Originally Posted by Spiff
I guarantee I can create an explosive-laden shoe that the x-ray will not detect. The ETD or ETP, however might.
Oh, well then. If an anonymous poster on an internet forum with 25K posts says it's so, then it must be. I'm amazed at how you have enough time on your hands to post this much and still keep up to date with the latest materials science, explosives, and security. With your preocupation with "TSA Tyranny" it must be very hard for you to keep focussed. Good Job!
And frankly, I'm all for them swabbing everyone's shoes, bags, and clothes, except that the security lines will stretch outside the buildings again. But you'll still have to take your shoes off.
Really? Is that why your so-called highly paid drones keep failing red team tests? Your guys put up a goose egg, 0 for 21 on a recent test. Why do you keep lying to people?
Don't know if that was aimed at me, but I don't work for the TSA.
And the fact that the performance of the screeners needs to improve doesn't mean that we shouldn't screen. By your "logic", we'd just get rid of the security checkpoints because there are failures.
Again from the article: Richard Lanza, senior research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the X-ray image doesn't identify what a gel or a liquid is made of. However, he said, screeners can "look at the image and connect regions that look the same in density and shape."
It's not a foolproof method, but it is often effective, he said.
"Nothing is 100 percent," Lanza said. "But if the bad guys think you have a good shot at discovering it, they'll do something different."
I'll be happy to prove that it's not rocket science to assemble a shoe with explosives of similar density to shoe components that will not raise an eyebrow on the x-ray.
Again, the anonymous internet poster who claims to be an expert. Cites please. And btw, your "explosives of similar density to shoe components" need to be something you can get your hands on without raising other flags to security efforts.
I asked a buddy in special forces if he could think of anything off the shelf to use, and he couldn't. But what does he know? We agreed that you're the expert so whatever you say.
More to the point, the Shoe Carnival makes the absolutely stupid supposition that shoes are the only places explosives are hidden. This harassment will not detect bombs in body cavities or undergarments where the ETD/ETP might and often will.
Like I said, I'm for swabbing everyone. But I suspect we don't understand the constrains of the problem as to why they don't have enough detectors to do this, or if that's even the problem.
To solution to any problem looks easy to someone that doesn't understand the constraints.
Lucky for whom? Filthy communists like Comrade Hawley who need to keep milking a paycheck out of the taxpayers? Terrorists like Bin Laden who now have their jobs done for them by shoe pervert administrator hacks in the TSA?
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
Tests have shown repeatedly that it is easy to smuggle explosives past the checkpoint and the reason for that is because imbeciles like Comrade Hawley rely on the lukewarm opinion of one guy from MIT when there are people on FlyerTalk who can design any of the machines found at the checkpoint and know exactly what they are and are not capable of. These same people also have an intimate knowledge of material science and can fabricate materials that will not show up differently under the x-ray and don't even have to be placed in shoes to get by the checkpoint because there's no real explosives detection taking place anyway.
I can see the news article now. "The Bush Administration, in a surprise move today, has decided to change policy on homeland security based upon the musings of a few anonymous posters of an internet forum. Well credentialed academics were shocked, but the Democratic leadership applauded the move, saying 'All this security stuff is a real pain anyway.'"
Let me know when you want to have a real discussion on engineering and material science instead of a news reading, TSA-sucking up contest. I'll be happy to explain anything you'd like to know.
Let me know when you learn something about logic, because you've fallen for a classic fallacy: the straw man.
Your claim that since you think it's possible to defeat a security system it means that the system is completely useless is a fallacy. All you could prove is that it's not 100%, and the TSA doesn't even claim that it's 100%. A security tactic doesn't have to be 100% effective to have an effect. It's the total of everything happening, from intelligence, to passenger screening, behavior observation, and the physical search.
If it's only 80% effective and it causes the terrorists to change their behavior then it has accomplished something. Every time the terrorists have to adjust to something it complicates their plans and provides another chance to catch them.
Perhaps you could design something that could fit in a body cavity or an undergarment. You'd still have to get a detonator through as well. And someone with a block of C4 in a body cavity might just be a little more nervous during the security screening and get taken aside.
It strikes me that you want it both ways. Are the terrorists just idiots that were trying to mix TATP in a lav, or are they evil masterminds with a firm grasp of materials science and airport security? If they're idiots, then the methods we have will work (as they have), or if they're evil masterminds, then you shouldn't object to anything the TSA does to try to stop them.
And all of this because you think it's such a huge imposition to just take off your shoes, walk 20 feet, and put them back on again. It's time to lay off the pizza and get on the exercise bike if this is so traumatic.