Should Computers Screen Our Luggage?
Bruce Schneier thinks so. In an article for Wired, he says:
“In tests between November 2001 and February 2002, screeners missed 70 percent of knives, 30 percent of guns and 60 percent of (fake) bombs. And recently, testers were able to smuggle bomb-making parts through airport security in 21 of 21 attempts. It makes you wonder why we’re all putting our laptops in a separate bin and taking off our shoes.”
Schneier thinks that humans brains aren’t as well suited as computers for the repetitive work of looking at X rayed luggage and would be better at noticing anomalies and threats that may have been disassembled and distributed across multiple suitcases.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Actually I believe that computers do help with the screening process. My IBM once went through screening at ZRH and the screening computer somehow found a piece of hardware inside that looked like a gun and highlighted it in bright red on the screener’s display. Although it clearly wasn’t the case that I had a gun hidden in my IBM, I’m certain that such a screening computer would help reduce the number of times that screeners fail to identify a prohibited object.
I’d think a computer would be smarter than the some of the TSA screeners that have looked at my luggage. Dunno, but there was this one guy, in …
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