8 ms·
Circumventing the No-Fly list in thirty seconds
- Shenglong 15y agoFor every flight I've been on, the gate agent checks your ID against your ticket.
- simcop2387 15y agoI've not run into that in any of my recent flights. I've seen it happen for international travellers but not for any of the domestic ones. It may also have to do with the fact that my flights were completely full and took nearly an hour to finish boarding.
- Shenglong 15y agoMaybe it's a Canadian thing, and an international thing. To be fair, I suppose I haven't flown any purely domestic flights in the US.
- narkee 15y agoI don't know about the US, but this definitely doesn't work in Canada. The the gate agents definitely always check ID with the boarding pass.
- WestCoastJustin 15y agoSecond that -- my gf and I were actually shocked, when on a recent trip to the States (took about 7 flights in total) where the person at the gate only checked the boarding passes and not photo ID! We have added security up here because of the States, it seems like a lapse to not do this themselves. For example, when you board a flight to/from Canada, you have to show the boarding pass and photo ID, the person at the gate scans the ticket to see if everything checks out.
- pyre 15y ago> when you board a flight to/from Canada, you have > to show the boarding pass and photo ID They are looking to make sure that you have your passport more than looking for 'photo ID.' I flew into Canada over Xmas and they were specifically looking for your passport. Probably to make sure that there won't be any obvious gaffs once you land. That said, on the domestic flight I took the TSA was at the boarding gate 'randomly' checking people as they were getting on the flight. So not everyone got checked for photo ID, but some people did.
- WestCoastJustin 15y agoMakes sense about checking the passport flying international ;) I guess I should have said that flying domestic you also are required to show photo ID. I'm not saying it never happens down there, but on the flights we boarded, we never had ours checked and it just seemed out of the norm for what we're used to.
- mynegation 15y agoNo, it is not just that, it is a cultural thing. I recently did a long trip through South America, and only had one-way ticket to Ecuador. Canadian check-in agent refused to give us boarding pass citing an _Ecuadorian_ rule that you have to have a ticket out of Ecuador to be admitted. I had to buy two fully-refundable tickets from Ecuador to Mexico (based on cheapest price and the fact that Mexico does not ask such things). And of course, neither Ecuador nor any of the other South American countries with the same formal rule ever asked us for the return ticket. Why would they?! Most people travel on buses between countries anyway. But Canada does not care, it sticks to the rule.
- joelhaasnoot 15y ago<sarcasm>No one in the US would ever be a terrorist</sarcasm>
- crb 15y agoI have heard that if someone flies into a country on Your Airline Inc., and is denied entry, it's the financial responsibility of Your Airline Inc. to take them back to where they come from. I've not only had my passport, but visas, checked at check-in, flying into Canada from the US. Looking at the web for a citation, it seems this may just be a Canadian regulation: http://www.passengerprotect.gc.ca/home.html http://www.passengerprotect.gc.ca/home.html
- rflrob 15y agoIn the days not long after 9/11, they used to check the ID both at the screening checkpoint and the gate, but in the last several (5+), they don't check at the gate. I'd assume it's a time-saving measure, but it does totally defeat the point of checking.
- dantheman 15y agoIn the US you are not required to have id to fly. e.g. http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~daw/faa/noid.html http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~daw/faa/noid.html I hope it'd be illegal in the US to require it, not sure though.
- zcid 15y agoIt's not a legal requirement, but most airlines have required one for years to prevent secondary sales of tickets.
- dantheman 15y agoThen it's the airlines job to check the id, not the TSA.
- ken 15y agoLegally you are correct, but I've tried this, and been unable to manage it. Despite asking politely in a couple different ways, the TSA agent would say no words to me except "You need ID". I'm told by people who know that it possibly would have worked to lie and say I didn't have ID on me, but I didn't have the guts to try lying to federal agents.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- michaelbuckbee 15y agoMy aunt lost her drivers license but was able to fly (roundtrip AZ to VA) by being polite, patient and by having a wallet full of other cards with her name on it. Surprisingly, the key card that let her board was her Costco card as it had her photo on it and that was an acceptable form of ID.
