Tag: Security Theater

TSA Body Scanners Rendered Useless

You guys can thank Zerg539 for this wonderfully hilarious news. It appears that somebody found a vulnerability in the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) naked body scanner:

For those who don’t or can’t watch the video a transcript has been made available:

Here are several images produced by TSA nude body scanners. You’ll see that the search victim is drawn with light colors and placed on a black background in both images. In these samples, the individuals are concealing metallic objects that you can see as a black shape on their light figure. Again that’s light figure, black background, and BLACK threat items. Yes that’s right, if you have a metallic object on your side, it will be the same color as the background and therefore completely invisible to both visual and automated inspection.

It can’t possibly be that easy to beat the TSA’s billion dollar fleet of nude body scanners, right? The TSA can’t be that stupid, can they?

Unfortunately, they can, and they are. To put it to the test, I bought a sewing kit from the dollar store, broke out my 8th grade home ec skills, and sewed a pocket directly on the side of a shirt. Then I took a random metallic object, in this case a heavy metal carrying case that would easily alarm any of the “old” metal detectors, and walked through a backscatter x-ray at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. On video, of course. While I’m not about to win any videography awards for my hidden camera footage, you can watch as I walk through the security line with the metal object in my new side pocket. My camera gets placed on the conveyer belt and goes through its own x-ray, and when it comes out, I’m through, and the object never left my pocket.

If you want to get something through one of these body scanners just make sure it’s made of metal. I’m guessing the polymer frames of Glock and M&P pistols will set off the scanners so make sure you’re smuggling a metal framed gun, like a 1911.

Does this mean the TSA will admit failure and ditch these scanners? Fuck no! I’ll be money that they’ll now force their victims passengers to submit to a naked body scan and a trip through the metal detectors from here on out. Whatever they decide it’s good to see ingenuity will render their tactics pointless.

Hello Mr. or Mrs. DHS Agent

Hello Mr. or Mrs. Department of Motherland Homeland Security Agent,

I see that you’ve come to my site due to one or more of the keywords I’ve printed in the following list:

Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
Coast Guard (USCG)
Customs and Border Protection (CBP)
Border Patrol
Secret Service (USSS)
National Operations Center (NOC)
Homeland Defense
Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE)
Agent
Task Force
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
Fusion Center
Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)
Secure Border Initiative (SBI)
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF)
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS)
Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS)
Transportation Security Administration (TSA)
Air Marshal
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
National Guard
Red Cross
United Nations (UN)
Assassination
Attack
Domestic security
Drill
Exercise
Cops
Law enforcement
Authorities
Disaster assistance
Disaster management
DNDO (Domestic Nuclear Detection Office)
National preparedness
Mitigation
Prevention
Response
Recovery
Dirty bomb
Domestic nuclear detection
Emergency management
Emergency response
First responder
Homeland security
Maritime domain awareness (MDA)
National preparedness
initiative
Militia
Shooting
Shots fired
Evacuation
Deaths
Hostage
Explosion (explosive)
Police
Disaster medical assistance
team (DMAT)
Organized crime
Gangs
National security
State of emergency
Security
Breach
Threat
Standoff
SWAT
Screening
Lockdown
Bomb (squad or threat)
Crash
Looting
Riot
Emergency Landing
Pipe bomb
Incident
Facility
Hazmat
Nuclear
Chemical spill
Suspicious package/device
Toxic
National laboratory
Nuclear facility
Nuclear threat
Cloud
Plume
Radiation
Radioactive
Leak
Biological infection (or event)
Chemical
Chemical burn
Biological
Epidemic
Hazardous
Hazardous material incident
Industrial spill
Infection
Powder (white)
Gas
Spillover
Anthrax
Blister agent
Chemical agent
Exposure
Burn
Nerve agent
Ricin
Sarin
North Korea
Outbreak
Contamination
Exposure
Virus
Evacuation
Bacteria
Recall
Ebola
Food Poisoning
Foot and Mouth (FMD)
H5N1
Avian
Flu
Salmonella
Small Pox
Plague
Human to human
Human to Animal
Influenza
Center for Disease Control
(CDC)
Drug Administration (FDA)
Public Health
Toxic
Agro Terror
Tuberculosis (TB)
Agriculture
Listeria
Symptoms
Mutation
Resistant
Antiviral
Wave
Pandemic
Infection
Water/air borne
Sick
Swine
Pork
Strain
Quarantine
H1N1
Vaccine
Tamiflu
Norvo Virus
Epidemic
World Health Organization
(WHO) (and components)
Viral Hemorrhagic Fever
E. Coli
Infrastructure security
Airport
Airplane (and derivatives)
Chemical fire
CIKR (Critical Infrastructure & Key Resources)
AMTRAK
Collapse
Computer infrastructure
Communications
infrastructure
Telecommunications
Critical infrastructure
National infrastructure
Metro
WMATA
Subway
BART
MARTA
Port Authority
NBIC (National Biosurveillance Integration Center)
Transportation security
Grid
Power
Smart
Body scanner
Electric
Failure or outage
Black out
Brown out
Port
Dock
Bridge
Cancelled
Delays
Service disruption
Power lines
Drug cartel
Violence
Gang
Drug
Narcotics
Cocaine
Marijuana
Heroin
Border
Mexico
Cartel
Southwest
Juarez
Sinaloa
Tijuana
Torreon
Yuma
Tucson
Decapitated
U.S. Consulate
Consular
El Paso
Fort Hancock
San Diego
Ciudad Juarez
Nogales
Sonora
Colombia
Mara salvatrucha
MS13 or MS-13
Drug war
Mexican army
Methamphetamine
Cartel de Golfo
Gulf Cartel
La Familia
Reynosa
Nuevo Leon
Narcos
Narco banners (Spanish equivalents)
Los Zetas
Shootout
Execution
Gunfight
Trafficking
Kidnap
Calderon
Reyosa
Bust
Tamaulipas
Meth Lab
Drug trade
Illegal immigrants
Smuggling (smugglers)
Matamoros
Michoacana
Guzman
Arellano-Felix
Beltran-Leyva
Barrio Azteca
Artistic Assassins
Mexicles
New Federation
Terrorism
Al Qaeda (all spellings)
Terror
Attack
Iraq
Afghanistan
Iran
Pakistan
Agro
Environmental terrorist
Eco terrorism
Conventional weapon
Target
Weapons grade
Dirty bomb
Enriched
Nuclear
Chemical weapon
Biological weapon
Ammonium nitrate
Improvised explosive device
IED (Improvised Explosive Device)
Abu Sayyaf
Hamas
FARC (Armed Revolutionary Forces Colombia)
IRA (Irish Republican Army)
ETA (Euskadi ta Askatasuna)
Basque Separatists
Hezbollah
Tamil Tigers
PLF (Palestine Liberation Front)
PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization
Car bomb
Jihad
Taliban
Weapons cache
Suicide bomber
Suicide attack
Suspicious substance
AQAP (AL Qaeda Arabian
Peninsula)
AQIM (Al Qaeda in the
Islamic Maghreb)
TTP (Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan)
Yemen
Pirates
Extremism
Somalia
Nigeria
Radicals
Al-Shabaab
Home grown
Plot
Nationalist
Recruitment
Fundamentalism
Islamist
Emergency
Hurricane
Tornado
Twister
Tsunami
Earthquake
Tremor
Flood
Storm
Crest
Temblor
Extreme weather
Forest fire
Brush fire
Ice
Stranded/Stuck
Help
Hail
Wildfire
Tsunami Warning Center
Magnitude
Avalanche
Typhoon
Shelter-in-place
Disaster
Snow
Blizzard
Sleet
Mud slide or Mudslide
Erosion
Power outage
Brown out
Warning
Watch
Lightening
Aid
Relief
Closure
Interstate
Burst
Emergency Broadcast System
Cyber security
Botnet
DDOS (dedicated denial of
service)
Denial of service
Malware
Virus
Trojan
Keylogger
Cyber Command
2600
Spammer
Phishing
Rootkit
Phreaking
Cain and abel
Brute forcing
Mysql injection
Cyber attack
Cyber terror
Hacker
China
Conficker
Worm
Scammers
Social media

Judging by the extremely long list [PDF] of keywords DHS uses to monitor social networking sites you have your work cut out for you. In fact judging by the frequently used words like spammer, China, storm, flood, and pirates you’re forced to scour almost the entire Internet. Hell being the agency you work for is one of the listed keywords you’re likely also forced to scour your entire intranet as well.

