[xrd]

What's to prevent terrorists from going through TSA, waiting in the scanning line when everyone is still going through, and then planting a bluetooth device into someone else's bag? I never open my carryon once I have packed it.

This reminds me of the SNL sketch where TSA employees had no answer for someone bringing two separate bottles of 3.9 ounces onto the plane.

I'm sure Sean Duffy, of Real World and now Sec of Transportation, will fix this.

[rayiner]

Nothing. TSA is a joke. At first, the security theater arguably had a legitimate psychological purpose. The airline industry nearly collapsed after 9/11 because people were so scared of filing. But that was a generation ago—the psychological trauma in the aftermath of 9/11 dissipated ago. But we’re still stuck with the TSA because in the meantime it turned into a massive jobs program.

We’d be better off spending TSA’s $8 billion budget on paying people to dig holes and fill them back in.

[linkregister]

I don't see any evidence of TSA being a jobs program. Their mission and the agents executing it appear to be toward flight security. I'm certain there are many counterexamples of misguided policies and agents exhibiting incompetence. But the general direction of the agency is to screen passengers prior to entering secure airport areas and this is generally successful.

[FabCH]

TSA is famous for failing tests for decades. Here’s the latest one: https://abcnews.com/US/tsa-fails-tests-latest-undercover-ope...

Over the years, their failure rate has consistently been 80-95%.

I don’t think you can reasonably call that „generally successful“.

[consp]

I failure is the goal: yes.

[jim33442]

Every other country seems to do the same thing though

[HDBaseT]

In Australia, you place your carry on luggage onto a tray and it passes through an xray machine, at the same time, you walk through a metal detector. Takes about 30 seconds depending on the line.

It still feels incongruent with the reality of the situation in my opinion. I can hop on a bus with 200 other people, or on a train with literally 0 security carrying whatever I want in a bag with no staff nearby either.

[jim33442]

That's basically how it is in the US, except that sometimes there aren't enough machines so the lines are long, and it's the spinning scan thing rather than a metal detector. Usually no line in major California airports when I've gone. NYC is hit-or-miss. Just did a transfer through LHR and the security line was insanely long.

It used to be much worse though. I think the new machinery has made the difference.

The bus/train is different because they're harder to weaponize. Everything we got was a response to the 9/11 attacks.

[somewhatgoated]

I agree with you on train and somewhat bus but cars are extremely easy to weaponise and dirt cheap. Any terrorist trying to hijack a plane and not simply using a car (with or without extra explosives) is an idiot.

Essentially terrorism isn’t about spreading terror, because they are so laughably ineffective at it.

See this excellent gwern article: https://gwern.net/terrorism-is-not-about-terror

[prmoustache]

These kinds of measures are always reactionnary to prior events. For example in Spain you do get your bag scanned (but I doubt scan operators are sufficiently trained to spot anything of importance anyway) at train stations before embarkments and also any governmental/official/administrative office because Spain has a history of bombing (mostly by ETA).

[ajmurmann]

Isn't this because there otherwise wouldn't be allowed to fly into US airspace?

[jim33442]

I mean for a flight that doesn't go to/from the US.

[thombat]

The US requirement is that passengers on flights to the USA have been processed in conformance with US regulations _and_ since that processing have not had any contact with passengers processed otherwise. It's not in itself a stupid rule but does make the US rules contagious, since either other airports re-build to keep the US-bound and other passengers segregated or they have to apply US rules to all.

This hit Auckland International badly: it had a lovely open atrium with a garden but the rules forced a forest of partitioning walls since passengers were transferring from smaller airports that couldn't quickly adopt the US rules.

[N19PEDL2]

I often fly from Milan Malpensa airport, and I’ve noticed there are two separate security areas: one for people flying to the US or Israel, and one for everyone else. I’d always wondered why this was the case, and now I get it.

[stephen_g]

Not to the same extent though - for example I can't remember if I ever had to take my shoes off (maybe there was a couple of months where we had to do it back after the attempt happened in December 2021?), so I was pretty shocked to go to the US for a work trip in 2019 and have to do that. Here in Australia there's no liquid limit in carry on for domestic flights.

[jim33442]

Nowadays I don't need to remove shoes in the US. I vaguely remember times it was randomly required or not, not sure when, and back when it was always required. I'm not TSA precheck or anything. But yeah we have the liquid limit, which always seemed like the one dumbest thing to me, maybe even a way to sell drinks.

