I find an interesting dichotomy in this thread.

The public, in general, is asked to believe that a threat with a relatively long-term risk of 1 in 3.5 BILLION is something to be terrified of, on a daily basis, to the point of hiring tens of thousands of screeners to fight the threat, armed with millions of dollars of technology.

However, much more likely risks we're asked to not worry about. If I'm counting right, the risk that a TSA screener is a criminal - thief, smuggling accomplice, etc. - is around 1 in 4000. And this is given the knowledge that being caught in a serious crime will end a TSA employee's career.

So on my next trip through the airport, if I walk up to any random TSA employee and I also walk up to any random airplane passenger, the risk that the TSA employee is a criminal is about 875,000 times MORE LIKELY than that the passenger is a terrorist about to blow up a plane.

But the TSA wants me to live in constant fear of a terrorist yet accept that TSA employees left "on their honor", so to speak, will not risk committing a crime.

(It's hard to take anything seriously a TSA employee says after that.)

I think you're missing a few zeroes on the latter probability.

That's kind of the point. The screener stations are basically just PCs, with all the components and functionality of any other PC. It would actually be much harder to redesign off=the-shelf PC components to not store the images.

You may not be a technician, but I am a computer engineer. The images are still being captured and transmitted in raw format from the BKSX or MMW to the screening PC. They're dumped to some kind of storage there to allow the screener to look at, magnify, etc. The most easiest way to do this is to write them to a temp directory that is periodically emptied. It would be trivially easy to get to that directory and copy the data, even after deletion, unless a secure wipe was done.

As for the USB ports, you may not have seen them, but I'm certain they are there. The specifications called for them, which means they have to be, but there's another much more simple reason that they are. I haven't seen too many motherboards made in the last five years that do not have USB headers on them. They may not have ports on the front of the case, but they'll definitely be on the on-board panel on the back.

It seems the post a TSA screener made on SpaceBattles.com, that is the subject of this thread, has been removed.

It's still cached on Google. When will TSA employees learn how the interwebs work? :p



http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c2...7/73b70917.jpg

You're right - I forgot. They are the nation's trusted security professionals and we are "fares." No need to do more than to tell them "Don't take your cell phone or any storage devices into the booth with you."

I know that members of the media are attempting to talk to this guy.

I have reached out to him as well.

He must be scared.

He has probably already been snapped up and sent to Room 101.

So now the cat is out of the bag. I hope folks are sending this stuff to their congress critters. Cause it appears that higher ups in the governmental foodchain have lied to the people again. Who woulda thunk it?

I kinda miss the days of Nixon at times. You knew he was a crook. Now they all profess to be as clean as snow and driven with the best intentions for us. Scares the living sh*t outta me.

A mod has gone through that thread and removed the quotes (and possibly the original post as well).
Jurai's sig has also been edited.

Either Jurai requested the posts be edited, or "someone" contacted the forum admin about the post.

It's got legs.

Edit: It strikes me that I just found your blog. Never mind.

Yeah, pretty much.

You of all people should know how I am over on SB when it comes to the ol TSA...

You should also know that every time we're discussing TSA issues that its always from a checked baggage perspective...

Also the mods thought it was opsec so they deleted posts and edited the profile.

Welcome to FlyerTalk! :D

Its more like Vault 112....

Wait... so you're telling the truth about lying about the AIT saving images?

Now I'm confused.