Everyone remember the brand-spanking new backscatter scanner systems the Transportation Security Administration Thousands of Sexual Assaulters are using at airports now? You know, the ones that photograph you electronically nude, can and will eventually cause cancer, and violate our Fourth Amendment-protected rights (a crime that the former Assistant TSA Administrator has already confessed to)? Those scanners?
Yeah… those backscatter scanners cannot detect dangerous amounts of PETN, as long as you form it right:
It is very likely that a large (15-20 cm in diameter), irregularly-shaped, cm-thick pancake with beveled edges, taped to the abdomen, would be invisible to this technology, ironically, because of its large volume, since it is easily confused with normal anatomy. Thus, a third of a kilo of PETN, easily picked up in a competent pat down, would be missed by backscatter “high technology”. Forty grams of PETN, a purportedly dangerous amount, would fit in a 1.25 mm-thick pancake of the dimensions simulated here and be virtually invisible. Packed in a compact mode, say, a 1 cm×4 cm×5 cm brick, it would be detected.
For those unfamiliar with the acronym, and I certainly will not blame you, PETN is entaerythritol tetranitrate – the most powerful high explosive we opposable-thumbed monkeys have developed, and one of the primary ingredients of Semtex… oh, and you can cook it up in your kitchen (note: I do not advise doing so, both because I am not sure what the laws are revolving around such activities, and the end result is, and I quote, “More sensitive to shock than TNT”).
If, however, you are not so sure about creating a substance that could slag your stove (… and your kitchen… and you), it turns out those x-ray-spewing, rights-violating, privacy-invading pornoscanners cannot pick up all kinds of other stuff either:
The images are very sensitive to the presence of large pieces of high Z material, e. g., iron, but unless the spatial resolution is good, thin wires will be missed because of partial volume effects. It is also easy to see that an object such as a wire or a box- cutter blade, taped to the side of the body, or even a small gun in the same location, will be invisible.
(Emphasis added.)
The box-cutter detail has already been tested by none other than Mythbusters’ Adam Savage.
So explain to me what the point was of these damned useless machines?
The TSA has been, and continues to be, a failure by every definition imaginable.
(Courtesy of Random Nuclear Strikes and Gizmodo.)
recent comments