T-Ray Camera Sees Through Clothes, Preserves Privacy 315
Quite a few readers are sending in stories about ThruVision's products, slated to be demonstrated in Britain next week, that are claimed to use Terahertz radiation ("T-rays") to detect foreign objects under clothing, without revealing body details, from a distance of 25 meters and while the subject is in motion. T-rays lie on the electromagnetic spectrum between infrared and microwaves, and are the subject of lively research efforts worldwide. ThruVision says it developed its products in cooperation with the European Space Agency.
Preserves privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
Judging by this picture (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just waiting on Total Recall type scanners (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a threat to privacy no matter how you look at (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the question here isn't whether this is a threat to privacy or not - it is. The question here should be is it a threat we're prepared to accept. How much of our privacy are we going to give up for a sense of security?
Re:Preserves privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
To use a networking metaphor...Our model of government is supposed to be one where the government's rights are whitelisted and everything else is by default given to the citizen, but we're moving towards a state where the government is blacklisting OUR actions.
"Right" and "wrong" have, sadly, never had absolute definitions and have proven to be quite malleable in tyrannies past.
Too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
All this craziness about uber-security is just useless, the only risk today is the risk of bombing and it is already hard enough to bring a big engine in the cabin. Bombings are far easier by bringing a car full of explosives into a crowded area...
Preserves privacy? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Preserves privacy (Score:4, Insightful)
Yet interestingly I don't see politicans, civil servants, CEO, etc being first in line to tell everyone exactly what they are doing.
"Security" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Don't be silly (Score:5, Insightful)
The argument is that the liquids they are afraid of are volatile and hard to contain in cans, and thus you would see condensation on the inside of the bag.
Incidentally, do you know how many terrorist attacks that airport security at check-in have prevented? :)
Re:Judging by this picture (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't at all get the obsession with body-shape in American culture. Those images give you an idea comparable to what you get on any beach, besides, it's just a human body, most of them are quite similar, there is some minor variations, but really, it's not -that- interesting. People who -do- want to look at nude girls (or boys) have a limitless supply already, and that is perfectly fine.
It bothers me a lot more that the idiots think they need to know every tiny thing you bring with you, be it a can of Coke, a tube of toothpaste or a key. I can live with the metal-detectors, though frankly I don't approve of even those.
As for the "airplane as missile" threat, that is trivially handled: Install a locked, secure, cockpit-door, end of story. It's not as if: "Fly the plane into that building, or I'll kill this passenger" will work. (the pilots would just refuse, it makes no sense to kill everyone, including that passenger to prevent the killing of a passenger)
Besides, I have the same ridicolous restrictions when flying on a 20-seat plane flying say Anda - Bergen, there isn't even a potential target within the RANGE of the airplane. If someone *does* take over the plane, best they could do would be killing everyone aboard, plus a single-digit count of people on the ground if they do their aiming well, frankly, this "threat" does not worry me much.
Frankly, if your goal in life is to manage to somehow kill 20 people, there are easier ways. Defending against them all ain't worth it, because any marginal increase in security is more than counterbalanced by MASSIVE losses of freedom.
I'd rather live free and have a 1:1million chance of dying as the result of a terrorist-attack, rather than live in a cage, checked every step of my travels, and have a 1:2million chance of dying as the result of a terrorist-attack, both risks are negligible anyway. (if the adiminstration cared about real risk they should start the "war on diabetes" or "war on traffic" or "war on obesity", all of which kill more people a month than terrorism does a decade)
Oblig Star Trek (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Don't be silly (Score:3, Insightful)
Sounds downrigth ludicruos to me, and I've never seen that particular claim before.
First, it's not true that it's hard to make a can that is sealed well enough that no vapors, certainly not enough to cause visible condensation would escape.
Second, condensation happens on cold surfaces, if the plastic-bag is the same temperature as everything else (I don't see why it wouldn't be) there'd be little condensation even if there *was* a lot of vapor inside the bag.
Third, there's no prohibition that I've seen on having a ventilated plastic-bag, say one that has lots of holes in it, or even one made of some breathing membrane.
Not that being ridicolous is any sort of defence offcourse, lots of downrigth silly things happen anyway.
Re:Judging by this picture (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Don't be silly (Score:-1, Insightful)
With the present administration any situation remotely related or that could be described in the broadest terms an attempted terrorist attack would push all other matters off the front page.
Privacy Not Preserved (Score:4, Insightful)
This device could be better for some limited security tasks like scanning for weapons at building entrances. But let's not pretend that it's a cureall for invading privacy somehow without invading privacy. If we do. then it'll be in use everywhere, and privacy will be as gone as the emperor's new clothes.
I wonder (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Don't be silly (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd say GP has a point -- the idea that the bag is there so they can see condensation sounds bogus.
According to the TSA's website, the reason for the bag is to impose an overall limit on the amount of liquid carried by each passenger. (Which as near as anyone seems able to tell is also silly, but that's another matter...)
Re:Too late... (Score:2, Insightful)
Anyway, terrorists usually do not put efficiency first, it's always the cause and then the means. And the cause is to maximize terror.
Re:Don't be silly (Score:-1, Insightful)
Re:Don't be silly (Score:2, Insightful)