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A Las Vegas Resort Using Microwaves to Keep Guns Out

97 points by kyleblarson 9y ago

jtbayly 9y ago
It seems like this sort of system would be particularly susceptible to the type of spoofing that they've been able to do with image recognition. Images need to at least look unrecognizable to the human eye, which makes it a challenge to mask them for computer recognition. But with hidden physical objects, it seems that simple physical modifications would lead to unrecognized objects.
- lb1lf 9y ago
  I agree it seems like they would be vulnerable to the same kind of obfuscation attacks as image recognition algorithms - however, I guess in this case they have the added benefit of determining that the object is a lump of metal (ceramics or 3d-printed exotics aside) - after all, very few objects with a comparable quantity of metal in them as a gun would routinely be carried into a casino.
  - LyndsySimon 9y ago
    > very few objects with a comparable quantity of metal in them as a gun would routinely be carried into a casino. I'm not sure this is true at all. A backpack with a frame has more metal than my pocket pistol, as does my MacBook Pro. Is this system capable of discriminating between various types of metal? I know many hobby metal detectors these days can give you an idea of the conductivity of a buried target, although that can vary wildly based on depth and orientation, and is limited to about a foot or so in soil.
- exhilaration 9y ago
  Why spoof? Isn't aluminum foil sufficient to block microwaves? Or you can spend the big bucks on a faraday bag: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01HETGX00 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01HETGX00
  - 24gttghh 9y ago
    They'll just pick you out for immediate inspection since your bag is a black box.
    - LyndsySimon 9y ago
      No one is watching the scanners with eyeballs, that's the point - they're using machine learning to pick these things out. It shouldn't take much to add to a pistol, for instance, to make it unrecognizable to this. In fact, I'd be very surprised if it works well with small handguns today like the Ruger LCP or the Kel-Tec P-3AT.
      - ImSkeptical 9y ago
        Train your system to flag a Faraday cage then. This system won't be perfect, but I'd is it better than nothing? (Maybe, if it's medically safe). Plus, I bet your typical psycho killer isn't going to jump through a lot of technical hoops.
        calvano915 9y ago
        I bet your typical psycho killer isn't going to jump through a lot of technical hoops I beg to differ after examination of the details of the shooting here and the other places he scouted before it. Catching weapons in general is good for any property, but the purpose is particularly to prevent something large scale (the Westgate property in TFA is next door to the LV Convention Center, and at it's busiest will have many crowds coming and going at the beginning and end of each expo day). I don't know if this tech is the answer. I suspect paying qualified people to do this type of surveillance with video would be more reliable (I've read places like Israel have been doing it for decades), but casinos won't pay up.
- prsy 9y ago
  Modifications, or even just disassembling your weapon and distributing the parts among separate bags.
Shivetya 9y ago
Considering how difficult it is to keep guns, phones, and other contraband, out of prisons, the biggest threat will become employees. So I would probably task them to break it. Give them the full run through of how it works, where it is deployed, then deploy real and fake setups randomly. Encourage within limits employees to bring stuff into the facility given them by those managing the setup. The public is easy to put off by just implying it with a few out in the open examples. However long term technology like this will be widespread and the real concern is who has access to the data and how long is it retained. Within the US the right to bear arms is sacred so tracking becomes a real concern. This is wholly different than the idea of tracking cars by license plates. I love unobtrusive security and cannot wait to see airports move that way. I still imagine a Running Man security type wall where just walking past highlights for security objects of concern
netcraft 9y ago
It will be interesting to see how this works over the long run. Without doing anything else to detect guns, how are they training the learning? I assume they are doing that somewhere else and updating (like the antivirus analogy they mention) but still seems like it would be fraught with false positives and negatives for a while.
- nathankunicki 9y ago
  I suppose that's when you get quietly asked to participate in pat down or search. Traditional security scanners (and even "modern" airport fully body scanners) suffer the same flaw, requiring the person to be pulled aside and double checked.
madengr 9y ago
More then likely, that detector would be simple to defeat by wrapping a sheet of Eccosorb over you gun to de-Q it. http://www.eccosorb.com/products-eccosorb-high-loss-absorbers.htm http://www.eccosorb.com/products-eccosorb-high-loss-absorber...
evan_ 9y ago
Reminds me of the x-ray machine chair in You Only Live Twice.
tlb 9y ago
It'd be an entertaining piece of journalism to try a modern recreation of Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I can't imagine how you could get away with any of it today. And yet, I'm often amazed at what some people can get away with.
- malnourish 9y ago
  I doubt the casinos are going to care too much if you're bringing in recreational drugs.
  - merlincorey 9y ago
    They also had a handgun, a revolver, I believe.
michaelbuckbee 9y ago
I think these things are clever, but wonder about adversarial images aka, the turtle that registers as a gun https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/2/16597276/google-ai-image-attacks-adversarial-turtle-rifle-3d-printed https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/2/16597276/google-ai-image-...
