I’m at the Saint Louis International airport (STL), waiting to boardon my flight back to Dallas. I have just experienced anotherstupidity of the airport (in)security procedures. This post is not about software, but software securityand“physical” security depend on each other.
It’s an American Airlines flight. You can usually do the check-inprocedure online, and print the boarding-pass yourself before headingto airport. This is a welcomed service, but this time it gave me anerror, something like:“Sorry, you cannot check-in online, please seean agent at the airport”.
No big deal. At the airport I used one of the automated kiosks toprint my boarding pass. And it worked, without the need of anagent.
I proceeded to security screening. TheTSAofficer highlighted a“SSSS” imprint on the lower-right corner of myboarding-pass and said:“you’ve been randomly selected for additionalscreening, please come this way…”.
I couldn’t believe it!. They randomly selected me forscreening, but they warned me about it in advance!… I mean, now I(and you) know that if a passenger gets a quadruple-“S” code it meanshe/she will get additional screening!
I asked the TSA guy how could the process be so flawed. He replied that heunderstood my concern, but he was not responsible for defining theprocess and couldn’t give me his opinion. Later, I asked one of theAmerican Airlines agents:
agent: "Well, yeah... but most people don't know that theSSSS code means they'll be screened."me: "Sure, but most people are not terrorist either. And I bet ALLterrorist DO know about this SSSS-joke"agent: "yeah, I know... the whole process is so stupid...".
I’m all for random security screenings and checks, but please, don’ttell the passenger in advance! The random selection should be doneright there, at screening time, and not before.
What’s more, you don’t need to go to the airport to knowyou have high changes of being picked for additional screening: if theonline check-in refuses to let you in, you will probably get theinfamous quad-S code.
More stupidity: This actually happened first on my Dallas-to-SaintLouis segment of a round-trip. Now I’m returning to Dallas, and I gotthe exact same thing: no online check-in allowed, got the boarding-passwith the SSSS code at the kiosk, and was“picked” for additionalscreening. Talk about“surprise factor” :-).
Later, I googled for“SSSS” and found it stands forSelected for Secondary Security Screening, and it’s nothing new. It’s been there foryears, and even theDepartment of the Interiorwarnsaboutit!.
For those interested in security topics in general (and computer security inparticular) you should subscribe to Bruce Schneier’snewsletterand/orblog.A simplesearch for TSAon his blog finds more than 80 articles about the questionableeffectiveness of the TSA, and the millions of dollars they areburning.
: http://neuroning.com:80/articles/2006/02/14/airport-security-jokes