I would like to thank Bruce Schneier for bringing this list to my attention so that I could get your attention. Now that I have your attention I have a message for you and your fellow government agents: fuck you. Feel free to forward my message to your boss.

Even though your list is quite extensive I’ve noticed several words missing that you may wish to add: sovereign, anarchist, freedom, liberty, founding fathers, rights, and ponies. Why ponies? Because of this guy.

Anyways you should get back to work. Feel free to nose around my sight for a bit, I’m sure you’ll find something in need of additional DHS attention. If you have any questions feel free to submit them to the e-mail address listed on the right-hand side of this page, I’ll get back to you at my earliest convenience (do be warned though that any reply sent from my will contain an attached image of some pornographic image so vulgar that the strongest eye bleach won’t be capable of removing it).

Sincerely,

Christopher Burg

Another Great Job by the TSA

I’m not even sure what to say about this most recent screwup by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA):

  1. TSA screener finds two pipes in passenger’s bags.
  2. Screener determines that they’re not a threat.
  3. Screener confiscates them anyway, because of their “material and appearance.”
  4. Because they’re not actually a threat, screener leaves them at the checkpoint.
  5. Everyone forgets about them.
  6. Six hours later, the next shift of TSA screeners notices the pipes and — not being able to explain how they got there and, presumably, because of their “material and appearance” — calls the police bomb squad to remove the pipes.
  7. TSA does not evacuate the airport, or even close the checkpoint, because — well, we don’t know why.

I don’t even feel the need to add a witty remark, the stupidity of the TSA speaks for itself.

The Fallacy of State Provided Protection

A recently widowed mother whose husband died of cancer found herself in another tragic situation. When she was at home with her child a thug with a knife decided it would be a jolly good idea to do a little breaking and entering. The mother called 911 but ended up having to defend herself as the phrase, “When seconds count the police are only minutes away.” was demonstrated once again:

Oklahoma news media have the compelling story of a shotgun-toting 18-year-old mother who killed an intruder on New Year’s Eve after a 911 operator told her, “Do what you have to do to protect your baby.”

[…]

The 911 conversation lasted for 21 minutes. Then the door gave in.

21 minutes, that’s how long the call laster and the police had not arrive. This story, along with many like it, demonstrate the fallacy of state provided protection. How horrible is it that the government not only maintains a monopoly on police protection but has also ruled that it has no obligation to actually provide you the promised services.

Let’s look at where police protection in this country currently sits. In almost all cases the state maintains a monopoly on armed protective services and even if a private alternative exists customers are unable to cease paying the government for it’s ill-provided protection service. See those who seek alternative protection and thus no longer desire to utilize the government provided police will be kidnapped by those very officer and tossed into a cage unless they begin paying again.

Even protecting yourself is burdensome if not impossible because of government laws. Many countries and individual states in the United States have strong laws against self-defense. Some states don’t allow individuals to carry firearms on their person, many states don’t have any form of stand your ground of castle doctrine laws on the books, and other states have strong restrictions on who can even own a gun. The lack of stand your ground and castle doctrine laws are perhaps the most egregious because it assumes guilt on behalf of the defender, and in the case of missing castle doctrine that guilt is still assumed in the defender’s own home.

Firearms are hands down the best tools available for person defense but access to them is strictly controlled. In the United States any person charged with a felony, even a non-violent felony, is prohibited from owning firearms. If the mother in this story had been in possession of enough marijuana to be charged with felony possession she likely wouldn’t have had that firearm available to her and she and her child would likely be dead now. Outside of the United States firearm possession is even more strictly controlled with complete prohibition existing in some countries. Were this mother in England she and her child would likely be dead. Thus self-protection has been taken from the state and is only granted to those it deems worthy.

This story only ended happily because the woman lived in a place that “allows” people to defend themselves, own a firearm, and she wasn’t an “undesirable” person. Even though she has paid for police protection and will have to continue paying she has no recourse for the fact a squad car hadn’t arrive after 21 minutes. Were she able to seek a private provider a contractual agreement could have been made requiring protection to arrive within a specified span of time or the mother would no longer be made to continue paying for services.