- tgb 9y ago
  Why is that a concern? Obviously you can fool the system into thinking you have a gun, but I don't think casino's will have any qualms in banning fake-guns.
  - mark-r 9y ago
    Based on their description of the tech, you can trigger the system with something that doesn't look anything like a fake gun. It just has to have similar resonances.
    - 24gttghh 9y ago
      I think the false-negatives of such a system, which weren't entirely addressed ("will get better with machine learning"), would be worth more to look into than things not guns being seen as guns.
      - mark-r 9y ago
        False negative and false positive rates are correlated, you can generally trade off one for the other - although I don't know how easy that is with machine learning. The false negative rate doesn't have to be perfect to be a deterrent - would you try to sneak a gun into a casino if you knew you had a 50/50 chance of being caught?
        24gttghh 9y ago
        People sneak and accidentally take guns on a plane all the time and don't get caught, but I'm not sure what the 'catch-rate' is for that.
UncleEntity 9y ago
So, like the TSA, all they're going to catch is people that forget they have firearm on their person.
- aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA 9y ago
  Why would that be a bad thing?
  - madengr 9y ago
    Because those probably are not the ones who would shoot up the place.
    - aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA 9y ago
      You mean they're obviously not /planning/ to shoot up the place.
      - ars 9y ago
        Your theory is someone accidentally brought their gun with them. So they figure: "I might as well just shoot up the place since I anyway have a gun?"
        jacquesm 9y ago
        No, those are the people the NRA claims will stop the bad guys.
        pdx 9y ago
        CCW citizens are very often the people who take down such shooters. Your comment seems to imply otherwise. A recent example is the Texas church shooting that happened recently, where an armed citizen with a non-concealed firearm in that case, wounded and then chased down the shooter, unfortunately after he had already killed multiple people. Sadly, nobody in the church was armed, as even CCW holders who frequently go armed will not think to do so at church.
bob_theslob646 9y ago
>Marketed by Canadian security outfit PatriotOne, the Patscan CMR combines short-range radar with machine learning algorithms to scan individual guests for guns, knives, and bombs in real time—without forcing them to line up and walk through metal detectors. The ALCU is going to love this . Is this considered an invasion of privacy? I wonder if they can track you with this tech.
- apcragg 9y ago
  Why would the ACLU care? It's a private entity doing a private thing. It's not like it's the TSA, a government agency, gate keeping a public form of travel.
  - gumby 9y ago
    The line isn't as sharp as you might think. Certain private spaces are considered "public" in some regards, such as right of access and some free speech rights (e.g. handing out pamphlets in malls). Also some "public" spaces are privately owned (e.g. the park where Occupy Wall Street got its start was supposedly open to the public as a condition of getting some building permits, yet the landowner spent money evicting the occupiers). The casino isn't free to bar people of certain races, and it may have other restrictions as well. Though spying is presumably unrestricted :-(.
    - adventured 9y ago
      The line is extremely sharp in this case. None of the things you refer to has any meaning as it pertains to the private spaces within privately owned casinos. A casino lobby in Las Vegas is not considered a semi-public space like a mall. That was settled a long time ago (it's why the porn pamphlet people can't go inside the MGM and pass those pamphlets out in the lobby). All the privately owned casinos in Las Vegas can legally do this. A challenge to it in court wouldn't get anywhere.
      - kec 9y ago
        They can't legally put hidden cameras in their toilet stalls or hotel rooms, why would they be able to legally put systems that can obtain a nude image of someone without their consent on the casino floor?
nickysielicki 9y ago
FCC docs for this machine: https://fccid.io/2ALZTCMR https://fccid.io/2ALZTCMR Photos: * housing and antennas: https://fccid.io/2ALZTCMR/External-Photos/External-Photos-3551583 https://fccid.io/2ALZTCMR/External-Photos/External-Photos-35... * internals: https://fccid.io/2ALZTCMR/Internal-Photos/Internal-Photos-3551610 https://fccid.io/2ALZTCMR/Internal-Photos/Internal-Photos-35... edit: I only really know about part 15 as it relates to amateur radio, but I am confused at how this device was certified. The device is noted as being licensed under part 15F, and 15F, § 15.521(b) clearly notes that § 15.203 applies to these devices. Relevant part of 15.203 below: > An intentional radiator shall be designed to ensure that no antenna other than that furnished by the responsible party shall be used with the device. The use of a permanently attached antenna or of an antenna that uses a unique coupling to the intentional radiator shall be considered sufficient to comply with the provisions of this section. Clearly from the photos that isn't the case, those connectors are not special in any way and those antennas aren't permanently affixed. I think that is why this document exists, where they try to say that they're an unintentional radiator: https://fccid.io/2ALZTCMR/Attestation-Statements/Part-15B-3551578 https://fccid.io/2ALZTCMR/Attestation-Statements/Part-15B-35... Which is completely absurd at face value. They're obviously not unintentionally radiating (like a plasma TV, for example) and they're purposefully putting out the signals so that they can detect things, and the fccid site clearly says that they're licensed as a 15F device, not a 15B device. Can someone explain?