- gcb 15y agoNote, that cards picture is like 13x20 pixels b&w
- tonywebster 15y agoThat's not the point... John Doe buys a plane ticket and gets an electronic boarding pass — John uses Chrome Developer Tools or Firebug to change John Doe to Jane Terrorist. John Doe's name is checked against terrorism watch lists, but Jane Terrorist's name isn't. Jane Terrorist then presents a boarding pass with her actual name and she has an ID showing her name is Jane Terrorist. The TSA agents don't check terrorism watch lists at the checkpoint. tl;dr: You can alter a boarding pass and circumvent the entire watch list process.
- quinndupont 15y agoYou can alter the ticket, but they check it to see that it matches your ID. So, using this method you would ALSO have to edit your ID
- rubiety 15y agoYou're missing the point - the TSA watch list is checked with the name you bought the flight under. You can then change that name to the name that matches your ID. The TSA does not check your name against the watch list when you go up to their booth; they only verify that the two documents match (where one of the documents is essentially fabricated).
- BCM43 15y agoYes, but the point is you have to buy a ticket with your real name. You can't board the plane unless the ticket is in your name. If it is in your name, you get stopped at check-in.
- cstejerean 15y agoYou can buy the ticket under whatever name you like. Identity is verified at security, and you can edit the boarding pass to match your real name.
- jewbacca 15y ago
- quinndupont 15y agoYup, in Canada they check ID EVERY time you present your ticket.
- notatoad 15y agoUnless you're late. I've rushed onto the plane at the last minute a couple times, and they have consistently failed to check my ID each time.
- toomuchtodo 15y agoI was late for a United flight several months ago; when I boarded the plane, they did not scan my boarding pass. They still found a seat for me, but without scanning my boarding pass, United assumed I didn't make the flight. My flight from LAX back to Chicago was cancelled and I had to fight for two hours on the phone with United customer care to convince them that, yes, I indeed did fly their equipment to LAX and still should permitted to fly my return ticket home.
- Splines 15y agoAir Canada's requirements specify that they require gov't issued ID, but they don't specify which gov't. Would a gate agent be able to identify and verify the authenticity of an arbitrary ID card from a distant country? Probably not - I wouldn't expect them to, anyway.
- leviathan 15y agoEvery time I visit Canada, I'm required to show my ticket and my passport (which is printed in both Arabic and English) when leaving.
- kalmar 15y agoI experimented with this, and have flown within Canada with a foreign (non-US, non-European) driving license. There was no verification other than checking the name matched the boarding pass, if I remember correctly.
- ehthere 15y agoIn Australia I can get on domestic flights without ever showing anyone my ID.
- nebkor 15y agoIf only there were some way to... how do you phrase it... manufacture a fake ID? If only that were possible, then this could be done anywhere! It's too bad, though, about how impossible it is to make a fake ID.
- smhinsey 15y agoFWIW, I have been on two flights today and on neither of them did the gate agent check my ID. This tactic would've worked fine.
- cpeterso 15y agoThis is my experience, too. I fly multiple times a year (within the US) and I've never seen a gate agent check anyone's ID.
- karmajunkie 15y agoits rare, but it does happen, especially around the holidays. I was recently on a flight that was being gate-checked.
- hohead 15y agoThis is easy to fix. Only terrorists use DOM editors, so we simply need to check all laptops when going through security.
