[bleepblap]

there is actually a science change that happened, and it's not (entirely) just politicians changing their mind.

The big thing going from X-ray (2d) to CT (spin an X-ray machine around and take a ton of pictures to recreate a 3d image) did a lot to let security people see inside of a bag, but the hitch is that if you see a blob of gray is that water, shampoo or something else?

The recent advance that is letting this happen is machines who will send multiple wavelengths of X-ray through the material: since different materials absorb light differently, your machine can distinguish between materials, which lets you be more sure that that 2litre is (mostly) water, and then they can discriminate

[NL807]

These machines don't really detect what kind of materials stuff is composed of, much of that is just a crude classification based on density. True identification requires broadband x-rays emission with spectral analysis.

[juggle-anyhow]

Water, not water is all you need.

[dingdongditchme]

it has been such a godsend flying out of Frankfurt where they have the new scanners and you don't have to empty out your bag anymore. So much smoother. Then I fly back and get all annoyed at the other airports. I was told Oslo airport is holding out until it becomes regulation to use the new scanners. Security-Theater is still what it is. It is super weak imho, despite never having seriously attempted a heist or trying to get contraband on a plane. I miss the good old days where you handed your luggage to a guy just before boarding the plane.

[littlecranky67]

Germany has a very sad and weak airport security story. The security personal are hired and paid by the state (Land), and thus the state plans their capacity and workflow. The airport owner (i.e. FRAport) has no say in their internal work organization, as it is basically contracted out policework. For whatever reason, most german Airports I regularly use, use the same machine and broken workflow: There is only a limited amount of containers to put your stuff in to go through the x-ray, and the machine itself has an integrated container-return system using conveyors. As a result, each machine has only a single small table with a container dispenser to serve passengers. On that tiny table, only 2-3 people at the same time can get undressed, get water out of their handlugagge etc. Waiting passengers behind them are blocked.

I contrast that with my experience in Spain: Several meters before the machines, there is a large amount of unoccupied, huge tables with containers stacked everywhere, so everybody can get undressed and pack their stuff into the container trays at their pace of choice. Staff assists and tells the rules to individuall travellers. Once you are done sorting your stuff into the containers, taking off your belt etc - only THEN you take the containers towards the x-ray conveyor line. So there is hardly any blocking the line. Instead of a container-return system, a single human stacks the containers past the scan and returns them to the beginning. This is so much more effective.

Classic example of government run workflows: No one cares to optimize the workflow, and the one who would benefit from a speedup (the airport and the airlines) in terms of increased sales, have no say in the process.

[scoot]

> despite never having seriously attempted a heist or trying to get contraband on a plane

So you've tried casually? What does a casual heist look like exactly?

[bleepblap]

There's a whole ton of people taking about MRI -- MRIs are a completely universe than CT/X-rays

[DaiPlusPlus]

I think if an MRI was ever used for airport security screening it would cause more damage and disruption than the terrorist bombs it purports to detect.

[HNisCIS]

Dual energy x ray has been around forever though, like decades.

[bleepblap]

Certainly, but a) not at the prices people wanted to spend to get 25,000 of them b) not at the maintenance cost for 25,000 of them c) without the software to (by someone's metric) discriminate between shampoo and bomb with enough error

[5d41402abc4b]

Can this X Ray bit flip memory or damage NAND?

[flambeerpeer]

Super Mario 64 airport security speedrun strat

[wiredfool]

It's a specific liquid scanner that's done on bottles that have been pulled aside for extra scanning (at least, that's what Frankfurt was doing a couple weeks ago)

[marcosdumay]

The bar for damaging memory is way higher than normal X rays.

Flipping bits is more fuzzy. In theory anything can flip bits in working memory.

[ErroneousBosh]

It can erase EPROMs, so don't send your vintage computers through an X-ray machine.