- leephillips 9y ago
  Interesting questions. Also interesting antenna design. Are the sawtooth-like gaps some kind of filter?
hammock 9y ago
This is terrifying to me, because the technology here is the same as the millimeter wave "naked scanners" used at the airport. I'm not convinced of their safety, they can easily be hidden behind a wall, and god knows who could be viewing your naked body at any time.
- 09bjb 9y ago
  Agreed. My deep dive (reading the academic papers, etc.) trying to confirm that the TSA millimeter wave scanners are harmless came up with more questions than answers. If this tech uses the same spectrum then I'm giving casinos a +1 for potential cancer risk.
  - Balgair 9y ago
    Can they see through leather? Yes, yes they can. What do you think they then do to your much thinner skin? This isn't rocket science.
    - chc 9y ago
      The most obvious answer based on the previous observation is "see through your skin," not "cause cancer." I think we'll need more to go on than that.
    - pavel_lishin 9y ago
      Given that they can penetrate it, it's very possible that they do nothing to your skin. You're right, this isn't rocket science - it's a blend of electrical engineering and biology.
  - syntheticnature 9y ago
    Admittedly, given every casino I've been in permits smoking, it's not like casinos were otherwise great on cancer-avoidance.
- Someone1234 9y ago
  Plus the consent issues are even worse here than the TSA. Per the article these are hidden and used to secretly scan guests, so if there is any adverse effects you have no way of knowing what caused it, reporting it, and seeking corrective measures. We also have to consider edge cases (pace makers, sensitive electronics, children, etc), and how they'll detect & correct when these devices malfunction. Ultimately this is a medical device used in a non-medical way with non-medical oversight.
dsfyu404ed 9y ago
I hope they've done their testing well. Casinos don't get a lot of slack from the public. One single mom with a pacemaker and this could end badly. If someone really wants to shoot someone else in said casino it's probably because they want to shoot their former boss or whoever got them fired. Being a former employee puts them in a great position to know via the grapevine what the edge cases for the system are. This system is mostly to reassure the overly-worried.
- criddell 9y ago
  > This system is mostly to reassure the overly-worried. I was thinking it might be to lower the cost of their insurance.
Justin_K 9y ago
So anybody who wants to shoot up the place can be sure to avoid checking in with all their guns in their briefcase. Can these detect disassembled guns? I doubt they can understand the signature of the sum of parts.
- LyndsySimon 9y ago
  > Can these detect disassembled guns? I was thinking about this - the only part of a gun that must be metal is the barrel and the brass cartridge casing. Those are the first things I'd look for, assuming the system is capable of resolving objects that small. ... and before someone asserts it, yes, there are guns in existence with ceramic barrels, and there are guns in existence that shoot caseless ammunition. Neither are obtainable, and they wouldn't work in combination as one of the primary benefits to using metallic cartridges is that they carry a large amount of the heat away from the barrel when ejected.
  - cc439 9y ago
    There are a few more parts that have to be made of metal depending on the type of action used by the firearm. At a minimum, you'd also need a metal bolt/breach face (the part that supports the rear of the cartridge) for any type of action. I'm also fairly confident that any springs used (the firing pin/striker/hammer needs one unless you want to fire it with a handheld mallet) in the design would have to be made of metal as well unless there are some composites I'm not aware of that match the properties of spring steel. Adding that metal to a firearm doesn't add that much mass but those parts would increase the profile of the gun due to their size/shape/area covered in the eyes of a image sorting algorithm.
- apple4ever 9y ago
  > So anybody who wants to shoot up the place can be sure to avoid checking in with all their guns in their briefcase Yep, all these type of security measures do is harass law abiding people while doing nothing to stop the real threats.
1_2__4 9y ago
This honestly sounds like snake oil. It’s even got all the requisite buzzwords.
creep 9y ago
I will comment on the topic of the article, but first a point that will be relevant later: "People come to Vegas because it's the fun capital of the world. They're there to let loose, rock and roll, and do things they'd never do..." I have never been a fan of the idea of Vegas. I say the "idea" because I've never been. This quote above exactly describes my displeasure-- it is a hub for moral ambiguity. Letting "loose" is about letting go, for sure. Having a bit of fun is never a bad thing. But why does the common definition of fun as an adult most often include drinking in excess, sleeping with people one is barely acquainted with, and gambling? Why is fun equated with spending copious amounts of money on toxins and morally ambiguous pleasures? It's okay to drink and play games and sleep with people, but when a place like Vegas exists, and is so wealthy, I wonder. It's like a migratory ground, full of flashing lights, enticing pleasures, impulsive decisions and often regret. That, to me, is not "fun". It is a fantasy world. Children have fun through fantasy, but their explorations often lead them to personal and insightful discoveries about themselves and the world. I feel as though many have lost this definition of fun. What to do with the imagination when castles and pirates no longer bring awe? Oh, binge drink and do stupid, possibly dangerous and financially damaging bullshit, of