TSA nude body scanners made worthless by blog

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I have a question, how many microSv does a person get per scan ?

While joe public might only get scanned a few times a year, lets now think of an airport worker who gets scanned twice a day. How close will this person get in a year to 1 mSv which is the occupational radiation limit for a non-radiation worker.

No its not actually what those articles say.

Half of your articles aren't even about the scanners, they are about other TSA procedures and the standard Xray machine missing guns. I was talking about the “nude” body scanners, not the whole of the TSAs competence.
I was talking about whether the OP video claim that the "nude" scanners dont work is true. (Given the person rotates, I can't see how the argument in that video can be true.)

In articles about guns getting on to planes are you assuming it was the "nude" scanners?

This Gizmodo article is about something that happened with a regular Xray carry on luggage scanner, a year before the "nude" scanners, yet still most journalism failed to mention that and simply linked it to the "nude" Terrahertz technology. Nearly all the comments and media I read linked the event to the "nude" scanners.
http://gizmodo.com/5714865/the-tsa-let- ... n-airplane

This Gizmodo article is about taking your laptop out of your bag, it has nothing to do with nude scanners???
http://gizmodo.com/5674675/british-airw ... t-security

This Gizmodo one is just the same type of journalism again. This may be an worker missing the standard Xray image for carry-on.
http://gizmodo.com/5819940/how-did-a-st ... lue-flight

And Brandt doesn't say the technology don't work in his original paper.

The claims that the "nude" technology don't work, that it's worthless and junk seems to me to be more a reaction to the scanners seeing though clothes, and radiation health concerns (under 100 nanoGrey per view, and your articles do link to other Gizmodo articles about health concerns).

Weapons get through Xray machines, not because the Xray dont work, but because the staff looking at the screen get bored or don't care. There is a difference between saying the TSA overall are rubbish and making out the technology don't work.

OK if we use a assumption that each scan is 100 nanoGray.

Then a person can get 10000 scans in one year. This might sound a lot but a worker who works 5 days a week at a air port, for 50 weeks a year can only get 40 scans a day before they reach the 1 mSv limit. I think a worker who has to keep going from ground side to air might make 40 trips in one day will be a very rare type of worker.

But I have seen reports that some of the machines were emitting 10 times as much radiation as they were susposed to, this would bring the number of scans needed per day to hit the limit to only 4 per day. I think it is quite possible for a worker to get scanned four times in a day.

I have not flown since they introduced the nudie scanners and random pat downs. I heard the abuse stories poring into the ACLU are really bad....like creepy TSA agents targeting attractive women for pat downs and being rather sexually abusive about it, TSA agents doing pat downs on young children and old ladies, and there are many stories on their website of uncalled for abusive behavior.

Jojo

Yes, as you say 40 trips a day will be the extreme rare type of worker and the safe limit is set for them. The traveller will get:
- 1000 scans, if they fly 3 times a day?
- 10 scans, if they fly once a month?

So one thousandth of that. Noise in the variation of background radiation. Isn't that the point?

Creepy stories sell papers and spread at lightning speed through the internet. Whats the ratio of "professional pat downs" to creepy ones? Do the professional ones get talked about? Does "groping" make a good headline?
Are people generally rational?

We have always had pat downs in Europe, I really dont get the fuss. If someone was going to strap explosives to their bodies to blow up hundreds of people, being an older person might make that easier to do. And if I was such terrorist I would also put explosives on children (as people seem to think they should be left out of pat downs).
If I'm going to blow up 300 people do you think I wouldn't?

Right, pastafarian (awesome username BTW, may you be touched by his noodly appendages), this is what I was really looking for:

http://laurencejarvikonline.blogspot.co ... nners.html

Also check out the "Airport Security Measures" section of this article: http://www.cracked.com/article_18775_5- ... safer.html

It says of the body scanners (all backed up with reliable sources you can click through):



This was all back in 2010.

So, as I said, these stupid machines have always been useless.

and when you do, you find this: Which sounds more like a failure of method than a failure of the machine.
I'm not unsympathetic to your argument - far from it - but all this particular case amounts to is an over-hyped and fundamentally flawed test. They should have been much more rigorous.
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2 ... on_th.html

This is presented as (my emphasis): Well of course not: the test wasn't done correctly.

Mention of the 2005 London train bombing is also specious, because the explosives were bulky and carried openly in backpacks - which in an airport scenario would have been passed through an X-Ray scanner or more likely, hand-searched.
A nudie body scanner would not have been used, and I dislike the bias in the reporting where it inflates the seriousness by using something irrelevant to the story.

I'm suspicious of the (unsubstantiated) claim that the scanners would have failed for the 2006 attempted liquid bomb plot because that involved 500ml containers - about the size of a large bottle of mouthwash - which would surely be difficult to hide under any circumstances.


I am suspicious - about their effectiveness and even more so about the point of this fear-soaked "safety" scanning.
What I'd like to see is a proper test - not a sensational spot on a TV show.

Good spot Cornflake, I missed that.

I think the fact that the ex head of security for one of the most secure airports in the world called the scanners useless holds a lot more weight, though.

Yep, there is that and TBH I'm inclined to believe him.

It's just that a superb opportunity to throughly examine these things was wasted and turned into a sideshow - far too easy for politicians seeking votes and those with vested financial interests in promoting them to brush aside.

We have not always had the "extended" or "enhanced" patdowns in Europe - or in the whole of it, anyway - even regular, non-invasive patdowns still are rare, here in Sweden. So speak for your own country (the UK), instead of saying how it supposedly "always" has been in "Europe".

Also, YOU don't get what the "fuss" is about. That is very clear. But others do. Or I suppose that maybe just makes those who can't stand this to be "NT ants", or have "NT herd behaviour", like you proclaimed, earlier?

I've flown to loads of places in and out of Europe and I live in the UK. I've never had a pat-down for airport security. I suspect pastafarian is either BSing or is on a watch list

I don't think so. The metal object the guy was concealing was probably observed and deemed not a threat. The agents might have thought it was a medical device or a piece of his clothes or something.

If it were a bomb or a gun or a blade they would have stopped him.

Incompetence and extreme competence look the same to a layman. Always remember that before criticizing someone or something.

Quote:
"Admittedly, he only faced the scanner from the front and not from the side.
Which sounds more like a failure of method than a failure of the machine. "

Hey pal, but thats MY point from my first post!

That video and your links and the hype weren't credible to me. It sounds like this new one might be more interesting and I will take a look.

Also Asp-Z - I have flown for work extensively around Europe since 1990, and have enjoyed a patdown regularly.

Not BS. I'm just a frequent enough traveller to have extensive personal experience. I have no reason to make this up, have I? (I simply do not get the fuss about patdowns, I've never heard anyone I know fuss as I am rather pleased to be searched cos it means that the dodgy guy behind me gets searched too, its a no brainer to me)

I did once get detained flying into Frankfurt airport when the first gulf war was kicking off. People were very twitchy and it was extremely unpleasant time. I was carrying research equipment on my way to the Mainz Max Plank Institute, that to anyone looked like 2 sticks of dynamite and a bag of semtex.

This story is meant to provide credibility, I'm twice your age and have flown hundred and hundreds of times as a research scientist.

I have not flown in a few years, but I used to get "randomly" chosen for inspection all the time. I still don't know why, as I am not Muslim or Middle Eastern, I have no criminal history, etc.
I guess I'm just a suspicious-looking character.