4 ms·
Correct! The machines still take dirty pictures of you -- they just provide an abstraction layer and a human ostensibly doesn't view the raw image. They remove
by blcknight 13y ago
Correct! The machines still take dirty pictures of you -- they just provide an abstraction layer and a human ostensibly doesn't view the raw image. They removed one of the two types of machines, only because the backscatter scanner vendor couldn't provide the abstraction layer in time. The millimeter wave machines are still in place.
I heard a TSA agent basically tell a nervous traveller this when I was in the U.S. last: "Oh no, we go rid of those machines, these are totally different -- see it just shows me a picture of where any hidden items are. Not any different than are old metal detectors! Safe as can be!"
Millimeter wave machines still violate your privacy, and still expose you to radiation. But, freedom, amirite?
- mpyne 13y agoUh, you're exposed to radiation all the time, by that definition. Much more so when you step out into the sun (despite the bears being outside I do hope you try to brave the solar radiation every so often). As it happens millimeter wave machines are a fancy way to say "EHF radio", which is very much non-ionizing and is not known to be harmful. One caveat is that any radiation beam that the body is not fully transparent to can be harmful at high power, but that is from the heat effect, not anything inherent to the radiation (i.e. it's the same hazard as standing under a heat lamp for too long).