course! We live in a culture where fantasy is the expected coping mechanism, except the fantasies we indulge in bring us false escape, rather than workable material for self-improvement. In this definition of fantasy we often come out guilty-- regretting the money we forked out, the people we spent time with, and the decisions we've made. It is not healthy. The following quote illustrates this in a way, and I will extrapolate that to the topic of the article, and make a point "If they show up at their resort and they have to line up for metal detectors, or get wanded down, or walk through a gauntlet of security guards carrying rifles and pistols—that's not going make them feel comfortable. It's going to ruin their experience." This is terrifying. The Vegas fantasy is about feeling okay with making choices one may never make in their day-to-life. There's a designated place for it in society, and one can designate a place for those decisions in their mind as well. "Haha, you know what they say, What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas!!". But we know it's dangerous, and the danger must be hidden to keep the fantasy alive. What else can we do in society that hides the danger from us? Well, it's sort of everywhere isn't it. Turning a blind eye when what you enjoy turns out to be made from the sweat of children (almost literally everything you and I are probably wearing now). Supporting shady companies by buying their products because we get something from it. It's a toxic sort of mindset that puts everything into the morally questionable category, or has the possibility to do so. It's escalating. Are we okay to let casinos scan us out-of-view, if that means we can successfully immerse ourselves into the comfort illusion? Are we okay with mass surveillance as long as it's out of sight? Are we okay to store questionable and uncomfortable things in the architecture of society to give an illusion of safety and freedom? That's all I see, it's everywhere. And I'm not okay with it.
LinuxBender 9y ago
Vegas has become family friendly, so to speak. Who assumes liability for the images of children? What are the legal protections around the storage, retention, secure deletion, handling and viewing of the images?
- reaperducer 9y ago
  Vegas (and all Nevada) casinos are like another planet from a legal sense. Once you're on their property, they can do pretty much anything they want to you. You consented to all of it by going there. Kids? Their parents consented to it by bringing them there in the first place. It's not like being scanned at an airport, which is a quasi-public place. You're on private, highly regulated, surveilled, scanned, documented, recorded, profiled, archived property. Where things get fuzzy is if you're in a Vegas hotel without a casino.
  - LinuxBender 9y ago
    Are there no state or federal laws that regulate the storage and dissemination of nude children? I did not realize casinos were that powerful.
    - reaperducer 9y ago
      If there were pictures of nude children involved. But that's not what's happening here. Your hysteria borders on strawman.
      - LinuxBender 9y ago
        I didn't realize I was hysterical? Just asking a question based on the article and discussion in this thread. Do you have links to images from the scanner?
        jakobegger 9y ago
        This scanner does not make images. It‘s a fancy metal detector with a 2m range.
phyzome 9y ago
What happens when it raises a flag? Will the person get a pat-down? This will disproportionately have negative impact on people with medical implants and whatnot. « "The best analogy is antivirus software," says PatriotOne CEO Martin Cronin. » Given how bad AV software is, this is not a promising analogy.
- reaperducer 9y ago
  The subject person will likely be discretely escorted to a quiet corner and be asked a few questions. Vegas security people have tons of experience in managing threats. Heck, the Bellagio's poker cage got robbed a couple of weeks ago and people gambling just feet away had no idea it was happening. The employees are highly trained in keeping things under control. It's not like the movies.
Animats 9y ago
It's not really that impressive. It can't image anything. Here are the demo videos.[1] This is a much simpler technology than millimeter wave imaging. It's one step up from metal detectors, but way down from Z-backscatter. Think of it as a metal detector with enough smarts to ignore coins, keys, and cell phones. It's probably going to detect a pair of pliers, but if you're bringing tools into a casino, the management is very interested. [1] https://patriot1tech.com/news/videos/ https://patriot1tech.com/news/videos/
daxorid 9y ago
Are firearms now not permitted inside Vegas hotels? I always bring, at the very least, a 9mm pistol with me every time I travel. The buried lede, and unanswered question, is whether the legal status of firearms in hotels has suddenly changed.
- calvano915 9y ago
  The status here (in Las Vegas) has always been up to what policy each company wishes to have. The casino/resort policies have always been pretty much universal that no unauthorized weapons are allowed anywhere on their private property. If they become aware of a weapon, they will ask you to take it to a vehicle outside, perhaps your room safe if you're a guest of that property, or for certain individuals will store it in the security office during the event that the person is attending (this probably will no longer happen with everyone more on edge now). So if you don't tell anyone and nobody notices, you'll get away with having it on you or in your room. If they find out, you'll be asked to leave if you can't/don't wish to store it somewhere while on the property. Legally, I don't think there's any issue except that they would trespass you if necessary. I don't think there's any law that protects a right to carry on private property (but in public yes, with appropriate licensing for concealed).

