Randall Stross retells the story of Christopher Soghoian, a Ph.D. student in the School of Informatics at Indiana University and his "Northwest Airlines Boarding Pass Generator": "A visitor to the site could plug in any name, and Mr. Soghoian’s software would create a page suitable for printing with a facsimile of a boarding pass, identical in appearance to one a passenger who had bought a Northwest Airlines ticket would generate when using the airline's at-home check-in option."

Soghoian wanted to "demonstrate that the T.S.A. Boarding Pass/ID check is useless." Indeed.

We have been harsh critics of our silly airport security system (here and here), and Stross offers this suggestion for improvement from Bruce Schneier, chief technology officer at BT Counterpane, a security consulting firm in Mountain View, California:

When I asked Mr. Schneier of BT Counterpane what he would do if he were appointed leader of the T.S.A., he said he would return to the basic procedures for passenger screening used before the 2001 terrorist attacks, which was designed to do nothing more ambitious than "catch the sloppy and the stupid."

He said he would also ensure that passengers' bags fly only if the passenger does, improve emergency response capabilities and do away entirely with ID checks and secret databases and no-fly and selectee lists. He added that he would shift funds into basic investigation and intelligence work, which he believes produces results like the arrests of the London bomb suspects. "Put smart, trained officers in plainclothes, wandering in airports — that is by far the best thing the T.S.A. could do," he said.

Amen!

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