Engineer Shows TSA Nude Scanners are Useless
Body scanners are a controversial tool that's currently being installed at airports worldwide -- particularly in the U.S., where the government has paid contractors such as Rapiscan and Brijot hundreds of millions of dollars to deploy over 500 of the devices. In the U.S. the deployment has reportedly been pushed by illicit financial ties, such as former U.S. Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) chief Michael Chertoff's financial relationship with Rapiscan, who paid off the chief for his "consulting services."
Meanwhile, there have been reports of U.S. Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) officials abusing the devices to make fun of peoples' genitals. And reports also indicate health risks and the possibility that the DHS may be storing nudes scans of people for later reference. But the most damning piece of evidence against the scanners yet may have just landed, delivered by college-educated engineer Jonathan Corbett, who runs the blog "TSA Out of Our Pants".
Mr. Corbett has identified a weakness in the device, which essentially renders them useless. He reasoned that both the older backscatter machines and the new millimeter wave scanners all relied on contrast with the body to "see" items, such as weapons or bomb-making chemicals. So he decided to see what happened if a secret pocket was stitched into a shirt, well off of the body.
