Sunday, January 24, 2010

Full Body Scanner Fails to Detect a Bomb

The Full Body Scanner being talked about to bolster airport security (which may run afoul of child pornography laws) appears now to be an expensive flop waiting to happen. on a German TV show the scan failed to detect a bomb and number of other contraband items. Admittedly it was not a perfect test, but the scanner admitted the fairly easy work arounds to beat the test. We are about to spend tremendous amounts of money to implement a system we already know will not work. Instead we should learn from the Israelis and graft parts of their system on to ours.

Video embedded below. (via)



"A demonstration of a full-body scanner on German television last week revealed that the device, which uses infrared technology, was able to detect little more than a cellphone, a knife, and the girth of the man walking through it.

The problem? He was also packing a bomb.

“Admittedly, he only faced the scanner from the front and not from the side,” wrote computer security pro Bruce Schneier. “But he also didn’t hide anything in a body cavity other than his mouth — I didn’t think about that one — he didn’t use low density or thinly sliced PETN, and he didn’t hide anything in his carry-on luggage. Full-body scanners: they’re not just a dumb idea, they don’t actually work.”
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