5 ms·

> I’d advocate that certain travelers, at TSA spotters’ discretion, be exempt from screening altogether. Personnel could be trained to choose certain passengers

> I’d advocate that certain travelers, at TSA spotters’ discretion, be exempt from screening altogether. Personnel could be trained to choose certain passengers deemed lowest-threat, pull them out of line and allow them to pass. Bruce Schneier's proposal is essentially do 0 profiling and do entirely random enhanced screening to minimize the potential for exploiting profiling. https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-trouble-with-profiling https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-trouble-with-profili... https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2012/05/to_profile_or_not_to.html https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2012/05/to_profile_...

pavel_lishin 10y ago
Yeah, that suggestions sounds pretty great for white guy me, traveling with his white wife. Not so great for my middle-eastern friends and coworkers.
Terr_ 10y ago
Bonus: Probably much cheaper to do. Concern: Real randomness gives you streaks, which may cause unanticipated clogs and delays in the process. On the other hand, an "smoothed" system means attackers would try to slip in right after a "random" check occurs for an innocent.
- eric_h 10y ago
  > Real randomness gives you streaks True, but you could just tweak the odds down a bit once a streak hits a certain number if you've demonstrably slowed the line down (and turn them back up once the clog has been cleared).
  - Terr_ 10y ago
    True, but attackers could time their approach to occur in the safe-period after a major clog. The devil's really in the details, particularly around how queues/buffers for travelers are handled and the basis used for doing the randomness. For example, randomly choosing check/don't-check per passenger is different than randomly choosing a passenger from the line whenever a searcher is free.
    - eric_h 10y ago
      I'm not suggesting to turn the odds to zero, though. Simply lowering the odds until the clog is cleared would not appreciably improve an attackers chances of getting through. You could still get streaks at the lower odds, thus making the clog worse. Nevertheless, I think the average wait times would be vastly improved from what they are currently.
mtgx 10y ago
That solution is pretty silly anyway. TSA employees have already been found "connected to people on terrorist watch lists". Granted, those watchlists are mostly BS because they contain millions of people, where most are probably innocent. But if a terrorist group actually wanted to do an attack and that proposed policy was in place, I could see how they could get someone on the inside to just let them pass through. But the point here isn't that this specific policy is terrible, but that any such type of policies are ineffective, much like the author says about the liquid bans and whatnot.
drostie 10y ago
Right. As I said in my comment to the original article: 'Most of this is good security advice. This is not: "certain travelers, at TSA spotters’ discretion, [should] be exempt from screening altogether." In security, that sort of middle-ground is dumb: either the barrier should exist or it should not; if it should exist we should not have a habit of whisking people through it. Perhaps you think that there should be a barrier which checks carry-on luggage for guns: your security expectation is that nobody should have a gun on the plane. Suppose a terrorist wants to violate this expectation and get on a plane with a gun. First, he's going to print fake boarding passes to test the security line. There is no gun; he's just going through security, going to the restroom on the other side, then coming back out. He wants to know who is pulled out and whisked through -- perhaps light-skinned women, perhaps pilots, perhaps people in suits. He will then make this pilgrimage in a pilot's uniform, or inviting a female terrorist as his accomplice, perhaps even dressing her as a flight attendant. Maybe he will find that sympathetic screeners always cave to a disheveled suited man with a story, "I slept in, I have a really important business meeting, my flight leaves in ten minutes, can you help me?" If he finds any reliable mechanism to be whisked through the line, it's game over. He only has one shot to bring the gun through the screening, but he has unlimited tries to figure out what will make him look respectable enough to get that free pass.'

pavel_lishin 10y ago

Yeah, that suggestions sounds pretty great for white guy me, traveling with his white wife. Not so great for my middle-eastern friends and coworkers.

Terr_ 10y ago

Bonus: Probably much cheaper to do. Concern: Real randomness gives you streaks, which may cause unanticipated clogs and delays in the process. On the other hand, an "smoothed" system means attackers would try to slip in right after a "random" check occurs for an innocent.

eric_h 10y ago
> Real randomness gives you streaks True, but you could just tweak the odds down a bit once a streak hits a certain number if you've demonstrably slowed the line down (and turn them back up once the clog has been cleared).
- Terr_ 10y ago
  True, but attackers could time their approach to occur in the safe-period after a major clog. The devil's really in the details, particularly around how queues/buffers for travelers are handled and the basis used for doing the randomness. For example, randomly choosing check/don't-check per passenger is different than randomly choosing a passenger from the line whenever a searcher is free.
  - eric_h 10y ago
    I'm not suggesting to turn the odds to zero, though. Simply lowering the odds until the clog is cleared would not appreciably improve an attackers chances of getting through. You could still get streaks at the lower odds, thus making the clog worse. Nevertheless, I think the average wait times would be vastly improved from what they are currently.

mtgx 10y ago

That solution is pretty silly anyway. TSA employees have already been found "connected to people on terrorist watch lists". Granted, those watchlists are mostly BS because they contain millions of people, where most are probably innocent. But if a terrorist group actually wanted to do an attack and that proposed policy was in place, I could see how they could get someone on the inside to just let them pass through. But the point here isn't that this specific policy is terrible, but that any such type of policies are ineffective, much like the author says about the liquid bans and whatnot.

drostie 10y ago

Right. As I said in my comment to the original article: 'Most of this is good security advice. This is not: "certain travelers, at TSA spotters’ discretion, [should] be exempt from screening altogether." In security, that sort of middle-ground is dumb: either the barrier should exist or it should not; if it should exist we should not have a habit of whisking people through it. Perhaps you think that there should be a barrier which checks carry-on luggage for guns: your security expectation is that nobody should have a gun on the plane. Suppose a terrorist wants to violate this expectation and get on a plane with a gun. First, he's going to print fake boarding passes to test the security line. There is no gun; he's just going through security, going to the restroom on the other side, then coming back out. He wants to know who is pulled out and whisked through -- perhaps light-skinned women, perhaps pilots, perhaps people in suits. He will then make this pilgrimage in a pilot's uniform, or inviting a female terrorist as his accomplice, perhaps even dressing her as a flight attendant. Maybe he will find that sympathetic screeners always cave to a disheveled suited man with a story, "I slept in, I have a really important business meeting, my flight leaves in ten minutes, can you help me?" If he finds any reliable mechanism to be whisked through the line, it's game over. He only has one shot to bring the gun through the screening, but he has unlimited tries to figure out what will make him look respectable enough to get that free pass.'