go away, but can you please at least try to not over-hype everything negative you read about them?
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That's the same thing as a false alarm as the machine identifies suspicious items or areas. It's not a "bomb" or "gun" detector, it's a detector of odd stuff.
Regardless, the machine is looking for something that is present on a very small fraction of the people checked. If it identifies 1:3 as being possible violators, it is useless. False alarm rate is very important for sensors/detectors, especially those looking for rare things. Almost every single person who sets the machine off is innocent, so the alarm means nothing.
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Yeah, somehow I think a pat down is better than giving up all my rights.
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Then, by your argument, your rights can be stripped until you only have one right left.
The million-dollar question: Which right do you choose to keep? (And do you really believe that you'd be allowed to choose?)
I don't like you world...
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Re: Re:
Citation please.
"... plus large guns on board most of their flagship airlines flights."
Sounds like an excellent deterrent.
"Yeah, somehow I think a pat down is better than giving up all my rights."
Yeah, somehow I think that there's no reason for me to lose my rights in order for you to have the illusion of security. If you're worried about flying, then don't fly. But don't expect all the rest of us to get scanned or groped so you can feel better.
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You are supposed to strip down to almost naked BEFORE going into the naked body scanners.
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Clearly you did not get the latest memo on "standard procedures".
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Why
Thanks Casey Mahoney
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So if there are false positives . . .
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Re: So if there are false positives . . .
If I remember correctly, only one terrorist attempt has been made in a plane since the porn-scanners are in use. This terrorist was captured on the plane, not by the scanner.
Terrorists might have been captured by the scanners before boarding the plane. But I never heard about this. And whatever the number, it is vanishingly small compared to the number of normal passengers just flying from A to B.
The number you are looking for is either 100% or incomputable.
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Re: So if there are false positives . . .
http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/tcrp/tcrp_rpt_86v13.pdf
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Makes me think of store security scanners...
"The Boy who Cried Wolf" is more than 2500 years old and is embedded in our culture, even to having its own idiom, and we haven't figured it out yet. Well, it looks like the Germans have. I guess we're not as smart as they are.
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