L3 Communications has been awarded a $165 million contract from the Transportation Security Administration for the indefinite delivery of an indefinite number of their ProVision millimeter wave security scanners. So, the TSA is sure that they’re going to get some of these, but they don’t know how many, or when. More than 200 ProVision scanners are currently deployed around the world, despite myriad privacy concerns. L3 had more than fifteen billion in sales in 2009, so this agreement doesn’t seem like that big a deal, financially. → Read More
Another day, another airport full-body scanner story. It has emerged that the scanners are in violation of Islamic law. Now, before you get all flip and retort, “Yeah, I’m pretty sure they didn’t have microwave millimeter scanners back in the days of Muhammad,” let’s listen to what the people have to say. → Read More
Not to alarm y’all, but those millimeter wave body scanners that have been paraded around as the solution to would-be airplane terrorist attacks? Turns out they’re sorta useless in that, while they’re able to detect dense material (C4, metal, traditional bombs, etc.), they’re completely ineffective against less dense material. And wouldn’t you know it, the powdered explosive that was to have been used in the Christmas plot would not have been detected by the scanners. As Jay-Z would say, on to the next one. → Read More
Two travel bloggers, Steven Frischling and Chris Elliott received friendly visits from the Department of Homeland Security this week. Why? Because both published SD-1544-09-06, the document that showed us what to expect when we flew in scardeyplanes from now on. A reaction to the pants bomber, the document essentially outlined a few points including the directive to prevent passengers from using their electronics during the last hour of a flight (I mirrored it below.) → Read More
Owing to last week’s “bomb attack bid” on a U.S. airliner, there’s going to be a whole lot more security at airports. You probably already knew this. Expect long lines, confusion, malaise, and weariness. (Good thing that the entire tech world is going to be flying to Las Vegas in a couple days for CES. Leave your gadgets at home unless you want to spend 400 hours on the metal detector line.) The Transportation Security Administration is implementing new procedures to deal with everything. Here they are. → Read More
Short Version: The Commute 2.0 is from Timbuk2′s new TSA friendly generation of messenger bags. Essentially this means that they’ve added some commuter friendly features to a standard messenger bag. → Read More
Your friendly neighborhood CrunchGear writers have spent the past several minutes rifling through a de-redacted (un-redacted?) TSA handbook; Matt is going to print our hard copies and hand them out at his local farmer’s market. It was leaked somehow, and can be found all over the place. (I first found it on Cryptome, which is the go-to place for anything security-related.) Naturally, the authorities are freaking out, so get it while you can. → Read More
Full-body scanners are being tested in a variety of airports. I didn’t get the pleasure of using one on my recent trip to Japan, unfortunately, so I can’t provide a first-hand account of what it’s like. I suspect it’s quite unremarkable to walk through one of these. That won’t stop people from being outraged over the fact that some TSA goon sitting in a sterile room somewhere where he can’t see the individual walking through the scanner gets to drool over grainy black-and-white images of everyone’s naughty bits! → Read More
In the never-ending battle to protect our freedoms, detecting chemical agents and illegal drugs remains a top priority. Luckily, the smart people at Queen’s University in Belfast have just come up with a new way that will provide instant results, and won’t be something that can be tricked by covering scents or other materials.
Now you definitely won’t be able to bring back those (purely for fun) explosives back into the states, even if you have them safely hidden in your shoe. → Read More
Oh, dear. The TSA will expand the use of those body scanners we’ve talked about time and time again. This will no doubt freak out a certain segment of the population, but I have something even more terrifying for y’all: adjustable rate mortgages! → Read More
Although not the first of its kind (in fact there are similar programs operating at 29 other U.S. airports, and in Europe), the newly announced paperless boarding pass system at San Francisco International Airport allows passengers to download their “ticket” onto their mobile device, be it a cell phone or PDA, by visiting a secure link that is e-mailed to them after booking a flight. According to the San Jose Mercury News: At the terminal entrance, TSA officers scan the passenger’s cell phone or PDA device at a small kiosk, which validates a two-dimensional, tamper-proof bar code included on the traveler’s paperless ticket. The passenger then shows a government-issued ID card to the TSA agent to gain entrance to the boarding area. The TSA has three cell phone-reading kiosks at SFO, at a cost of about $2,000 each. → Read More
You’d think a professional blogger like myself who travels a lot would have a TSA friendly bag, but you’re wrong. I still pull my laptop out every time and curse to the high heavens about it. A sane person would have invested in a bag like the Aerovation CPF Laptop Bag by now and I’m thinking real hard about it. → Read More
Gather ’round for the time-honored American tradition of pretending to be outraged by something. (If we’re to believe that outlet of populist outrage monger, the Drudge Report.) It’s one of those airport security body scanning devices, this time going on trial at the Salt Lake City airport. The left two images show a woman, while the right two are a man. → Read More
These fancy, $100 bags are part of the ScanFast for Her Collection, Mobile Edge’s line of lady-minded laptop bags. (I guess generic, dark-colored bags are too aggressive and masculine for women. Wait, what?) As with other Mobile Edge bags, these are Transportation Security Administration’s Checkpoint Friendly. That means, theoretically, that you’re not required to remove your laptop from the bag while you go through security. In my experience, however, the guys asking you to remove your laptop from your bag haven’t heard of such a program—all laptops out of your bags now or we’ll send you to Guantanamo. The joke’s on them: it’ll be closed soon enough! → Read More
I don’t have too much of a problem sliding my laptop out of my bag whenever I travel, but to be honest every second that’s taken out of that whole security situation is one more second I could be sitting at the gate playing SNES, so I might invest in one of these special bags. But what makes them so special exactly? → Read More
As you know, the Transportation Safety Administration has decided to allow laptop-carrying airline passengers keep their laptops in specially approved bags at security checkpoints. It’s actually the most revolutionary decision in United States bureaucracy history. To that end, the TSA has finally posted details on its Web site how all this is going to work. That handy graphic shows the type of bags that are and aren’t permitted. This is all to make it so that TSOs, or Transportation Security Officers, can inspect the laptop while it’s in the specially approved bag. The program starts today, August 16. By far, the best sentence from the TSA’s Web site: “TSOs know what the inside of a computer should look like, and can recognize irregularities.” Yeah, can they? → Read More
Imagine if you will: you’re walking through a checkpointcustoms and if you’re like me, your passport picture makes you look like the Unabomber, so you get “randomly” selected for “secondary screening.” And they say, “Sir, turn on your laptop, we’re going to snoop through all your files and search for anything we feel, as practically untrained off-the-street power-tripping badge-wavers, is possibly a danger to Freedom.” And you say, “What the hell? Aren’t you limited to checking if something is physically dangerous or whatever?” And they say (pdf): “Officers may detain documents and electronic devices, or copies thereof, for a reasonable period of time to perform a thorough border search. The search may take place on-site or at an off-site location.” And they confiscate your laptop, detain you for a couple hours, and check if you have any un-American porn. Doesn’t that sound like fun? Encrypting and displacing all your data is beginning to look less and less paranoid. [via El Reg] → Read More