- kevinalexbrown 15y agoThe first time someone pointed this out, the FBI raided his house[1] and sparked a Senate investigation. This was four years ago. I did this to one of my Southwest tickets recently, though didn't use the forged copy. Honestly, it's like they think HTML is unreadable, or, more likely, that it's security theatre designed to make everyone feel safe. I would be okay with that if it wasn't taken so seriously. [1] http://arstechnica.com/security/news/2008/06/tsa-defiant-passengers-wont-get-to-fly-without-id.ars http://arstechnica.com/security/news/2008/06/tsa-defiant-pas... Edit: The Soghoian blog post about the raid: http://paranoia.dubfire.net/2006/10/fbi-visit-2.html http://paranoia.dubfire.net/2006/10/fbi-visit-2.html
- nirvana 15y agoI think there are two purposes to the TSA. One is to make people feel safe, as you mentioned. The other is to get people into the habit of having their rights routinely violated by "government agents". It is a form of conditioning, and its pretty effective. 10 year olds at this point have never known a world that was otherwise. In another 15 years, almost all adults will be completely used to it, and the idea that we don't need the TSA will sound as absurd to them, as to most of us it seems "absurd" that in fact in the past you could fly in the USA while carrying a rifle or shotgun aboard, with ammo. The flight attendants would offer to stow it for you in a coat locker, but otherwise wouldn't bat an eye. Even today you can fly with firearms (in checked baggage) but a lot of people think that this idea is completely absurd because they've never seen it... and they've been conditioned to being disarmed and the idea that you can't have a gun in an airport. (you walk in and check it at the counter, before going thru security.)
- eternalban 15y ago> "10 year olds at this point have never known a world that was otherwise." It takes 2 generations to completely change the nature of a society. As long as those born before 2000 are still around all hope is not lost. Do not give up.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- jessriedel 15y agoNot only is my ID almost never checked at the gate, the agent hardly even compares the name on the paper to their flight information. So really, you could just print out the forged copy with your name on it and use it the whole way through.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- wavephorm 15y agoDHS is a giant convoluted bureaucracy and it was designed to be such from the beginning. They don't actually have to, or really desire to make anybody safer at all. That's not the point of DHS at all. It's all just a series of checklists, and forms, and initiatives... and reports... all the way down. All anybody needs to do is go down the new checklist that somebody higher up gave them to fill out.
- djKianoosh 15y agoFYI, this is the structure of DHS and its Components: http://www.dhs.gov/xabout/structure/editorial_0644.shtm http://www.dhs.gov/xabout/structure/editorial_0644.shtm
- cpeterso 15y agoIf terrorists still want to "get us", why don't they detonate some truck bombs in major urban areas? If the bridges or subway tunnels in the SF Bay Area or NYC had big holes punched in them, the economic impact would be huge.
- vl 15y agoIf they were really to "get us", we would have something like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_school_hostage_crisis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_school_hostage_crisis (But then they know that response would be really asymmetrical).
- fractallyte 15y agoYou're right, but this is a terribly inappropriate example. The 'terrorists' in this case were holding Beslan School to ransom. No one expected that the Russians (fascists in every sense of the word) would put all their effort into securing a Pyrrhic victory. Sorry this is so off-topic, but someone had to stand up for Chechnya - one of the most damaged, brutalized, traumatized, forgotten countries on Earth, a blight on the 'ideals' of every 'civilized' nation.
- vl 15y agoWhatever your view on the political situation in Russia and at this tragedy, it's not the point. The point is that this accident demonstrates that terrorists have low-tech and high-casualty methods available at their disposal which they choose not to employ for whatever reasons.
- biot 15y agoA suitcase bomb in a large TSA security screening lineup would have a similar effect and would be a tragic way of pointing out how ridiculous the so-called security is.
- gdw2 15y agoThen we'd have to go through security to get to security. :-P
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- mhartl 15y agoI know a girl who changed her name when she got married and whose ID still has her maiden name. She buys her plane tickets under her married name, and carries her marriage license with her when she flies in case the TSA asks about the discrepancy. But no one has ever noticed.
- cookiecaper 15y agoOut of curiosity, why doesn't she update her ID?
- FaceKicker 15y agoIn my experience, the TSA agent you have to show ID and boarding pass to at the security checkpoint also scribbles something with a marker or highlighter on your boarding pass. But even aside from the fact that this is obviously and trivially forgeable, I don't think the person who scans your boarding pass at the gate even looks for the scribble, as I've used a different boarding pass to get on the plane than I did at the security checkpoint before (because I had printed one out at home and also printed another copy at the self-service check-in machine, and just happened to use different copies each time I needed to show it).
