Entries Tagged "air travel"
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Prison Shivs
A collection of 11 prison shivs confiscated over 20 years ago in New Jersey.
Think about these, and the adverse conditions they were made under, the next time you see someone’s pocket knife being taken away from them at airport security. We can’t keep weapons out of prisons; we can’t possibly expect to keep them out of airports.
New Airline Security Rules
The foiled UK terrorist plot has wreaked havoc with air travel in the country:
All short-haul inbound flights to Heathrow airport have been cancelled. Some flights in and out of Gatwick have been suspended.
Security has been increased at Channel ports and the Eurotunnel terminal.
German carrier Lufthansa has cancelled flights to Heathrow and the Spanish airline Iberia has stopped UK flights.
British Airways has announced it has cancelled all its short-haul flights to and from Heathrow for the rest of Thursday.
The airline added that it was also cancelling some domestic and short haul services in and out of Gatwick airport during the remainder of the day.
In addition, pretty much no carry-ons are allowed:
These measures will prevent passengers from carrying hand luggage into the cabin of an aircraft with the following exceptions (which must be placed in a plastic bag):
- Pocket size wallets and pocket size purses plus contents (for example money, credit cards, identity cards etc (not handbags);
- Travel documents essential for the journey (for example passports and travel tickets);
- Prescription medicines and medical items sufficient and essential for the flight (e.g. diabetic kit), except in liquid form unless verified as authentic;
- Spectacles and sunglasses, without cases;
- Contact lens holders, without bottles of solution;
- For those traveling with an infant: baby food, milk (the contents of each bottle must be tasted by the accompanying passenger);
- Sanitary items sufficient and essential for the flight (nappies, wipes, creams and nappy disposal bags);
- Female sanitary items sufficient and essential for the flight, if unboxed (e.g. tampons, pads, towels and wipes) tissues (unboxed) and/or handkerchiefs;
- Keys (but no electrical key fobs)
Across the Atlantic, the TSA has announced new security rules:
Passengers are not allowed to have gels or liquids of any kind at screening points or in the cabin of any airplane.
They said this includes beverages, food, suntan lotion, creams toothpaste, hair gel, or similar items. Those items must be packed into checked luggage. Beverages bought on the secure side of the checkpoint must be disposed of before boarding the plane.
There are several exceptions to the new rule. Baby formula, breast milk, or juice for small children, prescription medications where the name matched the name of a ticked passenger, as well as insulin and other essential health items may be brought onboard the plane.
See the TSA rules for more detail.
Given how little we know of the extent of the plot, these don’t seem like ridiculous short-term measures. I’m sure glad I’m not flying anywhere this week.
EDITED TO ADD (8/10): Interesting analysis by Eric Rescorla.
Anti-Missile Defenses for Passenger Aircraft
It’s not happening anytime soon:
Congress agreed to pay for the development of the systems to protect the planes from such weapons, but balked at proposals to spend the billions needed to protect all 6,800 commercial U.S. airliners.
Probably for the best, actually. One, there are far more effective ways to spend that money on counterterrorism. And two, they’re only effective against a particular type of missile technology:
Both BAE and Northrop systems use lasers to jam the guidance systems of incoming missiles, which lock onto the heat of an aircraft’s engine.
Remote-Control Airplane Software
Does anyone other than me see a problem with this?
Some 30 European businesses and research institutes are working to create software that would make it possible from a distance to regain control of an aircraft from hijackers, according to the German news magazine.
The system “which could only be controlled from the ground would conduct the aircraft posing a problem to the nearest airport whether it liked it or not,” according to extracts from next Monday’s Der Spiegel released Saturday.
“A hijacker would have no chance of reaching his goal,” it said.
Unless his goal were, um, hijacking the aircraft.
It seems to me that by designing remote-control software for airplanes, you open the possibility for someone to hijack the plane without even being on board. Sure, there are going to be computer-security controls protecting this thing, but we all know how well that sort of thing has worked in the past.
The system would be designed in such a way that even a computer hacker on board could not get round it.
But what about computer hackers on the ground?
I’m not saying this is a bad idea; it might be a good idea. But this security countermeasure opens up an entirely new vulnerability, and I hope that someone is studying that new vulnerability.
Memoirs of an Airport Security Screener
This person worked as an airport security screener years before 9/11, before the TSA, so hopefully things are different now. It’s a pretty fascinating read, though.
Two things pop out at me. One, as I wrote, it’s a mind-numbingly boring task. And two, the screeners were trained not to find weapons, but to find the particular example weapons that the FAA would test them on.
“How do you know it’s a gun?” he asked me.
“it looks like one,” I said, and was immediately pounded on the back.
“Goddamn right it does. You get over here,” yelled Mike to Will.
“How do you know it’s a gun?”
“I look for the outline of the cartridge and the…” Will started.
“What?”
“The barrel you can see right here,” Will continued, oblivious to his pending doom.
“What the hell are you talking about? That’s not how you find this gun.”
“No sir. It’s how you find any gun, sir,” said Will. I knew right then that this was a disaster.
“Any gun? Any gun? I don’t give a fuck about any gun, dipshit. I care about this gun. The FAA will not test you with another gun. The FAA will never put any gun but this one in the machine. I don’t care if you are a fucking gun nut who can tell the caliber by sniffing the barrel, you look for this gun. THIS ONE.” Mike strode to the test bag and dumped it out at the feet of the metal detector, sending the machine into a frenzy.
“THIS bomb. This knife. I don’t care if you miss a goddamn bazooka and some son of a bitch cuts your throat with a knife you let through as long as you find THIS GUN.”
“But we’re supposed to find,” Will insisted.
“You find what I trained you to find. The other shit doesn’t get taken out of my paycheck when you miss it,” said Mike.
Not exactly the result we’re looking for, but one that makes sense given the economic incentives that were at work.
I sure hope things are different today.
Sloppy CIA Tradecraft
CIA agents exposed due to their use of frequent-flier miles and other mistakes:
The man and woman were pretending to be American business executives on international assignments, so they did what globe-trotting executives do. While traveling abroad they used their frequent-flier cards as often as possible to gain credits toward free flights.
In fact, the pair were covert operatives working for the CIA. Thanks to their diligent use of frequent-flier programs, Italian prosecutors have been able to reconstruct much of their itinerary during 2003, including trips to Brussels, Venice, London, Vienna and Oslo.
[…]
Aides to former CIA Director Porter Goss have used the word “horrified” to describe Goss’ reaction to the sloppiness of the Milan operation, which Italian police were able to reconstruct through the CIA operatives’ imprudent use of cell phones and other violations of basic CIA “tradecraft.”
I’m not sure how collecting frequent-flier miles is a problem, though. Assuming they’re traveling under the cover of being business executives, it makes sense for them to act just like other business executives.
It’s not like there’s no other way to reconstruct their travel.
Patrick Smith on Airline Security
Patrick Smith writes the “Ask the Pilot” column for Salon. He’s written two very good posts on airline security, one about how Israel’s system won’t work in the U.S., and the other about profiling:
…here’s a more useful quiz:
- In 1985, Air India Flight 182 was blown up over the Atlantic by:
a. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
b. Bill O’Reilly
c. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir
d. Indian Sikh extremists, in retaliation for the Indian Army’s attack on the Golden Temple shrine in Amritsar- In 1986, who attempted to smuggle three pounds of explosives onto an El Al jetliner bound from London to Tel Aviv?
a. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
b. Michael Smerconish
c. Bob Mould
d. A pregnant Irishwoman named Anne Murphy- In 1962, in the first-ever successful sabotage of a commercial jet, a Continental Airlines 707 was blown up with dynamite over Missouri by:
a. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
b. Ann Coulter
c. Henry Rollins
d. Thomas Doty, a 34-year-old American passenger, as part of an insurance scam- In 1994, who nearly succeeded in skyjacking a DC-10 and crashing it into the Federal Express Corp. headquarters?
a. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
b. Michelle Malkin
c. Charlie Rose
d. Auburn Calloway, an off-duty FedEx employee and resident of Memphis, Tenn.- In 1974, who stormed a Delta Air Lines DC-9 at Baltimore-Washington Airport, intending to crash it into the White House, and shot both pilots?
a. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
b. Joe Scarborough
c. Spalding Gray
d. Samuel Byck, an unemployed tire salesman from PhiladelphiaThe answer, in all cases, is D.
Racial profiling doesn’t work against terrorism, because terrorists don’t fit any racial profile.
Aircraft Locator a "Terrorist's Dream"
The movie plots keep coming and coming. Here’s my nomination for dumb movie plot of this week:
Skies ‘now terrorist’s dream’
Australia’s proposed new aviation tracking system would make it easier for terrorists to locate aircraft, aviation campaigner Dick Smith said today.
Mr Smith said a plan by Airservices Australia to replace radar tracking of planes with the Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS B) system would allow terrorists to track every aircraft in the sky.
“Government policy using conventional radar makes it almost impossible for a terrorist or a criminal to locate the position and identity of an aircraft,” Mr Smith said.
“With ADS B it’s the opposite because all you need to track every aircraft is a small, non-directional aerial, worth $5.”
Under the present system, a terrorist can locate the position of an aircraft by looking up. And if a terrorist is smart enough to perform this intelligence-gathering exercise near an airport, he can locate the position of aircraft that are low to the ground, and easier to shoot at with missiles. Why are we worrying about telling terrorists where all the high-altitude hard-to-hit planes are?
Now I can invent a movie plot that has the terrorists needing to shoot down a particular plane because this or that famous personage is on it, but that’s a bit much.
El Al Doesn't Trust the TSA
They want to do security themselves at Newark Airport, as they already do at four other U.S. airports.
No other airline has such an arrangement with U.S. officials, authorities acknowledged. At the four other airports, El Al has installed its own security software at bomb-detection machines, which authorities said is more sensitive than that used by American carriers.
Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.