<story><title>Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]</title><url>http://xs-sniper.com/blackhat2014/BH2014-Billy-Rios.pdf</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>idlewords</author><text>I wish there was a transcript to go with these slides, or some context. It looks like an amazing talk.&lt;p&gt;One thing that jumped out at me right away is that the explosives sniffer is also configured to detect narcotics, amphetamine and marijuana. Is this standard procedure at American domestic airports?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ubernostrum</author><text>TSA has more than a bit of scope creep going on. In theory, all they&amp;#x27;re supposed to do is a basic administrative search to prevent weapons or explosives from being brought onto a plane. In practice, the perception in the public mind that they are a more general law-enforcement body allows them to easily perform other tasks on behalf of agencies that don&amp;#x27;t have the same general search powers.&lt;p&gt;The classic example is searching for large sums of cash. Detecting large quantities of traveling cash and ensuring it&amp;#x27;s been properly declared is CBP&amp;#x27;s (Customs and Border Protection) job, not TSA&amp;#x27;s. But because TSA gets to X-ray and search every bag and body-scan every passenger, they catch that stuff, and then hold the passenger and go get CBP.&lt;p&gt;The result is that the number of outside-the-mandate things that can end up happening as an &amp;quot;incidental&amp;quot; result of TSA&amp;#x27;s screening is staggering.</text></comment>
<story><title>Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]</title><url>http://xs-sniper.com/blackhat2014/BH2014-Billy-Rios.pdf</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>idlewords</author><text>I wish there was a transcript to go with these slides, or some context. It looks like an amazing talk.&lt;p&gt;One thing that jumped out at me right away is that the explosives sniffer is also configured to detect narcotics, amphetamine and marijuana. Is this standard procedure at American domestic airports?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tptacek</author><text>I wonder how the THC thing could possibly work. I opt out at every checkpoint, and each time, they maximize body contact and then generate an input to those machines. Wouldn&amp;#x27;t it go off for anyone who had smoked up earlier in the day, or the preceding day? It seems like they&amp;#x27;d be spending all their time doing drug searches.&lt;p&gt;(Don&amp;#x27;t get me wrong: drug searches at TSA checkpoints are extremely alarming, because TSA has been given a near all-access pass to mechanically searching people).&lt;p&gt;Fun fact: if you do any welding before you get on a flight, there&amp;#x27;s a good chance you&amp;#x27;ll set those things off.</text></comment>