- rubiety 15y agoThey definitely don't look. Several itineraries have multiple legs, and the TSA only ever looks at - much less scribbles on - your first leg. Even that aside, you can easily get a boarding pass from an agent inside the terminal, without it ever having been checked by the TSA. I've actually gone through TSA with one boarding pass on one flight, and boarded a completely different flight before (not just a separate piece of paper) - back when I could book flights for free on JetBlue and had already booked another flight that night. I merely decided once I was in the terminal that I'd hop on a different flight I had also checked in to. I do a lot of flying and have long though about this. It's total theatre. They could fix it by implementing some cryptographic code that's scanned at TSA entry points, verifying the actual document (boarding passes are a far cry from a verifyable document).
- estevez 15y ago> They could fix it by implementing some cryptographic code that's scanned at TSA entry points, verifying the actual document (boarding passes are a far cry from a verifyable document). Yeah, I tend to believe that they really aren't serious about it. It seems trivial to include a data matrix barcode that encodes the traveller's name and flight data.
- anghyflawn 15y agoWait, what? Are you saying barcodes aren't used in the US? Here in Norway at least all major handling agents issue boarding passes with barcodes, so you can board a (domestic or intra-Scandinavian) flight without interacting with anybody human except the security agents just by scanning the barcode at the gate. No idea if it's also used for security purposes, though.
- snowmaker 15y agoCould you use the same trick to use your friend's ticket in general? I've often had the situation of having an "extra" flight ticket for some reason. I've always thought that there is no way I can give the ticket away to a friend, but it seems like this could be a way to do it.
- nchuhoai 15y agoThat's an interesting proposal. I wonder whether it is against the law, or just against terms of service to do so.
- samwillis 15y agoI may be missing something but wouldn't your name be flagged as on the no fly list when you pass your ID to the TSA agent?
- corywatilo 15y agoIt would if they checked your name against a database. But all TSA does is verify your ID is valid and matches the name on the boarding pass, nothing more.
- samwillis 15y agoOk, thanks. Not being an American I wasn't sure how the system worked. So when do they actually check the no fly list?
- LogicX 15y agoWhen your flight is booked, the airlines are required to check it against the copy of the no fly list they're given. So typically you do this online, well before you visit the airport. (Former employee of ITA Software - does airline flight stuff - not sure how much more I can say, so I'll stop there)
- zcid 15y agoOnly if every TSA agent has the list memorized.
- chao- 15y agoPoorly implemented solutions are security theatre at its best. Well, almost. They're second best to "The wrong solution for the problem" approaches. Take the school in Texas this week where one kid shot another [1]. The school's solution is to make everyone use completely transparent backpacks, nevermind that: 1. You could fit a gun inside a zippered/covered binder or expanding file folder and the backpack does nothing. 2. The school already has metal detectors, so the backpacks aren't actually adding any detection. 3. They don't even know if the edge case where their current security failed even involved backpacks. [1] http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Teen-shot-at-North-Forest-High-School-2457718.php http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Teen-shot-at...
- rdtsc 15y agoThe point of security theater is often to placate the public. Public demands (or is perceived to demand) action. Doesn't matter what. In this case "something" was done. The school gets to : 1) boast about how they were proactive and did something quick (so it looks good on their resumes). 2) protect themselves against the expected criticisms that they didn't do anything. 3) it was an easy policy to implement (they just wrote down a new rule). no need for new equipment, training or anything so it doesn't affect the budget. Not saying that it isn't stupid. It is very stupid. But in their position they seem to act rationally. Now if another incident occurs they will get a backlash about how transparent backpacks didn't work, to which the response would be we need to outlaw binders. _But_ if they hadn't done anything and another incident occurred the backlash would have been a lot worse -- they would have been blamed and possibly sued because they took no action to prevent it after a history of past incidents.
