The DHS's latest airport security device: Terahertz laser scanners(extremetech.com)
extremetech.com
The DHS's latest airport security device: Terahertz laser scanners
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/132620-how-terahertz-laser-scanners-will-spy-on-you-in-airports
12 comments
If these devices worked to accurately identify unknown materials from 50 feet away, they would already be used in thousands of labs and we'd know empirically how well they work, whether non-scientists can use them as accurately as scientists, what the false positive rate is, etc. If more accurate than a traditional lab spectrometer they would already be used widely. If less accurate, we don't need them to be used to get probable cause for "bomb" searches that "just happen" to turn up things like too much cash or a bit of pot. Even worse, we don't need their results as "evidence" that drug or bomb "residue" was found. Already we see many people arrested for "possession of meth precursors" because they have aluminum foil, plastic sandwich bags and brake fluid in their house. In many cases it is about coming up with a plausible reason for arresting people these days rather than actually holding criminals who cause trouble (such as those on wall street) accountable.
Not sure if you did that intentionally (to make the claim even more questionable), but the article says "50 meters", not "50 feet". That's more than 3 times the distance.
Silent downvotes, how lovely. Why? For reference: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1194203/Terahertz.png
Unless they geo-locate me in Europe and s/feet/meter/ (how stupid would that be?) I fail to understand what the silent criticism is for.
Silent downvotes, how lovely. Why? For reference: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1194203/Terahertz.png
Unless they geo-locate me in Europe and s/feet/meter/ (how stupid would that be?) I fail to understand what the silent criticism is for.
Thanks for the correction. Yeah, 50ft or 50m both are pretty amazing claims. I want to see some third party reviews of how well this works with random substances and how often oregano becomes pot and cash is ID'd as cocaine residue, blood, nitroglycerin, or other random things. No references are provided to any of this though, yet it sounds like they ready to sell and deploy this without any public review or consent.
Your comment comes off as critical and hostile, whereas I'm sure his mistake was just that - a mistake.
That's why you're getting downvoted. This isn't reddit.
That's why you're getting downvoted. This isn't reddit.
1) 'Comes off as' is more often than not wrong in a text based conversation where you don't know the other party. I didn't intend to nitpick, I wanted to emphasize 50m. 15m would be impressive, but 50m is just so much more unbelievable.
2) 'This isn't reddit' is a bullshit appendix for any comment. Thank you for helping me understand that the comment might be misunderstood. Let me return the favor by saying that your last sentence is (objective) useless or harmful, please avoid it.
2) 'This isn't reddit' is a bullshit appendix for any comment. Thank you for helping me understand that the comment might be misunderstood. Let me return the favor by saying that your last sentence is (objective) useless or harmful, please avoid it.
To be fair, there's actually a lot of interesting work happening with this technology, and it is fairly recent. There's a group at Tufts using these devices for ultra-cheap non-invasive real time brain scanning (it turns out that human skulls are mostly transparent to light at these frequencies). My spouse briefly worked with them.
If these devices worked ..., they would already be used in thousands of labs
There's an old joke about economists: two economists are walking along the road, and see a $20 bill sitting on the ground. The first asks "are you going to pick that up?". The second responds "Nah. If it were real, somebody would have taken it already.".
That said, I mostly agree with your complaints. You should note, though, that SCOTUS precedent already addresses related concerns, saying that our homes are safe from prying by way of high-tech sensors that normal people don't possess.
There's an old joke about economists: two economists are walking along the road, and see a $20 bill sitting on the ground. The first asks "are you going to pick that up?". The second responds "Nah. If it were real, somebody would have taken it already.".
That said, I mostly agree with your complaints. You should note, though, that SCOTUS precedent already addresses related concerns, saying that our homes are safe from prying by way of high-tech sensors that normal people don't possess.
There's a reason that joke's about economists and not scientists.
I like how the article goes to pains to describe this technology as NOT a visible laser beam and then uses a visible laser beam as their stock photo in the header.
It's a shame society at large has become so afraid of other people.
