Airport device follows fliers' phones

WASHINGTON — Today's smartphones and PDAs could have a new use in the nation's airports: helping passengers avoid long lines at security checkpoints.

The Transportation Security Administration is looking at installing devices in airports that home in and detect personal electronic equipment. The aim is to track how long people are stuck in security lines.

Information about wait times could then be posted on websites and in airports across the country.

So, now they have they could/will have the ability to monitor cell phones/pda's while in the airport. This may not affect the casual one time a year flier, but those that constantly have to go to the airports may begin to wonder how much TSA can actually see into thier phone.

Some electronic devices automatically broadcast, or "chirp," their serial number every 15-20 seconds when they are turned on. People can set their devices so they don't broadcast. Bullock found he could detect signals from 6% to 10% of Indianapolis passengers. "We sit there and listen, capturing the unique identifier," Bullock said.

Marc Rotenberg of the Electronic Privacy Information Center said Bullock's current system minimizes privacy risk by recording partial serial numbers. But he worries that could change.

How much privacy will we have to sacrifice for security?
USA Today Article

Hardly a breech of privacy. If you're concerned, turn the feature off. Besides, who cares if airport personnel knows where you are in the airport? They already know you bought a ticket and know that you're in the airport. There is no feature of the phone that lets them read the contents, unless they find a way to hack it, which I highly doubt will happen.

How long are we going to stay asleep?

Security is a made up word.

Crickey, we could all be safe right now, if we took the government out of office, permanently, and just cracked on with our lives.

Sadly thought, we will all sit here complaining about how the gov't is taking away our freedoms etc. Freedom is a choice.

I live in the UK, and for a number of years now, I have been making it clear to people around me that if they don't want to listen to the gov't; DON'T!

The simple fact is that they never listen to us, so why should we listen to them.

If they lock us up, so be it. But if lots of us act like this (without causing harm to others), the prisons fill up fast, and they can't start shipping us off without attracting lots of unwanted attention....

Think abou tthis. I mean, REALLY think about this.

reply to post by LiquidLight


By turning the feature off you are disabling the bluetooth capability of the phone, most do but not everyone knows how to do it. When bluetooth is turned on, your phone is the most unsecured phone that you can have. The frequent flier is usually at the airport on business, coprorate or private, and chances are they have bluetooth enabled, to make conducting business in the airport easier. Their "business" that they thought was private, may not be as private as they thought.



[edit on 3/25/2010 by TheAntiHero420]

Originally posted by TheAntiHero420
reply to post by LiquidLight

 

By turning the feature off you are disabling the bluetooth capability of the phone, most do but not everyone knows how to do it. When bluetooth is turned on, your phone is the most unsecured phone that you can have. The frequent flier is usually at the airport on business, public or private, and chances are they have bluetooth enabled, to make conducting business in the airport easier. Their "business" that they thought was private, may not be as private as they thought.

[edit on 3/25/2010 by TheAntiHero420]

Who cares?

We are freaking out over the fact that some government, somewhere on the face of the earth, might actually be scanning the electronic devices we carry around with us.

What do you think we did in the old days?

This idea that we cannot exist in the real world without an electronic DOG LEAD, er sorry, MOBILE PHONE, is just mental.

I have now stopped carrying a mobile phone, and the sense of freedom and liberation it gives me is immense.

If I am not home, people can still leave me a message. If I am not at work, there's a message facility.

I connect to my emails when I am out and about using my laptop at the airport, or at a wi-fi cafe etc.

If I'm not in the mood to be contacted, then I don't turn on the laptop. Simple.

Damn, we need to grow some spines and ditch the mobile phone in the nearest rubbish bin.

I despair sometimes at how insecure people have become, and the very idea that they have a nervous breakdown at the idea of being without their mobile phone disgusts me.

[edit on 25-3-2010 by dampnickers]