TSA Body Scanners Rendered Useless

You guys can thank Zerg539 for this wonderfully hilarious news. It appears that somebody found a vulnerability in the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) naked body scanner:

For those who don’t or can’t watch the video a transcript has been made available:

Here are several images produced by TSA nude body scanners. You’ll see that the search victim is drawn with light colors and placed on a black background in both images. In these samples, the individuals are concealing metallic objects that you can see as a black shape on their light figure. Again that’s light figure, black background, and BLACK threat items. Yes that’s right, if you have a metallic object on your side, it will be the same color as the background and therefore completely invisible to both visual and automated inspection.

It can’t possibly be that easy to beat the TSA’s billion dollar fleet of nude body scanners, right? The TSA can’t be that stupid, can they?

Unfortunately, they can, and they are. To put it to the test, I bought a sewing kit from the dollar store, broke out my 8th grade home ec skills, and sewed a pocket directly on the side of a shirt. Then I took a random metallic object, in this case a heavy metal carrying case that would easily alarm any of the “old” metal detectors, and walked through a backscatter x-ray at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. On video, of course. While I’m not about to win any videography awards for my hidden camera footage, you can watch as I walk through the security line with the metal object in my new side pocket. My camera gets placed on the conveyer belt and goes through its own x-ray, and when it comes out, I’m through, and the object never left my pocket.

If you want to get something through one of these body scanners just make sure it’s made of metal. I’m guessing the polymer frames of Glock and M&P pistols will set off the scanners so make sure you’re smuggling a metal framed gun, like a 1911.

Does this mean the TSA will admit failure and ditch these scanners? Fuck no! I’ll be money that they’ll now force their victims passengers to submit to a naked body scan and a trip through the metal detectors from here on out. Whatever they decide it’s good to see ingenuity will render their tactics pointless.

One thought on “TSA Body Scanners Rendered Useless”

  1. We all know that we’re all headed straight to the point where we’re all taken to a room and strip searched in order to use the airlines. It’s only a matter of time before the entire airline industry collapses and international airports become erie waste lands, or the airlines grow some and push back against this frotteurism.

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