Researchers Easily Slipped Weapons Past TSA’s X-Ray Body Scanners

[unhappycamper]

http://www.wired.com/2014/08/study-shows-how-easily-weapons-can-be-smuggled-past-tsas-x-ray-body-scanners/



Hovav Shacham, one of the security researchers who found a collection of gaping vulnerabilities in the Rapiscan X-ray machines, poses for a full-body scan in one of the systems.

Researchers Easily Slipped Weapons Past TSA’s X-Ray Body Scanners
By Andy Greenberg
08.20.14 | 9:00 am

Two years ago, a blogger named Jonathan Corbett published a YouTube video that seemed to show a facepalm-worthy vulnerability in the TSA’s Rapiscan full-body X-ray scanners: Because metal detected by the scanners appeared black in the images they created, he claimed that any passenger could hide a weapon on the side of his or her body to render it invisible against the scans’ black background. The TSA dismissed Corbett’s findings, and even called reporters to caution them not to cover his video.

Now a team of security researchers from the University of California at San Diego, the University of Michigan, and Johns Hopkins plans to reveal their own results from months of testing that same model of scanner. And not only did they find that Corbett’s weapon-hiding tactic worked; they also found that they could pull off a disturbing list of other possible tricks, such as using teflon tape to conceal weapons against someone’s spine, installing malware on the scanner’s console that spoofed scans, or simply molding plastic explosives around a person’s body to make it nearly indistinguishable from flesh in the machine’s images.

The Rapiscan Secure 1000 machines the researchers tested haven’t actually been used in airports since last year, when they were replaced by millimeter wave scanners designed to better protect passengers’ privacy. But the X-ray scanners are still installed in courthouses, jails, and other government security checkpoints around the country.

More importantly, the glaring vulnerabilities the researchers found in the security system demonstrate how poorly the machines were tested before they were deployed at a cost of more than $1 billion to more than 160 American airports, argues J. Alex Halderman, a University of Michigan computer science professor and one of the study’s authors. The findings should raise questions regarding the TSA’s claims about its current security measures, too.

[drray23]

1. its a cash cow not a safety measure

After 9/11 we went into crasy mode. Many overreacted and suddenly every project having even a remote possibility of improving security got funded with little or no review.
Likewise contractors started getting juicy contracts to outfit airports with such machines. Its really more of a mean to make it appear to the public they are safer rather than a sensible approach.

Many politicians or former bush people also cashed in. Michael Chertoff who used to head homeland security being one of them.

See for example http://m.motherjones.com/mojo/2010/01/airport-scanner-scam

[eppur_se_muova]

2. Bingo. nt