[fluidcruft]

Unless it has changed for a while the TSApre lines don't make you take off shoes and belts vs the regular lines. I also think they stopped making TSApre tahe laptops and iPads out of bags. But it may also have to do with equipment upgrade cycles and what was deployed to which lines.

[jim33442]

TSA precheck was originally for avoiding removing shoes, belts, and laptops. I had it at some point and gave up because random lines kept making me remove stuff anyway, but only telling me that after my bag was already taken aside for search, so it wasn't worth.

Newer xray machines don't require anyone to remove laptops. It's about 50/50 whether I get a new machine lately. Just today at SFO, had to remove laptop but not shoes.

[Loughla]

It's not just security theater. It shifts the attack vector entirely. Instead of airplanes as weapons that could be used to kill thousands, terrorists can blow up a few hundred people.

Those checkpoints are only there to provide a soft target instead of letting it be a plane.

[jim33442]

I agree. Sure you can still get weapons through screening, in fact I've accidentally done it twice with like 4" pocket knives, but not sure what the odds are. A lot of the "security theater" argument seems to be annoyance at having to go through TSA, cause what's the alternative, just barely screen people like before?

[rayiner]

No, the “security theater” argument is because TSA consistently fails penetration tests: https://abcnews.com/US/tsa-fails-tests-latest-undercover-ope...

“When ABC News asked the source if the failure rate was 80 percent, the response was, ‘You are in the ballpark.’”

[simoncion]

> Instead of airplanes as weapons that could be used to kill thousands...

As pilots had been screaming for for years prior to 2001, cockpit doors have been reinforced and locked, and cabin procedures have changed so that those doors are rarely unlocked. [0] This happened shortly after the WTC bombings that totally destroyed the buildings. This means that the only people who can get control of an aircraft are the crew of that aircraft.

The first of the two things that stops "another 9/11" had a one-time monetary cost and was done twenty five years ago. The second was the murder of everyone on board three airliners by hijackers. Prior hijackings were a diversion and an annoying delay. Now that "hijackers will kill you all" is on the table, hijackers will be outnumbered ten or thirty to one and will not succeed. Remember that the plane intended to crash into the Pentagon crashed in a field somewhere because its passengers heard about the ones that hit WTC and -correctly- determined that they had absolutely nothing to lose.

> ...terrorists can blow up a few hundred people [at a checkpoint].

The fact that this doesn't happen indicates that even a jetliner with a flimsy, unlocked cockpit door wouldn't be used as a weapon to kill thousands. Murder -let alone mass murder- is vanishingly rare. By and large, people simply don't want to kill or injure each other... they just want to go about their business.

To support this point, I'd like you to tell me when was the last time you heard about a cell-phone-battery-bomb? You may remember those from back when Israel's military booby trapped the batteries of phones that they believed were going to be delivered to many members of the opposing military... and then set off those bombs all at once. Shorty after the bombings, Bunnie Huang [1] did some thinking and came to the conclusion that not only is it pretty easy to fabricate such remotely-triggerable bombs with like five-figures [2] worth of perfectly ordinary equipment that is entirely legal for anyone to have, if one built such a bomb with the explosive force of a hand grenade it would be [3] undetectable to a TSA CT scanner operator, and -because batteries are sealed- entirely undetectable to explosives swabs.

If The Terrorists Are Constantly Out To Get Us, why haven't we seen these bombs? It has been what, three years or so since those very clever booby traps were distributed to and used against opposing forces? Where are the domestic bangs and booms?

[0] One expects that airlines did not wish to do this because its cost was greater than zero. I wonder how the cost compared to the destruction of three airliners, two skyscrapers, all the deaths and cleanup, and twenty five years (and counting) of security theater.

[1] Huang is a fellow with fairly substantial commercial electronics design and fabrication experience

[2] USD

[3] ...in part because of the variance in battery construction from manufacturer to manufacturer and even from model to model...

[jacobrast]

Why would a terrorist want to plant a Bluetooth device on someone else's bag when all it would accomplish is a minor delay of one flight and would result in a prison sentence after security camera review??

[philistine]

Remember: Kim Jong-Un’s brother was not killed directly by North Korean goons. They hired two women they convinced they were working on a prank show to spray him with the poisons.

You’d do something like that.

[MaKey]

After reviewing the video tapes the police concluded that the women knew that they were handling poison - they kept their hands away from their body and immediately washed them after the attack.

[simulator5g]

Someone could have told them it was anything else that you wouldn't want on your body. Like, fart spray or whatever. A prank. That behavior doesn't really tell you anything conclusive, but I guess they just let anyone be a cop these days.

[Retric]

Why stop at one bag for one flight?

