<story><title>TSA Policy on Light Sabers</title><url>https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/whatcanibring/items/light-saber</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>snake_doc</author><text>The effectiveness of a security program cannot solely be measured by penetration tests under controlled circumstances.
 Aspects of deterrence and standardization required by the program fundamentally changes the threat actors’ calculus.&lt;p&gt;This is the very fundamentals of mixed strategy calculations in game theory.</text></item><item><author>BugsJustFindMe</author><text>The craziest part of the TSA is that if you compare the number+demographics of the people they employ (60,000 employees requiring only a high school diploma equivalent!) against the repeatedly demonstrated lack of any kind of effectiveness in their own testing, it becomes very quickly obvious that the whole thing is just a tax-funded wealth redistribution program (jobs! paid by the US government! for basically anyone!) built to pass under the radar of anti-socially-minded people unable to stomach the idea of giving money to poor people without demanding that they do pointless labor for its own sake in return.&lt;p&gt;Actually, the labor is worse than pointless. The travel productivity cost to society is astronomical. Like, literally everyone would be better off if the TSA paid people to just stay home and do absolutely nothing at all. The current employees would have their time back, the travelers would have their time back, and travel security would be no worse in any statistically meaningful sense. But the US has a huge contingent of people fundamentally opposed to doing things like this even when it would make literally everything better for literally everyone.&lt;p&gt;So here we are.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>devilbunny</author><text>While this is true, the method of 11 September 2001 worked for less than two hours. It is effectively impossible to hijack an airplane now, because the passengers will assume that they&amp;#x27;re dead either way and will do &lt;i&gt;anything&lt;/i&gt; they can to stop you. You can still blow them up a la Lockerbie, but that&amp;#x27;s about it.&lt;p&gt;I really don&amp;#x27;t see a meaningful reason for most of &amp;quot;security screening&amp;quot; anymore. It just slows things down.</text></comment>
<story><title>TSA Policy on Light Sabers</title><url>https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/whatcanibring/items/light-saber</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>snake_doc</author><text>The effectiveness of a security program cannot solely be measured by penetration tests under controlled circumstances.
 Aspects of deterrence and standardization required by the program fundamentally changes the threat actors’ calculus.&lt;p&gt;This is the very fundamentals of mixed strategy calculations in game theory.</text></item><item><author>BugsJustFindMe</author><text>The craziest part of the TSA is that if you compare the number+demographics of the people they employ (60,000 employees requiring only a high school diploma equivalent!) against the repeatedly demonstrated lack of any kind of effectiveness in their own testing, it becomes very quickly obvious that the whole thing is just a tax-funded wealth redistribution program (jobs! paid by the US government! for basically anyone!) built to pass under the radar of anti-socially-minded people unable to stomach the idea of giving money to poor people without demanding that they do pointless labor for its own sake in return.&lt;p&gt;Actually, the labor is worse than pointless. The travel productivity cost to society is astronomical. Like, literally everyone would be better off if the TSA paid people to just stay home and do absolutely nothing at all. The current employees would have their time back, the travelers would have their time back, and travel security would be no worse in any statistically meaningful sense. But the US has a huge contingent of people fundamentally opposed to doing things like this even when it would make literally everything better for literally everyone.&lt;p&gt;So here we are.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>canjobear</author><text>Classic example of the Lucas Critique.</text></comment>