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Several decades ago I was hired by a multinational bank to do software development, and one of my first tasks was to glean as much information as I could about
by kmoser 3y ago
Several decades ago I was hired by a multinational bank to do software development, and one of my first tasks was to glean as much information as I could about one of the competitors' ATMs. My manager gave me a letter (on company letterhead) to carry with his contact info that described what I was doing, in the event security stopped me for spending an inordinate amount of time going through as many screens on the ATM as I could and writing down things about the UI. (Spoiler alert: nobody stopped me.)
I'm not an expert in airport security at all, but I'd bet dollars to donuts that anybody doing physical pen testing of that type will carry documentation describing who they are, who they work for, and what they are doing.
- techdragon 3y agoSee this was my first thought but then it occurred to me that they’re trying to bypass people who are meant to be inspecting your stuff, does part of the job become “sneak past with this bit of paper” or do they carry nothing official on them to make the test more authentic, having paper documents risks biases towards staff procedures that would catch people with the document and thus end any pen testing attempts with potentially only a perceived improvement to security when they could be failing to catch people with usb drives or whatever else they are meant to be on the lookout for…
- kmoser 3y agoI think your concerns are unfounded. TSA doesn't generally sift through every bit of paper in your possession, nor do they really care what's written on any of the paper you're carrying since it's unlikely to be a threat.