> would result in a prison sentence

That doesn’t seem like a significant deterrent here.

[stouset]

This is the type of prank you’d see some idiot do to try and get followers on TikTok, not something a terrorist would bother with.

[Kye]

You sure about that?

>> "All that we have to do is to send two mujahidin to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaida, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies."

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/11/continuing-anxi...

[stouset]

They were bragging that they could provoke this type of response as a result of having flown two planes into the World Trade Center and one into the Pentagon, killing thousands, and causing fear, panic, and self-sabotaging outsized reactions like pouring trillions into wars that accomplish nothing.

Getting a dozen of their operatives arrested for an idiotic prank that just resulted in a handful of planes being turned around would make them a laughingstock overnight.

I am baffled that we are even having this argument.

[Retric]

There’s evidence that not all people involved in 9/11 knew they were going to die. Yet, they were still used effectively.

Significantly less dedicated supporters are generally used as a funding source, but actual terrorist organizations have also used them for publicity events on the anniversary of attacks.

[LPisGood]

People accidentally sneak weapons through TSA all the time.

There are many anecdotal examples out there. More scientifically, they had a horrific detection rate in some audits.

[lazide]

The same thing that is stopping them from suicide bombing the super crowded security checkpoint line before ID checks.

Nothing really.

[bdcravens]

Or going into the baggage claim area with a bag containing an explosive device, then acting like they grabbed the wrong bag and putting it back on the carousel, and then leaving.

[bruce511]

As an aside, this is something I've only seen in the US. At least in my country the domestic baggage claim area is not accessible unless from an arriving aircraft.

I'm guessing that has more to do with theft though than security.

[hvb2]

No, that's because in the US they're handling the international flights separately. It's also the reason why even when you have a layover, you need to clear customs.

Domestic flights in the US are like busses/trains elsewhere. Most people fly without a checked bag

[NamTaf]

Most of the world handles international flights separately without needing to do that unless it is an international-domestic connection.

However I agree that in purely domestic airports I don't see how you'd prevent general public from accessing bags. Except India, wherein you need a booked flight to even enter the airport.

[kgwgk]

> I don't see how you'd prevent general public from accessing bags.

People are routinely prevented from being where they are not supposed to be. Whether you put the baggage pick-up point in a publicly accessible area or on a restricted area is a design choice.

[daveoc64]

> However I agree that in purely domestic airports I don't see how you'd prevent general public from accessing bags.

I don't understand this.

Why can't they have a door after the baggage claim that does not permit entry to the baggage claim area?

That's how things work in the UK.

In my local airport, the final part of leaving the arrivals area is the same for both international and domestic flights.

Passport control > Baggage claim (international) > Customs > One-way exit to landside

Baggage claim (domestic) > One-way exit to landside

[thrownthatway]

Do people collect their bags from the baggage claim area and then immediately reboard an aircraft to exit the terminal?

How do the arrivals exist the terminal

Are you not allowed to have a friend who is picking you up assist with baggage claim?

[bruce511]

>> Do people collect their bags from the baggage claim area and then immediately reboard an aircraft to exit the terminal? >> How do the arrivals exist the terminal

You arrive, go to baggage reclaim, then into the "public area". You can then exit the terminal, or go check in for another flight or whatever you like. The point is that once you have left the baggage collection area you cannot re-enter it.

>> Are you not allowed to have a friend who is picking you up assist with baggage claim?

exactly. No-one from outside is allowed into the baggage collection hall. But equally, we don't get charged for trolly use. So you don't need help. You stack everything onto a trolly (which are there waiting for you for free.)

[lazide]

often baggage pickup is on the terminal side of the ‘one way exit’.

[bruce511]

yes. In the US. that's what I'm saying. This appears to be a very US design. (Although obviously my experience of domestic air travel is limited to a small number of countries.)

[mysterydip]

We need to put a checkpoint before the checkpoint so that never happens!

[datadrivenangel]

In Uganda they make you get out of your car and go through a metal detector before getting to the pre-security security screening at the actual airport... 3-4 layers...

[umvi]

Seems like an effective DoS attack - ground all planes in the US by sneaking cheap bluetooth speakers into people's luggage with provacative device names

[ZeWaka]

Doesn't even need to be a speaker. Just a battery and transmitter.

[simulator5g]

This would probably be a supply chain attack if it ever happens.

[hackyhacky]

This is the SNL sketch in question: https://www.tiktok.com/@hamtelevision/video/7276358099089231...

[laweijfmvo]

it never made sense. i could bring two or more identical 4oz sunblocks, for example, but not a single 5oz toothpaste.