97 points by kyleblarson 9y ago

It seems like this sort of system would be particularly susceptible to the type of spoofing that they've been able to do with image recognition. Images need to at least look unrecognizable to the human eye, which makes it a challenge to mask them for computer recognition. But with hidden physical objects, it seems that simple physical modifications would lead to unrecognized objects.

lb1lf 9y ago
I agree it seems like they would be vulnerable to the same kind of obfuscation attacks as image recognition algorithms - however, I guess in this case they have the added benefit of determining that the object is a lump of metal (ceramics or 3d-printed exotics aside) - after all, very few objects with a comparable quantity of metal in them as a gun would routinely be carried into a casino.
- LyndsySimon 9y ago
  > very few objects with a comparable quantity of metal in them as a gun would routinely be carried into a casino. I'm not sure this is true at all. A backpack with a frame has more metal than my pocket pistol, as does my MacBook Pro. Is this system capable of discriminating between various types of metal? I know many hobby metal detectors these days can give you an idea of the conductivity of a buried target, although that can vary wildly based on depth and orientation, and is limited to about a foot or so in soil.
exhilaration 9y ago
Why spoof? Isn't aluminum foil sufficient to block microwaves? Or you can spend the big bucks on a faraday bag: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01HETGX00 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01HETGX00
- 24gttghh 9y ago
  They'll just pick you out for immediate inspection since your bag is a black box.
  - LyndsySimon 9y ago
    No one is watching the scanners with eyeballs, that's the point - they're using machine learning to pick these things out. It shouldn't take much to add to a pistol, for instance, to make it unrecognizable to this. In fact, I'd be very surprised if it works well with small handguns today like the Ruger LCP or the Kel-Tec P-3AT.
    - ImSkeptical 9y ago
      Train your system to flag a Faraday cage then. This system won't be perfect, but I'd is it better than nothing? (Maybe, if it's medically safe). Plus, I bet your typical psycho killer isn't going to jump through a lot of technical hoops.
      - calvano915 9y ago
        I bet your typical psycho killer isn't going to jump through a lot of technical hoops I beg to differ after examination of the details of the shooting here and the other places he scouted before it. Catching weapons in general is good for any property, but the purpose is particularly to prevent something large scale (the Westgate property in TFA is next door to the LV Convention Center, and at it's busiest will have many crowds coming and going at the beginning and end of each expo day). I don't know if this tech is the answer. I suspect paying qualified people to do this type of surveillance with video would be more reliable (I've read places like Israel have been doing it for decades), but casinos won't pay up.
prsy 9y ago
Modifications, or even just disassembling your weapon and distributing the parts among separate bags.

Shivetya 9y ago

Considering how difficult it is to keep guns, phones, and other contraband, out of prisons, the biggest threat will become employees. So I would probably task them to break it. Give them the full run through of how it works, where it is deployed, then deploy real and fake setups randomly. Encourage within limits employees to bring stuff into the facility given them by those managing the setup. The public is easy to put off by just implying it with a few out in the open examples. However long term technology like this will be widespread and the real concern is who has access to the data and how long is it retained. Within the US the right to bear arms is sacred so tracking becomes a real concern. This is wholly different than the idea of tracking cars by license plates. I love unobtrusive security and cannot wait to see airports move that way. I still imagine a Running Man security type wall where just walking past highlights for security objects of concern

netcraft 9y ago

It will be interesting to see how this works over the long run. Without doing anything else to detect guns, how are they training the learning? I assume they are doing that somewhere else and updating (like the antivirus analogy they mention) but still seems like it would be fraught with false positives and negatives for a while.

nathankunicki 9y ago
I suppose that's when you get quietly asked to participate in pat down or search. Traditional security scanners (and even "modern" airport fully body scanners) suffer the same flaw, requiring the person to be pulled aside and double checked.

madengr 9y ago

More then likely, that detector would be simple to defeat by wrapping a sheet of Eccosorb over you gun to de-Q it. http://www.eccosorb.com/products-eccosorb-high-loss-absorbers.htm http://www.eccosorb.com/products-eccosorb-high-loss-absorber...

evan_ 9y ago

Reminds me of the x-ray machine chair in You Only Live Twice.

tlb 9y ago

It'd be an entertaining piece of journalism to try a modern recreation of Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I can't imagine how you could get away with any of it today. And yet, I'm often amazed at what some people can get away with.

malnourish 9y ago
I doubt the casinos are going to care too much if you're bringing in recreational drugs.
- merlincorey 9y ago
  They also had a handgun, a revolver, I believe.

michaelbuckbee 9y ago

I think these things are clever, but wonder about adversarial images aka, the turtle that registers as a gun https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/2/16597276/google-ai-image-attacks-adversarial-turtle-rifle-3d-printed https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/2/16597276/google-ai-image-...

