The Drudge Report has an image of a woman from an airport scanner up right now. It’s scandalous enough as is, but it’s shockingly easy to make it look even more like a normal nude photograph.
Reader Sigfried discovered that by simply inverting the image in Photoshop, you restore the photo to a more realistic tint. Of course, we’re not sure where this image came from or if it’s an accurate example of what these machines produce. But if so, let me just deliver a message to all you airport security workers out there: I just got out of a cold pool, I swear.
If these whole-body scanners are implemented, how many celeb pictures are mysteriously going to show up on the web? Oh, and if you’re interested in the non-censured photo, click here.
Update: a commenter, Two to the head, gives a great idea:
Hey, they could FUND the TSA by selling nude photos to TMZ. Save tax dollars for more important things like highways to nowhere.
#2 Which will land you a direct pass to a cavity search
A voyeur’s delight.
I hope they screen the screeners.
#13 – how about neither? I don’t think 13-year-old girls should be searched, or scanned.
How many 13-year-old girl terrorists are there?
Isn’t there a rule about under-18s flying on international flights?
How about we just search/scan the non-white Muslim males who fly here from overseas, pay cash for their one-way ticket and don’t have any luggage? Not PC?
I agree with ECA and others. This blog entry needs a BS meter.
The photo is CLEARLY lifted from some stock photo site, not an airport scanner.
Dvorak, Get your hands on these monkeys re-posting fake crap on your blog. Adam Curry’s original paranoid ditzo routine is enough to swallow. Maybe there should be a “little” censoring on the Uncensored blog. Please?
I have Photoshop, so I thought I’d give this a spin. Here is a _real_ TSA scan side-by-side with an inverted version of it.
http://tinyurl.com/y9v73c7
Thanks Greg. That sure puts things in perspective.
Chuck, profiling won’t work. Muslim extremists will find a depressed Caucasian 13 year old teen, or an 88 year old nut job who wants to go out with a bang, to do their dirty work. The scan makes sense.
See if you can find anything out that would identify the person in Greg’s sample scan.
I’m disappointed to learn it’s faked. hhopper, you should be ashamed of yourself for posting that image a few days ago. The question now is, if the fakes are this good, how much better are the real thing?
Greg, thanks for that image. But, there are two technologies for these scanners (millimeter wave and xray backscatter). Does one provide a more realistic image than the other? Does the lucky guy watching the millimeter wave monitor get to sell his images while the backscatter goon keeps falling asleep from boredom?
[I didn't post that image... I just inverted it in the comments. - hhopper]
I have a new monitor for Christmas, and I can tell the image was taken on a very cold day.
Who gives a crap? Any one of us can’t get a hundred photos of nude women in the next 30 seconds by typing a few keystrokes in Google.
Who gives a crap? Any one of us can’t get a hundred high quality photos of great looking nude women in the next 30 seconds by typing a few keystrokes in Google.
The images have to be in some sort of gray scale. Then you paint in whatever colors you want.
You can more or less do the same thing with an infrared camera. I thought I wanted one to photograph wild critters at night when they would be much easier to locate using the camera. Mount one on a car window and drive to good location with a wide field of view and all the things that glow are critters. Use a 40X to zoom in and get some good video of foxes, rabbits, deer, or whatever.
Then I found out that wasn’t going to happen because the camera could be used to see through cloths. That’s how I ended up wasting my time in this group.
Animbay,
I have no idea which technology was used for that TSA scan … I just grapped one floating around the Internet.
One obvious difference is that the real TSA scan doesn’t have hair, which seriously reduces the attractiveness of most women and many men.
I, myself, am not too worried about the privacy issue — I’m just not convinced it is going to work, despite being very expensive.
I don’t know much about plastic explosives but couldn’t they be shaped into something common — like child’s blocks or dried fruit or whatever?
I favour human intelligence who track and block these guys LONG BEFORE they ever get to an airport.
But even in airports, I think well-trained, well-paid, highly professional, very smart people are the best tools for spotting and stopping these guys.
Think of the “Millennium Bomber” — he was caught by a heads-up, diligent border guard. The Wikipedia entry on this is funny — the guard’s main clue was that Ressam was acting, “hinky,”
Hinky! But that’s the biggest weakness in these terror plots, isn’t it? A terrorist is going to have a damn-hard time acting perfectly normal.
I did a ride-along with the police, once, and learned that good veteran cops are excellent at spotting “hinky” people and situations. We’d be driving along and the cop would spot something in an alley or the bushes that I totally missed and he was usually right.
This is opposed to religious or racial profiling which I am adamantly against — it’s about spotting “hinky” behaviour.
the airline is private property and has every tight to search you.
YEt. the Airport is usualy publicly funded property and with that should come the 4th amendment. Why are we paying for services that the airlines should be paying for?
It’s a fake. If you invert it, you get color on the left side. This contradicts the “invert and ADD color” bit. They’ve just taken a real photo, added some stuff and blurred it, then inverted it to make the fake image.
# 31 DJ said, “Any one of us can’t get a hundred high quality photos of great looking nude women in the next 30 seconds” I don’t think that’s the point, DJ. The point is how many nude photos of your mother will we find?
# 33 Greg – Agreed. I’ve always thought any pro bomber would take a couple of pounds of plastique and mold it into a laptop battery. Circuitry would pass xray examination and you’d have an energy source. When was the last time they asked anybody to turn their computer on? And it wouldn’t be too hard to make it boot up without exploding prematurely, anyway.
The whole body scanner image in question is a fake.
