Schneier on Security

DULLES AIRPORT, Va. (WUSA) -- Investigators are looking into what can only be described as a major security breach.

How is this a security breach?

What Ethiopia clearly needs is their own TSA. I propose we donate ours to them.

Were they carrying more than 4 ounces of cleaning liquids?!

(from the article): ...The men went undiscovered for 36 hours, including a stop-over in Rome...

How in the heck did they go 36 hours without a restroom break? NASA piddlepacks?

@ Scott
"How is this a security breach?"
Escalated privileges, perhaps? They had authorization to clean the plane but not to fly on it.

How much room is there in the ceiling of an aircraft? I guess it beats being crushed by the wheels.

Careful - they may be trying to infiltrate the US long distance running team ...

> How much room is there in the ceiling of an aircraft?

Look the next time you are flying. The fuselage is round. Many widebodies are built with a normal height ceiling (so the lights and overhead bins are reachable), meaning a LOT of room above. Like, enough to walk around. But it depends.

However, like drop ceilings in offices, its not that sturdy. Not designed to hold the weight of people, so I wonder exactly where they were.

> However, like drop ceilings in offices, its not that sturdy.

you couldn't walk around on it, but if you spread your weight over a large enough surface area and through enough supports it's not a problem...

> How in the heck did they go 36
> hours without a restroom break?

Maybe that's how they were finally discovered?

> How in the heck did they go 36
> hours without a restroom break?

And you thought that was condensation from the air conditioning dripping on your arm.

> How in the heck did they go 36
> hours without a restroom break?

And you thought that was condensation from the air conditioning dripping on your arm?

@Robbo
How much room is there in the ceiling of an aircraft? I guess it beats being crushed by the wheels.

There is plenty of room. This is also a pressurised part of the plane and quite possibly fairly warm.

This is isn't the first story we've heard of this type of thing; people looking like support personnel or maintenance crews having complete access to the planes. They can do pretty much whatever they please. Tighter perimeter security could solve or at least positively address a bunch of problems - but I think it must be really expensive to implement right?

And widespread implementation of RealID will prevent this kind of problem(TM).
Officers will have their UV lights handy to verify ID papers.

"... a security expert told 9NEWS NOW, 'If you can store human bodies, you can certainly store a bomb or put weapons on board.'"

Good thing they could find a "security expert" to tell them that.

YEAH! This is great! I thought this was funny as hell. Human inginueity wins again! I am glad and pray only for their best. But, this discussion is on how, weight, more not less security, and so on. Where are heads? Remember there from Ethiopia. They probably only weight as much as most of us did in middle school and less than most of the average bag on board. More security is not the issue here. Niether is less. The gapping hole here is one that will never be plugged. The above situation needs tact not walls. It's a global service economy how else does something like this happen? Cudos on the TSA comment ;)

ingenuity Ooops! ;)

There's actually lots of room above the cabin -- see the crew rest area that Boeing offers on its 777s, f'r instance. They can fit business-class seats and bunks there.

whoops, it stripped out the HTML. Let's see if this works:

http://www.boeing.com/commercial/news/feature/osu.html

A coworker and I were once (pre-9/11) on a flight that changed in Pittsburgh. It turns out my new flight was on the same aircraft that I flew in on, but with a different flight number. All the pax and all the crew disembarked leaving the two of us sitting in our seats alone on the aircraft. The cockpit door was standing ajar, so having nothing to do and being a longtime pilot I went up there and was looking around, explaining the various things to my coworker. Then the oncoming crew was in the terminal, looked out the window and saw us in the cockpit and started having puppies. A flight attendant ran in and started yelling at us, asking what we thought we were doing. I remained where I was and explained out that I was merely showing him what the various devices were and that if they didnt like me being in the aircraft alone, they should not have all bailed out with me still in it.