tgb 9y ago
Why is that a concern? Obviously you can fool the system into thinking you have a gun, but I don't think casino's will have any qualms in banning fake-guns.
- mark-r 9y ago
  Based on their description of the tech, you can trigger the system with something that doesn't look anything like a fake gun. It just has to have similar resonances.
  - 24gttghh 9y ago
    I think the false-negatives of such a system, which weren't entirely addressed ("will get better with machine learning"), would be worth more to look into than things not guns being seen as guns.
    - mark-r 9y ago
      False negative and false positive rates are correlated, you can generally trade off one for the other - although I don't know how easy that is with machine learning. The false negative rate doesn't have to be perfect to be a deterrent - would you try to sneak a gun into a casino if you knew you had a 50/50 chance of being caught?
      - 24gttghh 9y ago
        People sneak and accidentally take guns on a plane all the time and don't get caught, but I'm not sure what the 'catch-rate' is for that.

UncleEntity 9y ago

So, like the TSA, all they're going to catch is people that forget they have firearm on their person.

aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA 9y ago
Why would that be a bad thing?
- madengr 9y ago
  Because those probably are not the ones who would shoot up the place.
  - aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA 9y ago
    You mean they're obviously not /planning/ to shoot up the place.
    - ars 9y ago
      Your theory is someone accidentally brought their gun with them. So they figure: "I might as well just shoot up the place since I anyway have a gun?"
      - jacquesm 9y ago
        No, those are the people the NRA claims will stop the bad guys.
        pdx 9y ago
        CCW citizens are very often the people who take down such shooters. Your comment seems to imply otherwise. A recent example is the Texas church shooting that happened recently, where an armed citizen with a non-concealed firearm in that case, wounded and then chased down the shooter, unfortunately after he had already killed multiple people. Sadly, nobody in the church was armed, as even CCW holders who frequently go armed will not think to do so at church.

bob_theslob646 9y ago

>Marketed by Canadian security outfit PatriotOne, the Patscan CMR combines short-range radar with machine learning algorithms to scan individual guests for guns, knives, and bombs in real time—without forcing them to line up and walk through metal detectors. The ALCU is going to love this . Is this considered an invasion of privacy? I wonder if they can track you with this tech.

apcragg 9y ago
Why would the ACLU care? It's a private entity doing a private thing. It's not like it's the TSA, a government agency, gate keeping a public form of travel.
- gumby 9y ago
  The line isn't as sharp as you might think. Certain private spaces are considered "public" in some regards, such as right of access and some free speech rights (e.g. handing out pamphlets in malls). Also some "public" spaces are privately owned (e.g. the park where Occupy Wall Street got its start was supposedly open to the public as a condition of getting some building permits, yet the landowner spent money evicting the occupiers). The casino isn't free to bar people of certain races, and it may have other restrictions as well. Though spying is presumably unrestricted :-(.
  - adventured 9y ago
    The line is extremely sharp in this case. None of the things you refer to has any meaning as it pertains to the private spaces within privately owned casinos. A casino lobby in Las Vegas is not considered a semi-public space like a mall. That was settled a long time ago (it's why the porn pamphlet people can't go inside the MGM and pass those pamphlets out in the lobby). All the privately owned casinos in Las Vegas can legally do this. A challenge to it in court wouldn't get anywhere.
    - kec 9y ago
      They can't legally put hidden cameras in their toilet stalls or hotel rooms, why would they be able to legally put systems that can obtain a nude image of someone without their consent on the casino floor?

nickysielicki 9y ago

FCC docs for this machine: https://fccid.io/2ALZTCMR https://fccid.io/2ALZTCMR Photos: * housing and antennas: https://fccid.io/2ALZTCMR/External-Photos/External-Photos-3551583 https://fccid.io/2ALZTCMR/External-Photos/External-Photos-35... * internals: https://fccid.io/2ALZTCMR/Internal-Photos/Internal-Photos-3551610 https://fccid.io/2ALZTCMR/Internal-Photos/Internal-Photos-35... edit: I only really know about part 15 as it relates to amateur radio, but I am confused at how this device was certified. The device is noted as being licensed under part 15F, and 15F, § 15.521(b) clearly notes that § 15.203 applies to these devices. Relevant part of 15.203 below: > An intentional radiator shall be designed to ensure that no antenna other than that furnished by the responsible party shall be used with the device. The use of a permanently attached antenna or of an antenna that uses a unique coupling to the intentional radiator shall be considered sufficient to comply with the provisions of this section. Clearly from the photos that isn't the case, those connectors are not special in any way and those antennas aren't permanently affixed. I think that is why this document exists, where they try to say that they're an unintentional radiator: https://fccid.io/2ALZTCMR/Attestation-Statements/Part-15B-3551578 https://fccid.io/2ALZTCMR/Attestation-Statements/Part-15B-35... Which is completely absurd at face value. They're obviously not unintentionally radiating (like a plasma TV, for example) and they're purposefully putting out the signals so that they can detect things, and the fccid site clearly says that they're licensed as a 15F device, not a 15B device. Can someone explain?

leephillips 9y ago
Interesting questions. Also interesting antenna design. Are the sawtooth-like gaps some kind of filter?

hammock 9y ago

This is terrifying to me, because the technology here is the same as the millimeter wave "naked scanners" used at the airport. I'm not convinced of their safety, they can easily be hidden behind a wall, and god knows who could be viewing your naked body at any time.

