[Tech] X Ray imagers in airports

[SwampFae]

Right. Time to put my two cents of the ugly truth in.

We can invest in technology.
We can train people.

But to make it short and sweet:
Where there is a will, there is a way.
Never underestimate the resourcefulness and destructiveness of ill-willed people, tbh.

We can sometimes prevent -certain- scenarios, yes.
But there will always be new ways of doing things.
Both for good and bad :/

If someone is aiming for destruction. One way or another; sooner or later. They will get to the point.
The question is -how-.
And the -how- is something we will not always be able to predict or prevent.

Example:
Can't get a bomb aboard the plane?
Sabotage
Or as stated in a previous post: Hit the air-port

 

[Ki!ler-Mk1]

Body scanners are to be used on all passengers flying from Amsterdam's Schiphol airport to the US, the Dutch government has announced.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8435148.stm

And so it begins, time to start signing off the countries not to fly to

 

[thatbloke]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8435148.stm

And so it begins, time to start signing off the countries not to fly to

By the end of 2010 you won't be flying anywhere then...

 

[Ki!ler-Mk1]

By the end of 2010 you won't be flying anywhere then...

Better than than being publicly violated. (not intended as arguementative, just tired )
Terrorism is no more preventable than darwinism.

 

[BiG D]

Some numbers to consider when looking at how necessary the every increasing "security" actually is...

 

[Ki!ler-Mk1]

Delete plz.

 

[Zooggy]

Hey,

This article is actually rather interesting. There's always more than one way to look at facts and data (which is one reason I have zero trust in anything news-y), but this guy writes rather well.

Also, note the serious and correct usage of the word "enplanement"...!

Cheers,
J.

 

[BiG D]

This article is actually rather interesting. There's always more than one way to look at facts and data (which is one reason I have zero trust in anything news-y), but this guy writes rather well.

Yeah, fivethirtyeight is an excellent site if you're looking for coverage of American politics sans bullshit.

 

[Wol]

How did these fucking idiots get their bombs past security?

Because security is an even bigger fucking idiot,

brilliant comment!

Although I wouldn't be worried if i was this guy on the right of that picture. With a penis that size, you are going to be very popular!

 

[thatbloke]

So would you agree that (barring 9/11) the reduction of commercial plane deaths is down to these security measures?

There is always room for improving things, but again on the other hand if it is something that will cause further delays then is it worth the hassle if you catch maybe 1 or 2 people that you wouldn't ordinarily have caught?

You will hear people moaning about the security measures all the time, but when these measures actually prevent an incident from occurring, that moaning will very quickly turn to praise.

The major thing that is impossible to quantify in any way is how much of a deterrent these measures are. Were these measures not put in place, would we have a higher rate of attempted acts of terrorism (or non-terrorism related acts of evil as the article puts it) or not?

While I am certainly not a regular air travel user, and so I can't comment on how much these measures affect me, as long as everything is packed in the right way before you actually get to the airport then your delays due to security measures should be minimal.

 

[BiG D]

So would you agree that (barring 9/11) the reduction of commercial plane deaths is down to these security measures?

Absolutely not. The best 'security' measure to result from 9/11 is passengers fighting back. Hijacking a plane is pretty much impossible now, and it has nothing to do with security screening.

The major thing that is impossible to quantify in any way is how much of a deterrent these measures are. Were these measures not put in place, would we have a higher rate of attempted acts of terrorism (or non-terrorism related acts of evil as the article puts it) or not?

No. They are not a deterrent. People who want to get explosives onto a plane are going to. I'm not saying to drop security completely, but pre-9/11 security worked fine for all intents and purposes. And as I said earlier, that attack is absolutely impossible to pull off again.

All of the 'security' measures that have been added since that are extremely short-sighted. They're designed to prevent a very very narrow type of attack. Banning water bottles, for instance. Removing your shoes. etc. These are attacks that already failed because they were terrible ideas in the first place. If security is to be improved, pick something that will catch people who aren't just brainless copycats.

 

[Zooggy]

Hey,

I have to say, speaking from a Lisbon, Portugal perspective, in the days immediately following 9/11, we had a bit of a peek in overzealous security crap. But, about six months later, everything was back to pre-9/11 normalcy.

Then again, we're a pretty laid back people...

Cheers,
J.

 

[SwampFae]

Absolutely not. The best 'security' measure to result from 9/11 is passengers fighting back.--

"He's got a bomb! Get him! *pounce-beat-smack!*"
*Everyone sits down after locking the beaten idiot inside the bathroom*
Vigilantes on a plane. Got to love it in those situations

 

[Kaalesh]

Anyone mind if I throw in my 2 cents here?

To be blunt about this, it's almost impossible to stop a suitably inventive person from blowing up a plane. Aside from cavity searching every single person to go on board along with full MRI (or similar) scanning there's no real way to be certain. You could have a pound of hermetically sealed semtex up your arse with a detonator and I truly doubt they'd find it.
The scanners at the airports have two functions in reality, they bypass the pawing and poking from the security and probably are more likely to find ceramic or plastic weapons anyway, which would be missed entirely by the metal gate, but they also give the impression of security. The scanner machines look like something out of Total Recall and the vast majority of people passing through will feel as though they are safe from random fanatical death.

 

[Ki!ler-Mk1]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12880555

But California scientists writing in Archives of Internal Medicine calculate they contribute under 1% of radiation people are exposed to during a flight.

For example, the scans might cause four extra cancers(suffers) among a million of these frequent flyers, they say.

They estimate that for every 2m five-year-old girls who travel one round-trip a week, one additional breast cancer would occur from the scans.

Paul Hadfield, a spokesman for Manchester Airport, said the findings should help reassure air passengers.

"The upside of the scanners is that they cut queuing - checks now take 30 seconds rather than over two minutes per person - and it means passengers do not have to be touched to be checked as part of the patting down process.

"Obviously if people hear the word X-ray they think radiation and they can start to worry, but the expert opinion we rely on - the Radiation Protection Board and the Health Protection Agency - confirms that the scans are safe.

Hmmm, while the science makes me think yeah, its negligible increase of 1% per flight, while, i feel reasured, i cant help but think the writers of the article are suggesting that people will be reassured by the small chance that somebody else will be more likely by a tiny amount to get cancer that otherwise wouldn't.