Originally Posted by
RadioGirl
This doesn't worry me for the reason given above. The scanner isn't producing "an image" in the photographic sense. And the data that's required to form the images we're seen is a lot more than the data required to describe edges. I guess it's possible that they're storing the high-res data that could be processed into a high-res image, but the raw data is not, in the first instance "an image". There's no "image" stored temporarily while the software processes it; there's data that could have been processed to be an image and is instead being processed to find edges. Perhaps the distinction doesn't matter to most people but for me, it's quite different than producing, viewing, or storing "an image".
Thanks for the clarification.
I suppose then I should amend my observations to instead state that even if an image, as we would think of one, is not being stored in RAM and then processed, the raw data that can be potentially used to build up an image is still being generated. That is, the machine is still searching under your clothes.
But then again, a the WTMD cannot generate an under-the-clothes image, but it can still find items that are concealed under the clothing.
I must admit that ATR does make it harder to opt out on practical grounds, assuming that there truly are no potential health hazards of repeated scans, and that the data points necessary for creating an image are not being stored on disk for calibration against the "gumby" images. Opting out then becomes more of a way to make a statement, to protest what you feel is the unnecessary expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars, but its alternative -- the frisk -- is just as much of a violation.