09bjb 9y ago
Agreed. My deep dive (reading the academic papers, etc.) trying to confirm that the TSA millimeter wave scanners are harmless came up with more questions than answers. If this tech uses the same spectrum then I'm giving casinos a +1 for potential cancer risk.
- Balgair 9y ago
  Can they see through leather? Yes, yes they can. What do you think they then do to your much thinner skin? This isn't rocket science.
  - chc 9y ago
    The most obvious answer based on the previous observation is "see through your skin," not "cause cancer." I think we'll need more to go on than that.
  - pavel_lishin 9y ago
    Given that they can penetrate it, it's very possible that they do nothing to your skin. You're right, this isn't rocket science - it's a blend of electrical engineering and biology.
- syntheticnature 9y ago
  Admittedly, given every casino I've been in permits smoking, it's not like casinos were otherwise great on cancer-avoidance.
Someone1234 9y ago
Plus the consent issues are even worse here than the TSA. Per the article these are hidden and used to secretly scan guests, so if there is any adverse effects you have no way of knowing what caused it, reporting it, and seeking corrective measures. We also have to consider edge cases (pace makers, sensitive electronics, children, etc), and how they'll detect & correct when these devices malfunction. Ultimately this is a medical device used in a non-medical way with non-medical oversight.

dsfyu404ed 9y ago

I hope they've done their testing well. Casinos don't get a lot of slack from the public. One single mom with a pacemaker and this could end badly. If someone really wants to shoot someone else in said casino it's probably because they want to shoot their former boss or whoever got them fired. Being a former employee puts them in a great position to know via the grapevine what the edge cases for the system are. This system is mostly to reassure the overly-worried.

criddell 9y ago
> This system is mostly to reassure the overly-worried. I was thinking it might be to lower the cost of their insurance.

Justin_K 9y ago

So anybody who wants to shoot up the place can be sure to avoid checking in with all their guns in their briefcase. Can these detect disassembled guns? I doubt they can understand the signature of the sum of parts.

LyndsySimon 9y ago
> Can these detect disassembled guns? I was thinking about this - the only part of a gun that must be metal is the barrel and the brass cartridge casing. Those are the first things I'd look for, assuming the system is capable of resolving objects that small. ... and before someone asserts it, yes, there are guns in existence with ceramic barrels, and there are guns in existence that shoot caseless ammunition. Neither are obtainable, and they wouldn't work in combination as one of the primary benefits to using metallic cartridges is that they carry a large amount of the heat away from the barrel when ejected.
- cc439 9y ago
  There are a few more parts that have to be made of metal depending on the type of action used by the firearm. At a minimum, you'd also need a metal bolt/breach face (the part that supports the rear of the cartridge) for any type of action. I'm also fairly confident that any springs used (the firing pin/striker/hammer needs one unless you want to fire it with a handheld mallet) in the design would have to be made of metal as well unless there are some composites I'm not aware of that match the properties of spring steel. Adding that metal to a firearm doesn't add that much mass but those parts would increase the profile of the gun due to their size/shape/area covered in the eyes of a image sorting algorithm.
apple4ever 9y ago
> So anybody who wants to shoot up the place can be sure to avoid checking in with all their guns in their briefcase Yep, all these type of security measures do is harass law abiding people while doing nothing to stop the real threats.

1_2__4 9y ago

This honestly sounds like snake oil. It’s even got all the requisite buzzwords.