[AndrewOMartin]

Even worse, what's to prevent the terrorists from temporarily renaming their Bluetooth bombs to something innocuous just before going through security and only renaming it back when they need to conveniently find them again while pairing?

[stouset]

If you’re a terrorist, I’m pretty sure you can think of dramatically more consequential things to do than cause a handful of planes to potentially divert. That’s a wildly pointless prank for something that will invariably wind up with you being arrested.

Why do that when you could simply attack people waiting in the security line? That would actually cause terror and shut down an entire airport for days.

[goda90]

A saboteur might want to cause disruption without violence against people, and such cases would still likely be labeled terrorism.

[stouset]

Only because we have labeled anything and everything terrorism these days.

Even then this is an extremely lame and ineffective form of sabotage, compared to the kind of prison sentence you’d be risking.

[al_borland]

You're supposed to wait to walk through the scanner until your bag is in the x-ray machine, or far enough along to not be tampered with. Doing that, I'm still always waiting on the other side to see by bag come out the other end.

[r3trohack3r]

> What's to prevent terrorists … planting a bluetooth device into someone else's bag

Reminds me of Professor Chaos trying to flood the world by leaving the garden hose on.

[koolba]

> What's to prevent terrorists from going through TSA, waiting in the scanning line when everyone is still going through, and then planting a bluetooth device into someone else's bag? I never open my carryon once I have packed it.

I make it a point to hold up the whole line until it is my turn to go through the xray. It gets fun when they mandate a pat down in lieu of the millimeter wave scanner but refuse to have someone available for it.

It’s the only way to honestly say you have kept your bags under watch. If anybody tries to send in my bags without me , I immediately speak up in a loud stern voice, “That is not your bag!”

[stouset]

I’m not saying this as an ad hominem and simply to throw insults, but with the hopes that it will encourage you to change your behavior.

The only thing this accomplishes is making you the kind of asshole who interferes with other people that are just trying to make their flight on time. You are not highlighting flaws in the security system. You are not taking a principled ethical stance against tyranny. You are just acting like an asshole for the sake of being an asshole and making life just a little bit worse for everyone else around you.

This is not something to brag about. This is something to be ashamed of.

[koolba]

By taking a stand and inconveniencing the world around me, I hope to induce change for everyone.

What’s the alternative? Lose track of my stuff or risk it being stolen?

[stouset]

No, you don’t.

You are being an asshole to prove a point. But I am going to assume that you are an intelligent person, and since you are, you know as well as I do that nobody you are treating this way is in a position to do anything about the situation. Nobody in line is going to empathize with your stand when you are disrupting their travel. You are doing this so you can feel high and mighty, but you know damn well it isn’t behavior that will induce change.

The alternative is to either a) allow others to pass until you witness your bag enter the scanner or b) accept that nobody is going to steal your stuff directly in front of law enforcement officials and just go through the scanner.

Stop acting like an asshole.

[koolba]

> You are being an asshole to prove a point.

How is waiting for my turn to go through the metal detector or be patted down being an asshole? I arrived before the people behind me and I’m following the security procedures of the airport.

It explicitly says to keep your belongings in your position at all times. To keep your bags in view. In fact they ask you if you ever lost sight of your bags.

If people don’t want to wait in line for people following the rules then let them be inconvenienced to the point where they will get the rules changed to speed up the process.

But I’m not going to give in to the stupidity of the security rules and forsake my own belongings to accommodate someone who doesn’t care enough to either come early and deal with the potential ramifications of the rules their elected leaders have chosen for them.

[stouset]

> I make it a point to hold up the whole line

What you are doing is the equivalent of paying some poor cashier in pennies while everyone behind you is forced to wait in order to get revenge for some decision made by executives ten rungs up the food chain.

It is childish and immature. And worse, it biases people against whatever point you’re trying to make in the first place. Please make the conscious choice to be a better person.

> It explicitly says to keep your belongings in your position at all times.

Since you are hell-bent on following all rules to the letter, you could at least commit to the bit and follow your luggage through the X-ray machine.

If you concede that it’s not reasonable to do so, then I think you’re capable of being adult enough to concede that neither is purposefully obstructing a bunch of other travelers for the sake of a pointless exercise to obstruct everyone else so you can maintain eye contact with your luggage.

[isatty]

Some people deserve to be insulted. It’s fine.

[JumpCrisscross]

> make it a point to hold up the whole line until it is my turn to go through the xray

How? I’ve seen idiots do this. I just go around and ahead of them.