- tnuc 15y agoThis doesn't always work. You might end up arrested. You are better off with a fake ID. When you board the plane they check the codes to see if you have been through special screening, they check the markings to the boarding pass codes. I've made it to the flight a few times only to be turned around and accompanied back to security for the full security theater experience. At this point they will check the list and you will be arrested if they find a problem in the paperwork. Your best bet is to change your name slightly William --> Bill etc. and play around with a middle/first initial. Computers are dumb. TSA agents are friendly when you are friendly to them and have tendency to not pay attention to their work. Social engineering is a lot more effective than computer hacking.
- fr0sty 15y ago> "they check the codes" And what codes are these? the pen-squiggle? the highlighter-check-mark? Is it your hobby to try to sneak past TSA checkpoints? Are you successful often enough that you have been turned away at the gate for not having the proper 'codes'?
- tnuc 15y ago>And what codes are these? the pen-squiggle? There are codes that indicate the level of screening you should get along with codes that have "Special screening" indicated on them. And then the TSA is supposed to squiggle in response. Buying a one way ticket usually means you get special screening, I hope the terrorists don't figure this one out. >Is it your hobby to try to sneak past TSA checkpoints? In a way yes. It is my hobby to get through these things as quickly as possible. Sometimes I go through the staff/express line, you get a long way by being friendly to TSA agents. >Are you successful often enough that you have been turned away at the gate for not having the proper 'codes'? Yes. TSA agents make mistakes and don't always check the passes properly. I swear with half the agents I could give them an ID for someone completely different, all they do is check that it "looks" real. One time I almost missed a flight. One of the gate agents was nice enough to run back to security with me and hurry them along. Someone else watched my bag rather than wait and get it searched properly. Security theater at its finest.
- gcb 15y agoThanks for the article. Now tsa will install another check point on each gate where you will have to show id, remove shoes, do the chicken dance ...for security
- jvdh 15y agoThis only helps you in national flights. For international flights they very often do check the match between ID and ticket.
- LogicX 15y agoI'm a very tall man (6'4") and always have trouble with a lack of legroom on flights (even JetBlue). A few years ago I was adventurous, and frustrated -- there were no seats left on the flight that it would let me reserve online. Yet for this particular airline, it showed that the exit row seats were available, but clicking on them lead to an alert that you could not book them online: You had to do so at the airport. I decided to look at the code making the seat selection calls, submitted my seat selection for that seat anyway -- and wallah! I was granted a ticket with that exit row seat. Had no problem going through security or boarding. Haven't tried it since - as most airlines now charge extra for those seats, and its not such an easy hack.
- 6ren 15y agoAt first I thought "wallah!" was a phonetic misspelling of voilà http://www.thefreedictionary.com/voila http://www.thefreedictionary.com/voila , but now I see it apparently is an arabic oath meaning "by Allah!" http://www.google.com.au/search?q=wallah http://www.google.com.au/search?q=wallah (though the wikipedia article suspiciously cites no sources... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallah_(Arabic) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallah_(Arabic) )
- abdulhaq 15y agowallah does indeed mean 'By God!' in arabic but it's used as an assertion of veracity. In this context the poster obviously meant to say voila and like you I've also seen this wallah variation of it creeping in recently.
- 6ren 15y agoRetro-validation appeals to me, so it could be interpreted as: and - truly, I swear by God I am not making this up - I was granted a ticket with that exit row seat In English, it's an old-fashioned idiom that a Robert Louis Stevenson character might have used. But English-speakers tend not to swear by God much these days - indeed, "swearing" usually means profanity.
