More stuff on airplane security
Aug. 13th, 2006 04:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thewayneA bunch of stuff recently on Wired about air terrorism and plane safety.
Planes remain vulnerable targets. I think if we want to be absolutely safe with air travel, we either (a) don't travel by air, or (b) everybody's naked, MRI'd, run through a gas chromatograph, and sedated for the length of the trip because we'd burn our eyes out seeing everyone else and we'd tear our brains out by traveling hours watching Biodome on the in-flight movie.
We can detect liquid explosives, but the equipment is a quarter mill a shot, cannot be integrated into current airline screening procedures without massive slowdowns, and generates a lot of false positives. Whee! Good bit about perfecting techniques to catch yesterday's threat, then having to react to tomorrow's.
Here's my solution. Only allow clear bottles and clear liquids. Turn the bottle upside down. Do the bubbles go all the way up? Good. Now take the cap off. Set the bottle on a flat surface. Have a 18" long ceramic probe slid into a disposable plastic sanitized sleeve, sort of like they do with thermometers at the doctor's. Stand the probe next to the bottle, move your fingers down the probe so that they align with the top of the bottle. Now stick the probe in the bottle of water. If there is a significant gap between your fingers and the top of the bottle, this is not good. Final test: flyer must drink a bit from each bottle that they carry. If they can't drink it and keep it down, it just might not be water.
Bomb mules! Amazing how large a quantity of explosives a living human body could contain! And remember those Russian planes that were blown up in mid-flight by Chechen women pretending to be pregnant?
Foiling the would-be hijacker. The Europeans are developing several layers of technology to make it VERY difficult for hijackers to commandeer an airplane and fly it into a building. Some interesting stuff.
All security measures that the gov't takes are RE-ACTIVE, not PRO-ACTIVE. Something happens, we react to it. A guy builds explosives into his shoes, we all have to take our shoes off and run them through an x-ray machine. Gah. So all you need is a mildly clever terrorist to come up with something utterly improbable, and everyone gets bogged down under another layer of "security".
Gas chromatographic "puff" tests (akin to the "swab" tests) would help, but if the terrorists are really oranized, they'll be able to isolate the explosives, clean up everything, then give them to the carrier who has never previously come into contact with such, thus greatly reducing a positive result.
Like I said, 30.06, good telescopic site, tripod. If you're not on a suicide run, you'd want to have a car or two to make a cleaner getaway.
Planes remain vulnerable targets. I think if we want to be absolutely safe with air travel, we either (a) don't travel by air, or (b) everybody's naked, MRI'd, run through a gas chromatograph, and sedated for the length of the trip because we'd burn our eyes out seeing everyone else and we'd tear our brains out by traveling hours watching Biodome on the in-flight movie.
We can detect liquid explosives, but the equipment is a quarter mill a shot, cannot be integrated into current airline screening procedures without massive slowdowns, and generates a lot of false positives. Whee! Good bit about perfecting techniques to catch yesterday's threat, then having to react to tomorrow's.
Here's my solution. Only allow clear bottles and clear liquids. Turn the bottle upside down. Do the bubbles go all the way up? Good. Now take the cap off. Set the bottle on a flat surface. Have a 18" long ceramic probe slid into a disposable plastic sanitized sleeve, sort of like they do with thermometers at the doctor's. Stand the probe next to the bottle, move your fingers down the probe so that they align with the top of the bottle. Now stick the probe in the bottle of water. If there is a significant gap between your fingers and the top of the bottle, this is not good. Final test: flyer must drink a bit from each bottle that they carry. If they can't drink it and keep it down, it just might not be water.
Bomb mules! Amazing how large a quantity of explosives a living human body could contain! And remember those Russian planes that were blown up in mid-flight by Chechen women pretending to be pregnant?
Foiling the would-be hijacker. The Europeans are developing several layers of technology to make it VERY difficult for hijackers to commandeer an airplane and fly it into a building. Some interesting stuff.
All security measures that the gov't takes are RE-ACTIVE, not PRO-ACTIVE. Something happens, we react to it. A guy builds explosives into his shoes, we all have to take our shoes off and run them through an x-ray machine. Gah. So all you need is a mildly clever terrorist to come up with something utterly improbable, and everyone gets bogged down under another layer of "security".
Gas chromatographic "puff" tests (akin to the "swab" tests) would help, but if the terrorists are really oranized, they'll be able to isolate the explosives, clean up everything, then give them to the carrier who has never previously come into contact with such, thus greatly reducing a positive result.
Like I said, 30.06, good telescopic site, tripod. If you're not on a suicide run, you'd want to have a car or two to make a cleaner getaway.
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no subject
Date: 2006-08-14 02:53 am (UTC)Yes, please please please do not release these guidelines in beta. The national airspace is a hell of a place to do trial runs.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-14 05:00 am (UTC)They've proven that you can't profile on race, because there are lots of perfectly safe Arab-appearing people, and there are lots of perfectly dangerous Caucasian-appearing people.
And there will also people who are unflappable who won't be bothered by the increased security. These will probably also be a type of "profile".
I worked with the police department for nine years (computers). Had a conversation with a detective about murder suspects. He said that, broadly speaking, a person who handles the accusation calmly is probably guilty, a person who freaks out when accused is probably innocent.
It'll be interesting to see what happens. Such times in which we live!
no subject
Date: 2006-08-14 09:50 am (UTC)