creep 9y ago

I will comment on the topic of the article, but first a point that will be relevant later: "People come to Vegas because it's the fun capital of the world. They're there to let loose, rock and roll, and do things they'd never do..." I have never been a fan of the idea of Vegas. I say the "idea" because I've never been. This quote above exactly describes my displeasure-- it is a hub for moral ambiguity. Letting "loose" is about letting go, for sure. Having a bit of fun is never a bad thing. But why does the common definition of fun as an adult most often include drinking in excess, sleeping with people one is barely acquainted with, and gambling? Why is fun equated with spending copious amounts of money on toxins and morally ambiguous pleasures? It's okay to drink and play games and sleep with people, but when a place like Vegas exists, and is so wealthy, I wonder. It's like a migratory ground, full of flashing lights, enticing pleasures, impulsive decisions and often regret. That, to me, is not "fun". It is a fantasy world. Children have fun through fantasy, but their explorations often lead them to personal and insightful discoveries about themselves and the world. I feel as though many have lost this definition of fun. What to do with the imagination when castles and pirates no longer bring awe? Oh, binge drink and do stupid, possibly dangerous and financially damaging bullshit, of course! We live in a culture where fantasy is the expected coping mechanism, except the fantasies we indulge in bring us false escape, rather than workable material for self-improvement. In this definition of fantasy we often come out guilty-- regretting the money we forked out, the people we spent time with, and the decisions we've made. It is not healthy. The following quote illustrates this in a way, and I will extrapolate that to the topic of the article, and make a point "If they show up at their resort and they have to line up for metal detectors, or get wanded down, or walk through a gauntlet of security guards carrying rifles and pistols—that's not going make them feel comfortable. It's going to ruin their experience." This is terrifying. The Vegas fantasy is about feeling okay with making choices one may never make in their day-to-life. There's a designated place for it in society, and one can designate a place for those decisions in their mind as well. "Haha, you know what they say, What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas!!". But we know it's dangerous, and the danger must be hidden to keep the fantasy alive. What else can we do in society that hides the danger from us? Well, it's sort of everywhere isn't it. Turning a blind eye when what you enjoy turns out to be made from the sweat of children (almost literally everything you and I are probably wearing now). Supporting shady companies by buying their products because we get something from it. It's a toxic sort of mindset that puts everything into the morally questionable category, or has the possibility to do so. It's escalating. Are we okay to let casinos scan us out-of-view, if that means we can successfully immerse ourselves into the comfort illusion? Are we okay with mass surveillance as long as it's out of sight? Are we okay to store questionable and uncomfortable things in the architecture of society to give an illusion of safety and freedom? That's all I see, it's everywhere. And I'm not okay with it.

LinuxBender 9y ago

Vegas has become family friendly, so to speak. Who assumes liability for the images of children? What are the legal protections around the storage, retention, secure deletion, handling and viewing of the images?

reaperducer 9y ago
Vegas (and all Nevada) casinos are like another planet from a legal sense. Once you're on their property, they can do pretty much anything they want to you. You consented to all of it by going there. Kids? Their parents consented to it by bringing them there in the first place. It's not like being scanned at an airport, which is a quasi-public place. You're on private, highly regulated, surveilled, scanned, documented, recorded, profiled, archived property. Where things get fuzzy is if you're in a Vegas hotel without a casino.
- LinuxBender 9y ago
  Are there no state or federal laws that regulate the storage and dissemination of nude children? I did not realize casinos were that powerful.
  - reaperducer 9y ago
    If there were pictures of nude children involved. But that's not what's happening here. Your hysteria borders on strawman.
    - LinuxBender 9y ago
      I didn't realize I was hysterical? Just asking a question based on the article and discussion in this thread. Do you have links to images from the scanner?
      - jakobegger 9y ago
        This scanner does not make images. It‘s a fancy metal detector with a 2m range.

phyzome 9y ago

What happens when it raises a flag? Will the person get a pat-down? This will disproportionately have negative impact on people with medical implants and whatnot. « "The best analogy is antivirus software," says PatriotOne CEO Martin Cronin. » Given how bad AV software is, this is not a promising analogy.

reaperducer 9y ago
The subject person will likely be discretely escorted to a quiet corner and be asked a few questions. Vegas security people have tons of experience in managing threats. Heck, the Bellagio's poker cage got robbed a couple of weeks ago and people gambling just feet away had no idea it was happening. The employees are highly trained in keeping things under control. It's not like the movies.

Animats 9y ago

It's not really that impressive. It can't image anything. Here are the demo videos.[1] This is a much simpler technology than millimeter wave imaging. It's one step up from metal detectors, but way down from Z-backscatter. Think of it as a metal detector with enough smarts to ignore coins, keys, and cell phones. It's probably going to detect a pair of pliers, but if you're bringing tools into a casino, the management is very interested. [1] https://patriot1tech.com/news/videos/ https://patriot1tech.com/news/videos/

daxorid 9y ago

Are firearms now not permitted inside Vegas hotels? I always bring, at the very least, a 9mm pistol with me every time I travel. The buried lede, and unanswered question, is whether the legal status of firearms in hotels has suddenly changed.

calvano915 9y ago
The status here (in Las Vegas) has always been up to what policy each company wishes to have. The casino/resort policies have always been pretty much universal that no unauthorized weapons are allowed anywhere on their private property. If they become aware of a weapon, they will ask you to take it to a vehicle outside, perhaps your room safe if you're a guest of that property, or for certain individuals will store it in the security office during the event that the person is attending (this probably will no longer happen with everyone more on edge now). So if you don't tell anyone and nobody notices, you'll get away with having it on you or in your room. If they find out, you'll be asked to leave if you can't/don't wish to store it somewhere while on the property. Legally, I don't think there's any issue except that they would trespass you if necessary. I don't think there's any law that protects a right to carry on private property (but in public yes, with appropriate licensing for concealed).