- 15y ago
- chimeracoder 15y agoThis doesn't surprise me in the least. I've been in India for the last month, and I've been shocked by two new things since my last visit (several years ago). First, security here is everywhere. Second, security here is pointless. I have had to walk through security to get to supermarkets, discount stores (think Walmart), high-end shopping malls, temples, mosques, movie theaters, national monuments, airports, hotels, you name it. You can't walk into a large building and not walk through a metal detector. The ACLU would probably go ballistic if the US had even 1% of the number of pat-downs that I have had to go through daily here. Unfortunately, it's entirely pointless. Generally, I don't take my belt/jewelry/phone off when going through the metal detector, and most of the time, it doesn't even detect that. Whether or not I set off the detector, the process is the same: they (occasionally) wave a wand over, and then send me to a second person who briefly pats me down (<5 seconds in all). Keep in mind, the exact same process is applied to those who do and do not set off the metal detector. A few times, I've set it off and they just wave me through without even checking me further. It's mind-boggling. I can't say I'm a fan of ubiquitous security, but the only thing that's worse than ubiquitous ineffective security. Anybody who really wants to cause trouble can bypass it in their sleep - all you manage to do is disrupt the lives of everybody else, all the while accomplishing literally nothing.
- smiler 15y agoIt's more about giving people jobs I think
- chimeracoder 15y agoI doubt it. The supermarkets in West Bengal, for example, have security because there were riots when they first came to the state (which is not that hard to believe if you compare them to Wal-Mart in the US). Ditto for the hotels (2008 terrorist attacks) and the temples and mosques (decades of Partition-related violence). India's focused on developing its economy, but not in the way that private institutions (or a budget-aware government) would actively spend money on security theater just for that purpose - especially not when there actually are real security threats afoot. It's just like the US - the problem isn't that people don't care about security, or that they don't recognize it's a concern. The problem is that the existing measures (like the TSA) don't seem to be paying proper attention to the problem.
- Mordor 15y agoSecurity isn't there for the terrorists, just a scam to keep people flying.
- samwillis 15y agoPossible easy way to fix this: Include a QR code on the printed boarding pass that holds the details of the passenger and flight along with a hash of the data, the hash being salted with a secret known only to TSA. The TSA agent then scans the QR code, computer verifies the hash and displays the data on screen for the agent to check against the printed boarding pass and ID. No database look up is needed, just a PC and webcam. Danger is someone works out or leaks the hash secret.
- fr0sty 15y agoThe real danger is someone figures out how to spoof a legitimate request to the TSA-QR service and have them create authentic codes with bogus data. Never mind that the solution itself is far from 'easy'. Somehow linking every ticket printer to a central TSA-QR service in a reliable and secure way sounds like, uh, fun...
- Drbble 15y agoLike how credit card processing works?
- fr0sty 15y agoYes, but only if: 1. All existing hardware and software magically vanishes 2. The government is put in charge of implementing its replacement. 3. The whole system is a dead-weight loss which exists to serve the whims of government oversight rather than facilitate commerce.
- namdnay 15y agoThe easiest way is to do it like in the rest of the world: when the agents board you, have them check your ID. Simple!
- jzd131 15y agoThe boarding pass should never be shown at the gate, instead you should show your ID. The agent would then check it to make sure its real and then scan it to see if your in the database to fly that day. It is a simple solution, Someone needs to build a device that can read 90% of IDs.
- philwelch 15y agoThere are already federal standards for "enhanced" state drivers licenses.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- lambersley 15y agoIt would suck to be someone whose name appears on a no-fly list. It would REALLY suck to be that same person who forges a ticket and gets caught. #oops
- chollida1 15y agoDoes this work? > Give the ticket with your friend’s name to the gate agent who lets you board. It will match the flight information and you’ll be allowed to board. I fly 4 times a month and each time I have to present a piece of photo ID at the gate to the flight attendant that has to match the name on the ticket, ticketing computer and ofcourse me. The above advice would seem to fail this test.
- 51Cards 15y agoThey not check your ID at the gate? They always take my ticket and my passport, look at both, and say "Good morning Mr. B, have a nice flight".
- seanp2k2 15y agoGlad we all give up our civil liberties for this awesome "security". I'm sure zero terrorists know of this method. Those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither.