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Man creatively sneaks onto Delta flight, but gets caught
- hilux 3y agoThat guy will be a great entrepreneur. Serious creativity and guts. They should just have let him fly.
- voganmother42 3y agoHmm - flouting regulations cause the rules only apply for others, selfish with seeming no regard for any negative impact to others…sounds like a future executive indeed
- iamleppert 3y agoYeah, he should totally apply to YC. Probably graduated from Stanford and part of the Forbes 30 under 30.
- jldugger 3y agoHow though? the airplane was full.
- hilux 3y agoYou are "resulting," i.e. you're judging the correctness of a strategy by how it turned out THIS time. Read Annie Duke's book.
- kortilla 3y agoYou are “not reading”. They couldnt have “let him fly” as you suggest because there were no seats left on the flight.
- sandspar 3y agoYou're doing the same thing, "resulting" because this time he almost got away with it. In reality, a scheme like this would work maybe one in twenty times. "Think in bets" on a 5% chance of success.
- jldugger 3y agoNa, I'm saying they literally can't do the thing you want them to. But let's use a reference on ethics a little more sophisticated than a poker player: Immanel Kant. Would this strategy still be a good idea if everyone did it? Clearly not. Setting aside how few people can hide in one water closet, if nobody pays for tickets there won't be an airplane to hide on. Frankly, anyone encouraging this behavior is suspect and reflects poorly on the HN community, which is likely why your post is being greyed out.
- hilux 3y agoRe: your last sentence, this tells me that "the HN community" skews toward programmers who are happy to collect big paychecks while turning a blind eye to where the money comes from, e.g. what their founders and CEOs did to successfully startup. Airbnb, Facebook, Microsoft, Uber - off the top of my head - all very prosperous and genteel now, but all came from hardscrabble rule-breaking backgrounds.
- worddepress 3y agoAlso would make a pretty decent terrorist, by the same criterion.
- aschla 3y agoKind of wild at the end of the GMA video in the twitter post, they tell passengers to be careful of how you display your boarding pass. It’s not on the passengers to maintain the security of the system.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- zamadatix 3y agoAs with most things security: expecting security to be the problem of the other part(y|ies) is a recipe to security problems. Airlines need to make secure systems and processes, passengers need to try to protect their information. No amount of "well I'm the paying customer" means you completely stop playing any role in your own security. I.e. saying you should be careful with how you display your boarding pass isn't the same thing as saying the airline's process has no blame.
- spullara 3y agoThis is not creative.
- jackson1442 3y agoSurprised mobile boarding passes haven't changed to ticketmaster-style passes that leverage the phone's NFC capabilities. Seems like that would be faster to scan at the gate and prevent duplication.
- franky47 3y agoNot every phone has NFC capability. Every smartphone has a screen though, making scanning a barcode more accessible, and able to fallback to printing if the phone runs out of battery.
- sgt 3y agoPlus, not everyone has a cell phone. You need to support the paper based boarding passes.
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 3y agoBut it also places undue financial burden on passengers. Not everyone has an NFC-capable phone, and the workaround (paper tickets) is what we already do. As an aside, Ticketmaster is miserable to deal with.
- afavour 3y agoWhat about someone whose phone died? Not an irregular occurrence with transfers, missing foreign adapters etc.
- worddepress 3y agoID verified printing out of a new boarding pass is the back up. Or cut out the middle man and just check ID, then let them on.
- kayodelycaon 3y agoNFC is a lot more work to implement when you already need barcode scanners for paper tickets.
- deathanatos 3y ago
- CM30 3y agoThat's a super creative setup, and one that came surprisingly close to working. Do kinda wonder if Delta will rethink their system a bit now though, given the barcode based system is seemingly trivial to bypass.
- throwaway35777 3y agoEasy mitigation, don't let the same barcode board twice.
- asp_hornet 3y agoIt already doesnt. The problem is the operator
- raggi 3y agoNo the problem is that the software bugs regularly enough that conflicts are disregarded
- AlotOfReading 3y agoThese sorts of issues aren't always the software's fault. Sometimes it's human error. I've been prevented from boarding because the airline sent all the party tickets as a single PDF and my confused family members all scanned the first barcode they saw.
- raggi 3y agoSoftware fault. Even if they tried to do the right thing a barcode scanner has to be used while the screen and paper are not visible. We should have baseline expectations for UX thinking which are higher than this standard.
- asp_hornet 3y agoI agree with you 100%
- 3y ago
- geoelectric 3y agoUnless Southwest is wildly different than other airlines, the behavior of people you give F&F standby passes to potentially reflects on you as an employee. Not sure if getting in trouble with another airline instead of your employer would mitigate that, but my guess is whoever gave him the buddy pass caught some flack at work.
- paradox460 3y agoI haven't flown southwest in a very long time. Do they still use the plastic boarding passes they give you when checking in?
- CSSer 3y agoUnless this is a standby-specific question (in which case I’m not sure), no.
- m463 3y agoI think everything can be on your phone. One thing different about southwest is that you don't have a reserved seat.
- kd5bjo 3y agoNo; those were retired in the wake of 9/11 when boarding passes became required to get through security. After that, the logistics of at-gate checkin didn’t work anymore and Southwest started issuing disposable paper boarding passes outside security like every other airline. For those that aren’t aware, this is the origin of Southwest’s quirky boarding process. They required you to check in at the gate, and each gate had a set of reusable plastic boarding cards with sequential numbers— You were handed the next card when you checked on and gave it back as you got on the plane, so that it could be reused for the next flight. Everyone boarded the plane in the order they arrived for the flight without needing to stand in a strict queue while they waited. If the flight you were planning to take was full, you would be first in line for the next one which was often scheduled for less than half an hour later for their core routes.
- lupire 3y ago
- m3kw9 3y agoI’m think he just went with what he got at the moment and the final part was to take a pic of a ticket and get on
- oarla 3y agoWhy would the sensor not show that the lavatory is occupied before the plane starts to taxi?
- raggi 3y agoOccupation lights are typically driven by the lock, not by some sensor that would detect a bodily presence
- chatmasta 3y agoThe article mentions that he did not lock the door while in the lavatory. Once the flight took off, he then went to the other lavatory where he did lock the door.
- red0point 3y agoBut that‘s not what happened according to the article. > The problem is, there were no empty seats on the flight. So when he emerged from the lavatory and the plane began taxiing, flight attendants realized something was wrong, and the plane returned to the gate.
- 100721 3y agoThe flight did not take off with him on the plane.
- EGreg 3y agoMaybe he should have waited until the plane took off before coming out of that lavatory! hehe
- rootusrootus 3y agoDoes the scanning software not check that a boarding pass is valid for that flight, and that it has not already been used? Seems like this should get flagged pretty quickly when the legitimate passenger scans their boarding pass.
- Sebb767 3y agoIt's mentioned that the agent thought this to be a glitch and let the actual person board anyway.
- fortran77 3y agoThe gate agent will (we can only hope) be fired for this. He circumvented the security system.
- stavros 3y agoRight, because software famously has zero bugs, and whenever people bypass the buggy system to help you out, they should be punished. Sounds like a great society.
- lurking_swe 3y agothe common sense thing to do would be to allow the customer with a valid boarding pass to board, and also proactively alert security to check the plane, just in case it’s not a software glitch.
- bobbylarrybobby 3y agoWhen people describe systems as kafkaesque, I suppose you see that as a compliment?
- asp_hornet 3y agoModern software is so cumbersome and bug prone that people just presume bugs instead of the software doing its job. > He made sure that he boarded before the the passenger who had the boarding pass information that he stole; when the other passenger tried to board, the system suggested that this passenger had already boarded, though the gate agent assumed it was a glitch, so allowed that person to board
- Sebb767 3y agoSo, if I understand this right, the buddy pass would have let him take an empty seat anyway. So wouldn't this make it quite obvious that there are no empty seats? Points for creativity, sure, but it seems like he should have foreseen this.
- npinsker 3y agoThe buddy pass is only for Southwest flights, so he opted to take another airline.
- pinkmuffinere 3y agoYa, it’s so strange that he thought through a relatively creative (though illegal) solution, only to be caught up by the obvious problem.
- rco8786 3y agoThe flight that was full was the southwest one. He then snuck onto a delta flight totally separately.
- takinola 3y agoThe buddy pass was for a different flight on a different airline.
- fortran77 3y ago> The guy deserves credit for creativity No he doesn't. He deserves to be arrested, tried, and sentenced. What a disgusting take.
- kylehotchkiss 3y agoProblem: toilet usable as seat during boarding. Solution: $15 human sensor (heat or motion or whatever the home security sensors use) Reality: requires FAA certification. $250,000 per lavatory.
- anamexis 3y agoAlternative solution: check bathrooms before leaving
- lupire 3y agoLiterally what happened in the OP.
- anamexis 3y agoWell, not before they left the gate
- IncreasePosts 3y agoNo - per the article he emerged from the bathroom and was walking around thinking he would be able to find a seat. He might have made it if he actually just stayed in the bathroom.
- freetanga 3y agoI think the crew counts people and then checks lavatory as part of the procedure. I have an old gizmo that is like a pocket watch but serves to count (clicker) things. I have seen many airlines doing this procedure..
- bigbacaloa 3y ago[dead]
- cowsandmilk 3y agoBanning lavatory use during boarding is the wrong response to this.
- 3y ago
- jldugger 3y agoEyewitness account on metafilter: https://ask.metafilter.com/378887/Airplane-scam https://ask.metafilter.com/378887/Airplane-scam > Come to find out he was hiding in the bathroom until everyone boarded. The problem for him was the flight was full boarded and seated so he had no seat. My row mate boarded before the scammer did so whatever he was trying to do fell apart.
- joezydeco 3y agoI read that too when it happened. The OP mentioned that other passengers saw this stowaway taking photos of boarding passes in line, contrary to the article linked at the top here. "No one noticed this at the time, but rather this was only uncovered using security camera footage after the fact"
- nodesocket 3y ago> The guy deserves credit for creativity No he doesn't. Why does Gen-Z always think they can take advantage of companies which amounts to fraud and stealing? I somewhat think it's related to social media and instagram culture.
- lsaferite 3y agoHow did we veer off into age discrimination exactly?
- shepherdjerred 3y ago> stealing Assuming there were an empty seat, could this really be considered stealing?
- josephcsible 3y agoIs sneaking into a movie theater not stealing either? And even if not, what about the extra fuel that needed to be burned because of his weight?
- treflop 3y agoI don’t think it’s a systematic problem nor do I think it really negatively affects society substantially. So I’m not going to be a Karen. I applaud him for the creativity. Plus him breaking the rules has led to improved security for you.
- 3y ago
- glitchc 3y agoIt wasn't really a hack. It's standard policy for gate-checkers to confirm that the name on the boarding pass matches the name and photo on a piece of ID carried by the person. That's the rule for domestic flights. He took advantage of the gate crew slacking off on the job. Props to him for trying, but nothing is broken in the system. A piece of govt. ID is mandatory to fly domestically.
- pranjalv123 3y agoI have never had my ID checked at the gate on a domestic flight, only by TSA at security or at the ticketing counter when checking bags.
- glitchc 3y agoThat doesn't mean it's not required, it just means airline staff aren't doing their jobs. Here is United's page, this is standard policy for all domestic flights: https://www.united.com/en/us/fly/travel/trip-planning/us-travel-document-requirements.html https://www.united.com/en/us/fly/travel/trip-planning/us-tra... Edit: And here's the TSA notice clearly stating the policy - https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/identification https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/identification
- baobrien 3y agoThose pages both refer to the security checkpoint, not the gate agent prior to boarding. I've never had my ID checked while boarding domestically in the US.
- toast0 3y agoI used to get my ID checked at the gate occasionally. But that was in the before times, when there was no id or boarding pass required to get through security. I'm sure there's some nefarious thing you can do where two people collude to swap boarding passes after security, but I don't believe it's worth the effort for airlines to try to prevent that. Maybe something with discounts or mileage accumulation; but it'll be a big pain if there's anything out of the schedule.
- jackbravo 3y agoIs it not common to request both ID and boarding ticket so they can check you are the right person? Maybe they are more lax on local flights within the US? In Mexico it is very common to request both.
- baobrien 3y agoI've never had my ID checked boarding a domestic flight in the US. ID and sometimes boarding pass are checked at the TSA checkpoint before the gates.
- rmorey 3y agoPretty funny, and makes me think the ticketing system pretty much worked. Yeah he was able to get on the plane, but the system correctly flagged the second time the pass was scanned, and once seats started filling up he was discovered
- campbel 3y agoAssuming the flight crew does a passenger count or checks seats that should be unoccupied, even a non-full flight would result in getting caught.
- sandspar 3y agoFlight crew have other things to do then count 200-odd squirming people and are flight attendants supposed to memorize unoccupied seats or carry a clipboard up and down the aisles?
- shmeeed 3y agoA head count is often done with a simple mechanical clicker by the flight attendants right at the plane's doors and/or during the check walk looking for seat belts and unstowed luggage during taxiing. It takes no additional time at all. Any pilot should have an actual count of the souls on board, it can become a question of life and death in an emergency situation. Would you want to be the one left behind trapped in a burning wreck because "all 200" passengers on the list have been declared clear of it - with the blind passenger taking your spot? I'm aware this is a made up scenario that probably would never occur even in the event. Take it more as food for thought why knowing the SOB might be more than unnecessary theatre. I'm really astonished by a lot of responses in this thread, seeing how people that are forced to take off their shoes while waiting in line ay the airport keep on defending willful negligence at seemingly every other point in the process.
- campbel 3y agoYes, having a full count of people on board seems like a low effort necessary action to be taking especially for emergency scenarios. I assume if the passenger count doesn't match the expected count, especially in the case of a double passenger scan it should flag a more extensive audit.
- CaptainZapp 3y agoWhy wasn't this immediately flagged when the same boarding pass was used for the second time? Hereround an alarm is raised if a passenger uses a QR code, which was already used on the same flight.
- tom85 3y agoFrom the article: "He made sure that he boarded before the the passenger who had the boarding pass information that he stole; when the other passenger tried to board, the system suggested that this passenger had already boarded, though the gate agent assumed it was a glitch, so allowed that person to board"
- zulban 3y agoThe comments here are giving me a great sense of how often people comment without reading the article. It's a minority, but significant.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- sandspar 3y agoPeople who comment without reading the article are likely the vast majority I'm afraid.
- zeroonetwothree 3y agoOnce I accidentally got on the wrong plane, because two flights at adjacent gates were boarding at the same time. Apparently the boarding pass scanner didn't even check that the flight matched! It turned out that the person who actually had my seat on that flight was really late and so we didn't find out until just before the plane left the game. Fortunately I was able to rush over and make it onto my actual flight. But it would have been awkward if the other passenger hadn't made it at all...
- victorbjorklund 3y agoI always secretly hope I get on the wrong plane and end up somewhere fun. It does seem like it can happen from time to time since Ryanair now always informs "if you are on the wrong plane tell us!".
- adamcharnock 3y agoI once (accidentally) tried this when travelling around Australia many years ago. The gate changed at the last minute and I didn’t notice, so tried to board the wrong place. As soon as they scanned my boarding pass all hell broke loose. Flashing red lights, sirens going off, the whole works. They were very nice about it, but yeah, that particular system made it impossible not to notice.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ibejoeb 3y agoHmm, that's odd. A few years ago, Australia didn't even check ID.
- mkl 3y agoThere's no mention of ID, just boarding pass. I'm pretty sure similar checks in NZ would catch wrong plane boarding (there's usually someone checking boarding passes on the plane too), with no ID check anywhere.
- renewiltord 3y agoOn my flight to Punta Arenas from Santiago, two people got on who were supposed to get on the next flight. They just let them fly and had the luggage delivered to the destination. His friend who gave him the buddy pass is going to get into trouble for no reason now. This seems wholly unnecessary. My wife would fly standby all the time and they'll usually find some way to get on some plane at some time. It just won't be ideal. No reason to be this desperate.
- choudharism 3y agoIn fairness, Chile has some of the most laid-back air travel norms I've seen in the world. I loved it in my time there.
- ivan_gammel 3y agoIn 1990s my grandfather accidentally boarded the plane flying to Frankfurt instead of Dusseldorf and got there. They were departing nearly at the same time, so it was a matter of walk to a wrong plane. He just checked after boarding with flight attendants that it’s indeed THE flight to Germany. Thankfully he had enough relatives all over Germany, so someone could pick him up there too. Unimaginable situation today because of ID checks.
- bombcar 3y agoStill quite possible, just boarded a flight that had two gates past the final check, you could (not entirely easily, but quite accidentally) switch if both were active.
- waltbosz 3y agoI've thought up this exact scam before while standing in line to board a flight and watching people being cavalier with their boarding passes. I suspect others have successfully pulled it off before and this guy was the first to get caught because of a full flight. My back seat driver solution: have cameras that takes a picture of the person presenting the boarding pass, the shutter is triggered by the pass scanner. If a pass is scanned twice, bring up the photo of the person who scanned it the first time and grab them. But it's a whole lot of tech to solve a problem that probably rarely happens.
- bayindirh 3y agoThere is a much simpler solution: check ID of the passenger, verify name & photo, plus take note of the seat number. If somebody comes with same seat number, investigate.
- sofixa 3y agoID verification already happens when flying in the EU, just to check you are who you say you are.
- bayindirh 3y agoI know, but our guys also double check that every seat checks in once, too. So, they associate seats with people, too.
- aenis 3y agoThats not universally true, probably not even mostly true. I must have taken a few hundred flights from Schiphol with KLM and was never id-checked on flights within Schengen. There are airports when checks are performed but far from all of them.
- lxgr 3y agoNo, this is generally up to the airline. (Some countries might be requiring it, but I haven't experienced that yet flying intra-Schengen.)
- 51Cards 3y agoBut but... everytime I fly I have to show photo ID that matches the name on the ticket?
- shmeeed 3y agoSpotted the fellow European
- bombcar 3y agoI love how half the Europeans are insisting that they get ID checked all the time and the other half say they’ve never been checked in the Schezen area. In the USA I’ve been on some flights where they just glanced at the boarding pass which obviously isn’t checking anything against a database.
- jplrssn 3y agoI’ve noticed a fair few comments here and elsewhere starting with “In Europe…” and then extrapolating from the commenter’s experience living in a single EU country. Maybe that’s a testament to how successful harmonisation of national rules has been across the EU. But it doesn’t seem to apply to ID checks.
- bombcar 3y agoI suspect it has much more to do with airline policies (which are influenced both by the gate country and the airline’s country) than with Europe directly.
- kiwijamo 3y agoNot the case for internal/domestic flights in New Zealand, and I presume it's similar for other countries. Only on international flights do I see regaular requests for passports for understandable reasons.
- Mortiffer 3y agoNot a big crime hope they don't bring down the law too much on him
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- midnight2 3y ago[dead]
- mock-possum 3y ago> he boarded before the the passenger who had the boarding pass information that he stole; when the other passenger tried to board, the system suggested that this passenger had already boarded, though the gate agent assumed it was a glitch, so allowed that person to board Sounds like the sort of thing a gate agent could get in trouble for.
- maksymilians 3y agoI don't get this. So apparently with this buddy pass thing you can pass the security, but how do you obtain a boarding pass so you can legally enter a plane? The possibility to pass security without a valid boarding pass seems like a weird loophole in the process to me
- donavanm 3y agoIts the same thing as “flying standby.” The gate agent will issue boarding passes during or shortly after everyone else hasboarded based on remaining non revenue (“dead head”) seats being available.
- plantain 3y agoDon't know about the US, but some airports with a significant retail presence post-security allow non-passengers through to shop/eat etc. As a kid I remember my parents coming through security to send me off on a flight by myself in Australia.
- darepublic 3y agodidn't the article say he was snapping photos of other people's boarding passes?
- teekert 3y agoGeneral takeaway: Letting your bar/QR codes hang out may mean you're exposing your identity, or your cash even. Same goes for RFID chips of course. Good general thing to keep in mind.
- jpsouth 3y agoA guy I know had to download an app to scan his passports RFID tag recently to verify, of all things, his LinkedIn profile. I’m no expert, and don’t know what sort of information that exposes, but I definitely grimaced at the thought when he was telling me the steps he took to verify.
- teekert 3y agoI have to do that sometimes as well. Said party told us it's "better than a picture of the document". No idea.
- jpsouth 3y ago‘Better than a picture of the document’ for security, for their purposes or for my ease? Who knows. I’d be loathe to do it personally, but then again there’s probably copies of my passport floating around who knows where online. According to the Home Office [0] > Scanning the chip in a passport has the highest level of trust. It also collects the largest amount of data, the chip contains: - the data in the machine-readable zone (MRZ) - at least one or more facial biometric encoding - zero or more finger biometric encodings [0] - https://design.homeoffice.gov.uk/patterns/enter-passport-details/scan-passport-chip https://design.homeoffice.gov.uk/patterns/enter-passport-det...
- pwagland 3y ago"This might have worked if the flight weren’t full" But, if the flight wasn't full, they would probably have been allowed on, since they were on a standby pass.
- dgoldstein0 3y agoAre these passes airline specific?
- OJFord 3y agoYes, and flight specific typically, maybe it depends on airline, but at least generally it's not like a permanent ticket that gets you through to the gates for any flight, you still 'book', you just can't necessarily get a seat or boarding pass until the last minute at the gate (at check-in if it's quieter).
- OJFord 3y agoNot for that flight or even airline.
- lab14 3y agoI would bet my car that this isn't the first time he tried pulling this off, just the first time he got caught.
- bambax 3y ago> He made sure that he boarded before the the passenger who had the boarding pass information that he stole; when the other passenger tried to board, the system suggested that this passenger had already boarded, though the gate agent assumed it was a glitch, so allowed that person to board I was wondering exactly this, how is it possible to use a boarding pass twice. The answer is, "the agent assumed it was a glitch". It's interesting that we use machines, and when they flag the type of error they were designed to identify, we simply assume they don't work. Many plane accidents happen for a similar reason, the pilots thinking the systems on board are wrong and they're right. Why don't we trust the machines? Is it because they have bugs and are sometimes actually wrong? Or because we trust our feelings more? If the checking had been on paper, with the agent simply ticking off a list of passengers at the gate, would they have made the same mistake and assumed they got it wrong? What if the list had been ticked off before by somebody else?
- CogitoCogito 3y agoWell the passenger actually _hadn’t_ boarded. Someone else had. Their checks found the extra passenger afterwards. The mistake was letting the original passenger on and that was fixed later.
- fl7305 3y agoI don't think their checks caught him though? He only got caught because the plane was full, and he stood out like a sore thumb when he couldn't sit down somewhere.
- bambax 3y agoI would disagree with that. The boarding ID had been used once and can't (shouldn't) be used twice. In that case the first use was in error but the system can't know that. So the correct course of action would be to re-check everyone's boarding pass. That may have been impractical / undesirable, but simply ignoring the error as a bug seems careless.
- gorkish 3y ago
- LeonB 3y agoIn Australia, at most domestic airports, you can enter the secure area without a boarding pass. For example, as I saw on the last domestic flight I caught, you can give a teary farewell right before they board. Also, in Australia at most domestic airports and for most airlines they don’t check ID when checking in or when boarding. I found this odd and happened to be talking to a friend a few days later who is a travel agent, has been one for 20+ years, and knows a lot about systems here and in other countries. He said that very few domestic terminals in other countries allow a person into the secure area without a boarding pass. (It used to be fairly common.)
- bombcar 3y agoIt used to be well known in the USA before they changed security that if you knew the airlines and flight patterns you could fly for free, by just getting on non full flights.
- kiwijamo 3y agoSounds quite similar to domestic flights in New Zealand.
- Klonoar 3y agoI was passing through NZ a few months ago and noticed this, wound up chatting to a security guy about this. They’re apparently (slowly) trying to change this?
- mgoetzke 3y agoHe had a 'when seat are available' ticket and when they said there were none he thought they might be lying only to find out the seats where all taken.
- cowsandmilk 3y agoHe didn’t sneak onto the same flight as that he had a ticket for. He sneaked onto a flight for a completely different airline.
- fefe23 3y agoHas anyone else noticed how you can skip the first paragraphs or even pages on practically all "online journalism" these days? In this case the headline is already clickbait. They could have just told us what the man tried. Then the first paragraph is also clickbait. It conveys absolute zero new information. The second paragraph is again clickbait, urging you to stay on to find out more, but not telling you anything. Then there is a bullet point clickbait list full of probably AI generated drivel that also does not convey any actual information. Oh look, another headline, conveying zero pertinent information. Nobody cares about where he tried it. We came here to find out what he tried! Then another useless filler clickbait paragraph. At that point I closed the tab. Please don't post time wasting clickbait AI drivel like this.
- Toutouxc 3y agoI've learned to just skip paragraphs online with extreme prejudice, and it makes it hard for me to read text that's online and feels like an article, but is actually very educational (like recently the HTML version of The Rust Programming Language).
- xeonmc 3y agoHmm, that gave me an idea for a Rust type system tutorial in clickbait-style…
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- amelius 3y ago> He went to the gate for the Delta flight to Austin, and used his phone to take pictures of the boarding passes of other passengers without their knowledge. Didn't they learn from creditcards? Always have a security code on the back.
- xyst 3y agoIt’s amazing what a smile can do to get people to drop their guard. The basis for every con. Person here has potential in security :) The only thing he fucked up was lack of research into the flight he was sneaking on. Probably could have looked up flight number to determine if there were any empty seats
- ibejoeb 3y agoI wonder how much experience he has flying commercial. The seat maps aren't particularly accurate because some are under gate control, or some are inop, etc. He could have probably estimated the chances of being at capacity based on the standby list and just the general attitudes of people hanging around the gate. A fully sold flight is almost certainly going to have standbys hovering to get confirmed. That should've been the clue.
- JCM9 3y agoSounds like systems worked as designed but the Delta employee didn’t do anything about the tricker scanning as a duplicate boarding event. That raised questions of it they failed to follow a defined protocol or if the scanning system was just prone to be a bit flaky (eg consistently double scanning someone’s pass in quick succession and thus throwing out false alarms for dupe boarding that agents just ignored as annoying alarms).
- magneticnorth 3y agoAll the alternatives I can think of are extremely time-intensive - you'd have to go back to everyone who already scanned in and check their id against their boarding pass. That would add significant delays in taking off, which could cost the airline a lot of money in ripple effects throughout the day and will certainly cost the gate agents a lot of hassle and ill-will from customers. It's a good question as to whether they have a protocol for this; if the scanner is prone to making mistakes even 1 in a 1000 times, that's every few flights, several times a day. It wouldn't be worth it to the airline to have a time-intensive protocol to check.
- flutas 3y ago> All the alternatives I can think of are extremely time-intensive - you'd have to go back to everyone who already scanned in and check their id against their boarding pass. That would add significant delays in taking off, which could cost the airline a lot of money in ripple effects throughout the day and will certainly cost the gate agents a lot of hassle and ill-will from customers. I've had to do exactly that before. Whole plane: deplane, re-scan boarding passes, re-board. Somehow we had one too many people on the plane on a full flight, exactly like this scenario. Of course it was the one guy that was making so much noise about "who gonna get in trouble" and "this [is] like a reality show."
- adotbacon 3y agoI think surfacing additional information would help increase confidence in the system when it raises a problem. For example, keep a running passengerCount (or rather display it since it must(?) exist). If someone has a copied pass, their screen can show: Current Passenger Count 10 This Pass Last Scanned at 5 If the fraudster & legitimate passenger are back-to-back, that might add some confusion for the agent so they'd need a good way to display this. They can call out to the last person to come back to clear up confusion. If the fraudster was much earlier, they'd have to go find them. Maybe take a picture of each passenger during pass-scan. Or simpler: this would be simplified by using Steffen Method boarding [1]: you should know exactly which seat matches a given passenger count number. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steffen_Boarding_Method https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steffen_Boarding_Method
- rdtsc 3y agoAccording to https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13223501/Apple-accountant-snuck-Delta-flight-utah.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13223501/Apple-acco... the man apparently is an Apple accountant! On one hand that’s pretty creative, thinking outside the box, so to speak. On the other hand the flight looked like it was full, so how did they expect the whole thing would go? Just hog the bathroom the whole flight. Wonder if they will start to mandate some extra checks before boarding. The case high profile enough that some will be compelled to “respond”. Maybe everyone is forced to show their ID before boarding?
- cozzyd 3y agoApple isn't the richest company on earth because they pay for flights like chumps.
- dev-tacular 3y agoShowing IDs would work, but also training employees not to assume a warning is a glitch would have prevented him from boarding. If they took the time verify that the original person had already scanned their ticket, they would have noticed something was wrong. EDIT: this is assuming that the warning is not routinely ignored (i.e. there's actually a bug in the system and it would slow down boarding time since it happens so frequently.) If that were the case... they should fix their system lol
- rdtsc 3y agoIt might be a generic "beep" error that a dirty sensor or paper would normally indicate. People get used to false positives quickly and start ignoring them. Maybe it was a different alarm with a distinctive indicate that "I read this fine, but it's a duplicate" and they would stop and start checking the ID.
- jldugger 3y ago> the man apparently is an Apple accountant Formerly, it seems.
- 3y ago
- deadbabe 3y agoThere’s only one thing he needed to do to make this plan work flawlessly: he should have asked the gate agent if the flight was full.
- BrandoElFollito 3y agoI was once on a plane to Munich, having just boarded. At some pint the stewardess asked "who is flying to Munich?". "Welllll everyone I guess" I thought and raised my hand. The plane was to Amsterdam and they mis-boarded three people (including me). Apparently the scanner something something and pointed us to the wrong entrance.
- bagels 3y agoI'm always protective of the visibility of my boarding pass and id at the airport. There is enough info on there (name + confirmation number) for someone to change or cancel your flight.
- Fatnino 3y agoI remember in the past you had to show id at the gate as well as at security. The way they do it now I think you can show up with 2 tickets, one in your name for getting through security and another under a fake name for where you actually want to go. Pop into a bathroom behind security, do a costume change to confuse security camera forensics after the fact, and you get away clean. And if you somehow manage to get your real name boarding pass scanned but not get on the plane (I don't have a foolproof way to do this, but it's probably possible with some luck) then they will spend a lot of time looking for you at the destination you never went to.
- matt-attack 3y agoWhy is the press somehow making this out to be such a security matter? Seems like this is just a simple case of theft in the amount of three or $400. I failed to see how there’s any real security issue here. The man went through security his bags were checked, ID was checked to ensure he wasn’t on a no fly list. This seems like a petty crime. Worse the newscaster has to go and say it’s *our* problem that our “private information” is being taken. Sorry he was stealing a $400 flight from the airline. Don’t try to pin that on the port customers. It should be of no concern to us. If someone steals my barcode what do I care? I’m still going to get on the plane. It’s their crappy system that permits this, please don’t burden the consumer with managing your security. FWIW Ticketmaster barcodes can’t be screenshotted (they’re dynamic). Seems the airlines should just improve their tech.
- SergeAx 3y agoI have a maybe dumb question: why FBI investigation? Does FBI investigate people getting on the bus without a ticket?
- bennyhill 3y agoHe had a standby ticket that couldn't be used on this flight, but expected to find an empty seat when it was in the air?