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xrdyesterday at 6:01 PM12 repliesview on HN

What's to prevent terrorists from going through TSA, waiting in the scanning line when everyone is still going through, and then planting a bluetooth device into someone else's bag? I never open my carryon once I have packed it.

This reminds me of the SNL sketch where TSA employees had no answer for someone bringing two separate bottles of 3.9 ounces onto the plane.

I'm sure Sean Duffy, of Real World and now Sec of Transportation, will fix this.


Replies

rayineryesterday at 6:22 PM

Nothing. TSA is a joke. At first, the security theater arguably had a legitimate psychological purpose. The airline industry nearly collapsed after 9/11 because people were so scared of filing. But that was a generation ago—the psychological trauma in the aftermath of 9/11 dissipated ago. But we’re still stuck with the TSA because in the meantime it turned into a massive jobs program.

We’d be better off spending TSA’s $8 billion budget on paying people to dig holes and fill them back in.

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jacobrastyesterday at 6:23 PM

Why would a terrorist want to plant a Bluetooth device on someone else's bag when all it would accomplish is a minor delay of one flight and would result in a prison sentence after security camera review??

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LPisGoodyesterday at 6:41 PM

People accidentally sneak weapons through TSA all the time.

There are many anecdotal examples out there. More scientifically, they had a horrific detection rate in some audits.

umviyesterday at 6:18 PM

Seems like an effective DoS attack - ground all planes in the US by sneaking cheap bluetooth speakers into people's luggage with provacative device names

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hackyhackyyesterday at 6:28 PM

This is the SNL sketch in question: https://www.tiktok.com/@hamtelevision/video/7276358099089231...

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AndrewOMartinyesterday at 7:20 PM

Even worse, what's to prevent the terrorists from temporarily renaming their Bluetooth bombs to something innocuous just before going through security and only renaming it back when they need to conveniently find them again while pairing?

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stousetyesterday at 6:33 PM

If you’re a terrorist, I’m pretty sure you can think of dramatically more consequential things to do than cause a handful of planes to potentially divert. That’s a wildly pointless prank for something that will invariably wind up with you being arrested.

Why do that when you could simply attack people waiting in the security line? That would actually cause terror and shut down an entire airport for days.

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al_borlandyesterday at 11:28 PM

You're supposed to wait to walk through the scanner until your bag is in the x-ray machine, or far enough along to not be tampered with. Doing that, I'm still always waiting on the other side to see by bag come out the other end.

r3trohack3rtoday at 3:18 AM

> What's to prevent terrorists … planting a bluetooth device into someone else's bag

Reminds me of Professor Chaos trying to flood the world by leaving the garden hose on.

lazideyesterday at 6:03 PM

The same thing that is stopping them from suicide bombing the super crowded security checkpoint line before ID checks.

Nothing really.

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koolbayesterday at 6:05 PM

> What's to prevent terrorists from going through TSA, waiting in the scanning line when everyone is still going through, and then planting a bluetooth device into someone else's bag? I never open my carryon once I have packed it.

I make it a point to hold up the whole line until it is my turn to go through the xray. It gets fun when they mandate a pat down in lieu of the millimeter wave scanner but refuse to have someone available for it.

It’s the only way to honestly say you have kept your bags under watch. If anybody tries to send in my bags without me , I immediately speak up in a loud stern voice, “That is not your bag!”

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