TSA's self-screening trial in Las Vegas' airport should have been the standard checkpoint ages ago //

skeffles
liffie420
3/08/24 11:59am
A 9/11 style takeover became impossible once they started locking the cockpit doors. That was the only real change they needed. //

skeffles
Ryan Erik King
3/08/24 11:05am
The TSA is designed to be noticeable, intrusive, and cumbersome, as a feature and not a bug. If it ain’t creating a whole hassle, then how will the public NOTICE the government is DOING SOMETHING about that terrorism stuff? It is pure theater like that. It is meant to be in your face, and down your pants, by design.

If it just worked, seamlessly and quietly, then nobody would notice it. //

_beveryman
Ryan Erik King
3/08/24 2:26pm
I am going to regret weighing in with this perspective, but I have been mulling over some security theater in computer security (Web Application Firewalls), and unfortunately there’s a parallel here which explains the value of TSA security theater.

WAF’s do not stop dedicated attackers.
...
So too, the TSA. Security theater doesn’t keep the dedicated attackers out, it keeps the volume of attackers lower, especially the less sophisticated ones. WAF’s provide value in the same way the TSA does, and this was a very uncomfortable light bulb to go off in my mind. //

ilya212
_beveryman
3/08/24 10:30pm
You are not wrong, and you are not the only one. The best summary of TSA I had ever seen came from Israeli airport security (and I trust these guys know what they are talking about): It stops stupid terrorists.

The question however is: How much damage can stupid terrorists actually do? And does preventing this rather minor damage outweigh all the frustration, wasted time, and overall societal grief TSA causes? //

ncbo
Ryan Erik King
3/09/24 11:50am
“theater” itself is a deterrent. It’s like how your front door could be made of thin glass floor to ceiling, trivially easy to smash by a 9 year old. But has anyone ever? That small step of having to break something deters 99% of would-be criminals. //

xspeedy
Ryan Erik King
3/09/24 1:41pm
My biggest frustration is the lack of consistent rules between airports. Some have you remove laptops, others don’t. And so one is always guessing.