We all know the image linked to is a fake, NSFW
HOWEVER: The Active-Whole body Imaging (AKA Active millimeter wave imaging technology) is unnecessary and a strong violation of privacy, a privacy which does not need to be violated.
WHY?
AIM of the T-Ray scanner is “to reveal and pinpoint hidden weapons, explosives, drugs and other contraband.”
1. Weapons: If the weapon is of any metallic sort it is caught by the metal detector, if a passenger repeatedly fails the metal detector, opting for a pat down is justifiable.
What if the individual has a metallic hip?
- Such individual need to carry medical certificate of such operation (been there, done that) and unfortunately need to be patted down and this might be the only time the T-Ray scanner may be useful if the individuals opt for a full body scan rather than pat down.
2. Explosives
A) Bags go through X-Ray machines
B) EDS (explosive detection system) and ETD (explosive trace detection systems) are supposed to pick up any trace of explosive molecules during a scan of bags – these are often combined with the X-Ray Machines of bags
C) There are also EDS/ETD for humans as well they are called Explosive Trace Portals (ETP) – these allow for each passenger to pass through while the machine puffs air at them picking up the tiniest of molecules. This cost the TSA 29.6 Mill (source), but they started to phase it out because they had to maintain it often due to humidity and dirt in airports and rather channeled the money into the TSA System Integration Facility (TSIF). You would think a quick air blower at the feet of passengers and a dehumidifier would solve this? Funny though that the EDS and ETD for carry-ons have not been phased out, but use the exact same technology as the ETP. This technology is much less of an invasive procedure.
D) Powder Testing Kits to accurately determine whether a powder they find is an explosive
E) EDS/ETD/ETP is able to pick up a single explosive molecule and thus if a suspect has been in any physical access with an explosive they will be highlighted and may be of possible threat. Your fault if you fire a gun or play with fireworks before you try to board a plane.
3. Drugs (of no real interest to the TSA)
The TSA job is not to look for drugs as it is not their authority to do so. The TSA is not a police and is not a drug enforcement agency. If they find any drugs by ‘accident’ they have to call the police to arrest you.
TSA Operations Directive: Procedures – When TSA discovers contraband during the screening process that is not a TSA Prohibited Item, the matter should be referred to the local Law Enforcement Officers as appropriate. An Enforcement Investigative Report should not be initiated.
Examples of such contraband include:
- Illegal Drugs
- Drug Paraphernalia
- Large Amounts of Cash (10,000.00)
The OD was signed by TSA’s Chief Operating Officer at the time, Jonathan J. Fleming
4. Contraband (see post above)
CONCLUSION: Based on the sales pitch of the producers of the Active Millimeter Wave Imagine Technology – current systems in place should be able to take it’s place if fully implemented and at the same time be much less invasive.
The Scanner Supposed Pros:
1. Recognizes threats and contraband hidden anywhere on the body in a single scan
- Threats can be detected with existing technology
- Contrabands are not a TSA issue
2. More reliable and less intrusive than pat-down searches
- Only necessary if all other systems of detection highlight a potential threat, then it is optional AND by then you have established a REAL potential threat, not a mere “we are scanning you because we can”
3. Locates virtually any prohibited item or substance
- See above
4. Two second scan time with complete multi-directional view
- equal to that of the ‘puffer’ (ETP)
5. Scans of 300-600 people per hour depending on application
- Peak throughput is 400 per hour as stated in their own paragraph on the same page
6. User-programmable algorithms ensure the preservation of privacy
- Thus far only blurring of face (not fully implemented and is stated as optional)
- Nothing stops the TSA officer form taking pics of the pics
- By producing images of underage (children) the TSA has by law created child pornography
7. 10,000 times less powerful than a cell phone
- OK, the other systems produce even less radiation to the body
These are the images the TSA want you to see.
These are the images the TSA do not want you to see.
As you can see in the 2nd image – they have the option of zooming in at an extremely close range at a very high resolution. Do not be fooled by the small images shown on the TSA website.
ASSUMPTION: You do have the option of opting out and being patted down, but i assume that it is just a matter of time that they will replace every metal detector with a T-ray scanner OR make it mandatory. I understand that this is not necessarily true, but based on historical trends of the TSA, probability of it becoming mandatory is highly likely.
PROBLEMS: The t-ray scanner can’t see under the skin – explosives etc.. can easily be hidden in the mouth or up the bum.
REALITY: If there is a crazy individual who really want to damage people/property that individual can do so easily even with the security in place. Many lethal devices can be picked up after the security checks.
Does that mean we should have no security? No.
Does that mean we need to scan people and see them naked? No.
Does that mean we can give individuals at least some basic privacy and hold their dignity intact while at the same time provide a reasonable level of security? Yes.
Does that mean we will have more terror threats/events even if they continue with the T-Ray scanner? Sadly, yes.
OWN EXPERIENCE: Thus far this year I have traveled quite a bit – on three different airlines on international flights that i have been on I have been given METAL knives, forks and spoons.
Ok this is all good. What about someone on a wheelchair? Would this work out? A pat down could be problematic, unless they’re wanded. I’ve not heard talk about this situation.
#39 – There is a separate procedure for individuals in wheelchairs; sometimes they remove them from the chair into an airport wheelchair, x-ray the one they use and sometimes give it back or send it with luggage. Reason why they always board individuals with physical disabilities and children first, so that they can roll them into the plane, put them in the seat and put the wheelchair under the plane. You can also check the leaked operations manual from the TSA regarding this if you want the detailed solution specifically for the U.S