State provide protection is a fallacy because they don’t actually offer protection. If you call the state protection service they may or may not send somebody to help, it’s a crap shoot.

But There Was a Sign Stating Guns Were Banned in the Courthouse

The idea behind so-called gun-free zones has always baffled me. Proponents of the idea claim guns won’t be carried into these zones because bad people obey laws. When I look at the idea all I see is a big sign telling criminals that persons in these zones will most likely not be armed and therefore make prime victims. Whereas proponents have never been able to demonstrate their idea works those of us who claim gun-free zones are stupid ideas have plenty of examples to fall back on. Another example manifested earlier this money as a prosecutor in the Cook County courthouse was shot:

The Cook County attorney was shot and three others were hurt in the chaos. The gunman had been convicted of criminal sexual conduct moments earlier, his attorney said.

This should have never happened according to those who advocate the establishment of gun-free zones:

“This is a very small courthouse. This is a very small community,” County Commissioner Janice Hall said. “There’s a sign on the door that says no firearms allowed beyond this point.”

It seems to me that criminals aren’t much for obeying signs. Instead of trying to disarm lawful individuals how about we establish more areas where people maintain a right to defend themselves. If a criminal can get a gun into a courthouse they can certainly get one into a school.

Vulnerability Found in Wi-Fi Protected Setup

I apologize for being a little late with this news but I’m on vacation, what can you really ask from me? Anyways a brute force vulnerability was discovered in Wi-Fi Protect Setup (WPA):

A few weeks ago I decided to take a look at the Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) technology. I noticed a few really bad design decisions which enable an efficient brute force attack, thus effectively breaking the security of pretty much all WPS-enabled Wi-Fi routers. As all of the more recent router models come with WPS enabled by default, this affects millions of devices worldwide.

Ouch, glad I never used WPS to setup the security on my wireless network. Technical details about the vulnerability can be found in this writeup [PDF].

TSA’s Mission Creep Continues

The Transportation Sexual Assaulters Security Administration (TSA) are performing an orchestra that should sound familiar to all of us, their expanding their mission far beyond the one they were originally chartered to perform:

An all-too-familiar sight at LAX and the rest of the nation’s airports will soon be coming to the city’s busiest train station.

KNX 1070′s Pete Demetriou reports rail passengers have started seeing Transportation Security Administration on patrol at Union Station on a more frequent basis.

As many as 25 VIPR (Visible Intermodal Prevention & Response) teams began patrolling train stations nationwide last summer conducting an estimated 9,300 “suspicionless” spot searches of travelers.

These Visible Interrogation and Public Repression (VIPR) teams are getting out of hand. I’m sure we’ve all watched enough war movies where the a Nazi soldier is asking a random traveler for their papers before allowing the traveler to be on his or her way. This is exactly what these VIPR teams are, jack booted thugs demanding to see traveler’s papers before allowing free passage.

Mission creep is always the way police states are established. The tyrannical programs are introduced piece by piece until the populace is surprised to see their freedoms entirely suspended. Mark my words, unless the TSA’s VIPR teams are disbanded they will be setting up checkpoints on state borders and you will be subjected to their interrogation before being allowed to travers from one state to another.

More Fear Mongering by the Department of Homeland Security

The federal government never stops with the fear mongering. They likely realize that if those of us residing in the United States don’t remain fearful we’ll be less likely to surrender our civil liberties and money peacefully. This time the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is claiming Al Qaeda is planning to sew bombs into people:

That’s right: Al-Qaida wants to surgically implant bombs into people. Or so the government claims.

Not that there’s an imminent threat, says the Department of Homeland Security. Or a surgery bomb plot that’s been foiled at the last stitch. No, this was just an “aspirational” terror plan – one that the government is now ever-so-conveniently leaking.

[…]

Supposedly, this fantastical story is based on “new intelligence,” Reuters reports. And we’ve been told by people in position to see such information — who wouldn’t talk on the record — that this is more than just a page from the last Batman script.

What was the source of this “new intelligence?” Bruce Schneier explains:

Actually, not really. This is an “aspirational” terrorist threat, which basically means that someone mentioned it while drunk in a bar somewhere.

What’s next? Perhaps DHS can pilfer the Moonraker script for their next round of fear mongering, then they could have Al Qaeda in space!

Research Like This Frightens Me

Bruce Schneier posted a worrisome piece about new research claiming psychopaths can be detected based on their speech:

The researchers interviewed 52 convicted murderers, 14 of them ranked as psychopaths according to the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised, a 20-item assessment, and asked them to describe their crimes in detail. Using computer programs to analyze what the men said, the researchers found that those with psychopathic scores showed a lack of emotion, spoke in terms of cause-and-effect when describing their crimes, and focused their attention on basic needs, such as food, drink and money.

[…]

To examine the emotional content of the murderers’ speech, Hancock and his colleagues looked at a number of factors, including how frequently they described their crimes using the past tense. The use of the past tense can be an indicator of psychological detachment, and the researchers found that the psychopaths used it more than the present tense when compared with the nonpsychopaths. They also found more dysfluencies — the “uhs” and “ums” that interrupt speech — among psychopaths. Nearly universal in speech, dysfluencies indicate that the speaker needs some time to think about what they are saying.

So psychopaths have a tendency to be accurate in their speech? I don’t know about you but I almost exclusively talk bout past events using the past tense. When I say I traveled to Las Vegas for Defcon I dont state it as, “I’m going to Las Vegas for Defcon.” or, “I’m at Las Vegas for Defcon.” To me talking about past events in the present or future tense is a little more concerning than using the correct past tense.

On top of that I know a great number of people who constantly use dysfluencies in their speech and they certainly do not fit the description of being psychopaths. Using criteria like this would label a huge number of people and myself as psychopaths.

I’m not sure what the goal of this research is but if it’s detecting psychopaths then I guarantee a great number of false positives are going to be generated. I would also like to point out the fact that this research was performed on a very small sample size (52) and nothing stated in the article leads me to believe any real control group was used for comparison. This has all the red flags of a research projects done to acquire government grants by delivering results the state desires.

My Favorite Thing About Neocons

My favorite thing about neocons is their naive belief that various government agencies can be reeled in or reformed. While this belief is annoying it is also kind of cute. It’s like looking at a child who hasn’t had a chance to fully experience the world and thus still holds the belief that good can be found in everything.

Sadly most neocons haven’t learned from reality and thus still hold theses naive beliefs. Take one neocon’s remark about the Transportation Sexual Assaulters Security Administration (TSA), she posts a horrific story of sexual abuse performed by a TSA agent and then points out the fact that the TSA isn’t about security:

Is there anyone out there who still believes that all this has anything to do with safety? It does not. These procedures are simply “security theater,” and when a traveler like Tabitha ops out of the potentially carcinogenic scanners, he or she has inconvenienced the TSA workers, who then retaliate by making the pat-down as invasive and unpleasant as possible.

I’m with the author up to this point. Unfortunately in the commends she makes a statement that demonstrate her ignorance regarding government agencies:

Stricty speaking, I’d like the TSA leashed, rather than completely abolished.

Of course this is the same woman who said she wanted to see at least one Republican candidate address the problem of the TSA and when another commenter pointed out Ron Paul she simply dismissed him as a racist and 9/11 truther (neither of which are true). This being the case I don’t expect much logic coming from her as she’s living in a world of cognitive dissonance by believing government agencies can be reformed and that the Republican are somehow different than the Democrats.

Government agencies can’t be reformed. Once the government obtains power over a market they never willingly relinquish it. The TSA is a great example of this as they moved in on the airport security market and are now expanding out to drug enforcement in Tennessee.

Hell the TSA are becoming more corrupt by the day. Yesterday as one of my friends was going through the airport she said a TSA agent pushed her into the radiation scanner before she had any chance to opt-out. I wasn’t even surprised in the slightest to hear that as the TSA are power hungry authoritarian assholes who have no problem pulling such stunts to exercise their authoritah.

As a completely unrelated side note the site I linked has the web address www.conservativecommune.com. How can you have a [neo]conservative commune? There is only one thing neoconservatives hate more than individual freedom and that’s communists.