[mrandish]

> Security checkpoints are the primary point of delay for getting into venues, and places that have rolled these out process people through about 95% faster. It's a huge difference.

I assume expediting peak crowd throughput at low labor cost is the primary, if not entire, value of the device. I hate that it's being marketed dishonestly but I also assume most concert venue buyers know (or suspect) it probably doesn't work all that well in practice. However, in a concert context accurate detection isn't their main priority. They need to get more bodies per minute into the venue at lower cost while appearing to conduct security checks sufficiently 'real' enough to act as a deterrent to get those who care about getting 'caught' to leave their knife or concealed carry handgun (or whatever) in the car.

The only hard and fast requirement is meeting the contractual security requirements of the venue and promoter's insurance carriers - because no insurance = no concert. It's a bonus if the 'security' also looks plausible enough to reassure the small fraction of perpetually fearful people statistically challenged enough to actually worry about terrorists or an active shooter killing them while at a Taylor Swift concert (as opposed to the infinitely more likely chance of dying in a car crash on the way to the concert).

In a perfect world, everyone would be rational and numerate enough that we wouldn't need to maintain the pretense of 'security theater' in contexts where actual security isn't necessary. But in the imperfect world we live in, I prefer having concert (and airport) security be as minimally disruptive and inexpensive as possible regardless of effectiveness (since it's unnecessary and mostly ineffective in those contexts anyway). I just wish companies would sell these products as 'security placebos' instead of lying about it because fraud is wrong.

[mlyle]

I don't know anything about the devices that are being sold, but it doesn't seem impossible to me that with better signal processing from a metal detector, you could reduce false positives a bit while maintaining or slightly improving the false negative rate.

[mrandish]

Sure, I agree that's an interesting and likely solvable technical problem. However, the vast majority of the addressable market in today's over-secured society don't really need improved detection. Concert venues, sports arenas and similar customers buy massive volume and they are much more concerned with faster throughput enabled by shorter cycle time and minimal false positives. Of course the head of security at Madison Square Garden can never publicly admit they don't care about better detection enough to pay more for it, but I'm confident the sales managers at these security vendors understand exactly what their largest market segments really care about.

Customers like Tel Aviv International Airport, who actually care to some meaningful extent about improved detection, are a small minority segment of the overall market. Creating new technical measures able to demonstrate improved performance in rigorous objective tests on the metrics these customers care about (some sweeter spot on the matrix of false pos, false neg, true pos, true neg, net throughput, cost) would be valuable but only to that small segment.

[mlyle]

Note that I said lower false positives and equal or slightly better false negatives, which aligns with what you say customers want.

Of course I suspect venues really don't care about false negative rates much at all, so there's a big temptation for everyone to just turn sensitivity down.

[HeyLaughingBoy]

Very likely, but who's going to pay for the engineering efforts? If the customer doesn't care about having a better device, or a better device would actually make their job harder, then it's wasted effort on the part of the manufacturer.

Engineering exists to solve a problem. It's entirely likely that your definition of the "problem" differs from that of the paying customer.

[lupusreal]

> get more bodies per minute into the venue at lower cost while appearing to conduct security checks sufficiently 'real' enough to act as a deterrent

Or they just need to convince most of their customers it will be safe to attend, while covering their ass by following "best practices" if something slips through, people get hurt and they get sued.

[mrandish]

> convince most of their customers it will be safe to attend

Apparently, you've never met my Aunt Sue. She has a graduate degree in innumeracy with a minor in illiteracy and a specialization in worrying about whatever the media tells her to worry about. However, she always votes.

More seriously, it's not cost-effective to "convince most customers it will be safe enough to attend." The game theory around fallacious public perception makes it a losing proposition for a politician or company to ever appear to reduce security requirements because as soon as "rare bad thing happens", they will be blamed - even though their reduction in pointless measures had no bearing on it.

Most independent experts agree that securing cockpit doors in 2002 made subjecting every passenger to the TSA's increased security measures unnecessary and, objectively, a very poor ROI in both cost and disruption. However, the TSA will never, ever go away - even though it could and should. Not only is reducing security politically costly, the TSA is now a multi-billion dollar federal bureaucracy, paying hundreds of vendors with lobbyists and employing tens of thousands of unionized workers spread across the most populous congressional districts. Yes, this is frustrating.

[lupusreal]

They don't need to convince most of the public, just enough so they can fill up their venue. There are some Aunt Sues who are too afraid to go to concerts, but concert venues are still able to fill up when they have a popular act so it stands to reason that they're managing public perception of the risk well enough for their own needs.

[Zak]

> The only hard and fast requirement is meeting the contractual security requirements of the venue and promoter's insurance carriers

I think it would be a good idea to create an explicit carve out in the law saying that there is no premise liability for a property owner or event organizer due to a third party committing a crime.

[staticautomatic]

So, do away with all negligent security cases?

[Zak]

Yes. In general, business owners aren't expected to prevent crimes against their customers. If someone attacks me at a bar or grocery store, I probably won't get very far trying to sue the owner for failing to check everyone for weapons on entry. I'm not sure I'd have more success with a concert venue, but it appears insurance companies perceive enough risk to demand certain procedures.

Codifying that expectation in law would reduce costly and obnoxious security theater. Of course, a business advertising a certain level of security could be sued for failing to provide it.

[staticautomatic]

Ok, but it seems like a bit of a non-sequitur to say “ business owners aren't expected to prevent crimes against their customers” when there’s a body of law to the contrary.

[Zak]

Is there? In most US states, the concept of premises liability seems to be derived entirely from case law, not statute. Some states appear to have statutes limiting its scope, such as https://colorado.public.law/statutes/crs_13-21-115

Edit: to be clear, I don't think there's anything actually stopping someone from attempting to sue a bar or grocery store over a crime committed there, but it usually doesn't happen and would likely be an uphill battle for the plaintiff.

[staticautomatic]

So what? It's not like common law has less effect. "Body of law" is understood by lawyers to include both common and statutory law.