4 ms·

And as we all know, there is no way to generate your own 2d barcodes...

by fr0sty 15y ago

lysol 15y ago
What would you generate a barcode for? It's most likely just the ID of the boarding pass encoded, not all the info.
- bri3d 15y ago
  Nope! The machines at TSA checkpoints aren't connected to a database of any sort. All of the info is encoded in the boarding pass in a PDF417 2D barcode. If you can read PDF417 (Zebra Crossing, the barcode reader for Android, can do it somewhat unreliably if you make your own build and have a good phone camera - otherwise, there are online services that can extract PDF417 from an image) you can see the info for yourself. And, more importantly, if you can read PDF417, you can make your own! To connect those machines to a database would both involve a lot of infrastructure build-out (imagine the chaos if that system went down nationwide!) and a lot of information sharing and standardization between airlines and the government. Signing the barcodes is smart, and is how "mobile boarding passes" work, but because paper passes were standardized so long ago, there's no security in place. I also suspect the current TSA checkpoint barcode readers aren't smart enough to actually check the signature in a mobile boarding pass, but I don't want to find out myself.
  - rhino42 15y ago
    My initial reaction was "wow, good point; there's no way that the government would ever make the airlines buy completely new barcode scanners everywhere, for the simple purpose of improving security checkpoint effectiveness". But then again, they threw down millions per unit for those back-scatter machines, so all bets are off.....
    - bri3d 15y ago
      I'm actually rather surprised the TSA haven't pursued such a project yet - it seems like a perfect opportunity for a politician to give their friend's consulting firm a lot of money. I'm hoping that the airline industry implementing the smart way to do this (signed information in barcodes) for mobile barcodes means that the eventual rework of paper boarding passes will be intelligent as well, but as you say, all bets really are off...
barefoot 15y ago
Scanning the barcode and then doing a lookup of your flight reservation against your ID is far superior than just checking the printed name against your ID.
iNate2000 15y ago
IATA (the International Air Transport Association) requires airlines to digitally sign the data in the 2D barcode, but only when used on the screen of a mobile device. That won't make a difference until they add the requirement to paper boarding passes (or phase out the paper boarding passes). And this all begs the question of whether checking IDs does anything for security.

And as we all know, there is no way to generate your own 2d barcodes...

by fr0sty 15y ago

And as we all know, there is no way to generate your own 2d barcodes...

lysol 15y ago

What would you generate a barcode for? It's most likely just the ID of the boarding pass encoded, not all the info.

bri3d 15y ago
Nope! The machines at TSA checkpoints aren't connected to a database of any sort. All of the info is encoded in the boarding pass in a PDF417 2D barcode. If you can read PDF417 (Zebra Crossing, the barcode reader for Android, can do it somewhat unreliably if you make your own build and have a good phone camera - otherwise, there are online services that can extract PDF417 from an image) you can see the info for yourself. And, more importantly, if you can read PDF417, you can make your own! To connect those machines to a database would both involve a lot of infrastructure build-out (imagine the chaos if that system went down nationwide!) and a lot of information sharing and standardization between airlines and the government. Signing the barcodes is smart, and is how "mobile boarding passes" work, but because paper passes were standardized so long ago, there's no security in place. I also suspect the current TSA checkpoint barcode readers aren't smart enough to actually check the signature in a mobile boarding pass, but I don't want to find out myself.
- rhino42 15y ago
  My initial reaction was "wow, good point; there's no way that the government would ever make the airlines buy completely new barcode scanners everywhere, for the simple purpose of improving security checkpoint effectiveness". But then again, they threw down millions per unit for those back-scatter machines, so all bets are off.....
  - bri3d 15y ago
    I'm actually rather surprised the TSA haven't pursued such a project yet - it seems like a perfect opportunity for a politician to give their friend's consulting firm a lot of money. I'm hoping that the airline industry implementing the smart way to do this (signed information in barcodes) for mobile barcodes means that the eventual rework of paper boarding passes will be intelligent as well, but as you say, all bets really are off...

barefoot 15y ago

Scanning the barcode and then doing a lookup of your flight reservation against your ID is far superior than just checking the printed name against your ID.

iNate2000 15y ago

IATA (the International Air Transport Association) requires airlines to digitally sign the data in the 2D barcode, but only when used on the screen of a mobile device. That won't make a difference until they add the requirement to paper boarding passes (or phase out the paper boarding passes). And this all begs the question of whether checking IDs does anything for security.