Hilarious! So now all it takes to shut down an airport is to sprinkle a bunch of blackpowder outside in the parking lot for people to track in on their shoes?
The government is making the "terrorists"' job way too easy.
The government is making the "terrorists"' job way too easy.
If that technology actually works (that is, if it detects materials the way they believe it does), that's... actually pretty slick. There are definitely some privacy concerns, but it's a large step forward both in terms of privacy and (technical) efficacy. That, of course, doesn't mean that it's actually a Good Thing (TM) that we use these, regardless; just because it works technically doesn't mean it's actually an effective way of preventing terrorist attacks, or that any of that is worth the privacy hit, even if it is smaller than with previous tech.
That is a huge "If" at the start there. I'm highly skeptical of their claims - especially the "50 feet" bit.
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Now this poses all sorts of new issues.
The 4th Amendment issues are quite interesting to consider. This is programmable meaning it can search for specific substances right?
Does this mean that the use of this device to find drugs will be an impermissible search under the test Alito articulated for the 3rd Circuit? It seems that this is a very promising way to get the bodyscanners challenged in court as needlessly intrusive, and force these to only look for explosives.
The 4th Amendment issues are quite interesting to consider. This is programmable meaning it can search for specific substances right?
Does this mean that the use of this device to find drugs will be an impermissible search under the test Alito articulated for the 3rd Circuit? It seems that this is a very promising way to get the bodyscanners challenged in court as needlessly intrusive, and force these to only look for explosives.
If this were a replacement to the current backscatter scanners, this would be more interesting. Since it doesn't seem like this would catch knives or other non-chemical weapons, this seems like yet another step at the airport that won't provide very much additional security and could provide a lot of false positives, as already mentioned.
So what are the health risks of exposure?
Non-ionising radiation, so assuming power level is low, very little.
The company (Genia Photonics) is a Canadian startup that builds lasers. They appear to specialize in picosecond length laser pulses for a variety of imaging and sensing needs. They've published some papers/articles on their technology in biomedical imaging contexts. Link to one at the bottom. The point is that it doesn't look like some company 'inventing' some BS and pulling one on the DHS. Maybe.
http://www.opticsinfobase.org/boe/abstract.cfm?uri=boe-2-5-1...
http://www.opticsinfobase.org/boe/abstract.cfm?uri=boe-2-5-1...
If I'm not mistaken I believe the question the author is posing here is "Isn't it better to have a passive device that can, from 50 meters away, spectroscopically determine what substances you've been around than one that takes pictures of you naked?"
I don't know how to answer that. Is that better?
More to the point, it's not going to be an either-or choice. What'll happen is that these devices, if they are useful, will simply be added to the armada of devices already present. And, more importantly, just like all this other tech being developed for DHS, it'll end up with local law enforcement. In the history of the republic there's probably been about ten situations where something like this could have saved lives but now we'll end up with it everywhere.
When I say the TSA needs to be abolished its not simply because they are ineffective, expensive, intrusive into my personal affairs, and represent everything that's gone wrong with the security state. A bigger problem, it seems, is that they're creating huge markets for people to invent and commercialize things with really bad applications to my freedom.
A Star Trek tricorder would be awesome, but have we really thought about that? Do we really want everybody walking around with a device that could see through your clothes, tell what chemicals you've been around, diagnose your medical conditions, and so on?
I don't know how to answer that. Is that better?
More to the point, it's not going to be an either-or choice. What'll happen is that these devices, if they are useful, will simply be added to the armada of devices already present. And, more importantly, just like all this other tech being developed for DHS, it'll end up with local law enforcement. In the history of the republic there's probably been about ten situations where something like this could have saved lives but now we'll end up with it everywhere.
When I say the TSA needs to be abolished its not simply because they are ineffective, expensive, intrusive into my personal affairs, and represent everything that's gone wrong with the security state. A bigger problem, it seems, is that they're creating huge markets for people to invent and commercialize things with really bad applications to my freedom.
A Star Trek tricorder would be awesome, but have we really thought about that? Do we really want everybody walking around with a device that could see through your clothes, tell what chemicals you've been around, diagnose your medical conditions, and so on?