Christopher Soghoian has been cleared. Well, apparently anyway. The legal system has a way of waking up when you least expect it. That being said, congrats Chris!
As part of the “closing the loop” exercise Soghoian will be presenting a paper on the problem (huge in Phoenix) of airport security at IDMAN 07 in Rotterdam in October. For those of you who might be unaware this ties back to a website that Soghoian put up last year that could autogenerate boarding passes for air travel. This demonstrated a rather significant hole in airport security and the FBI responded with an armed raid in the middle of the night.
Um, OK.
He put up a website that illustrated a problem. He didn’t attack a group of school children with an automatic weapon. Maybe just a touch of overkill? Perchance?
From his site:
It is important to note that I do not take a position on the no-fly list in the paper. The US government has spent over $250 million dollars on implementing the list. The paper thus explores methods to effectively enforce it. The paper presents a technical solution to the problem (digitally signed boarding passes), which will enable TSA staff to instantly learn if a pass is valid or not, or if it has been tampered with, as well as stopping all other known attacks.
Were the airlines in the US willing to check the ID of each passenger before they board a flight – something they did right after 9/11 – my technical solution wouldn’t be necessary. 100% effective enforcement of the no-fly list is only possible when airlines check all IDs at the gate, and when the US government takes away our right to fly without ID.
The problem here is the unwillingness of the TSA and others to address the problems that have been outlined. According to Soghoian the problem that he pointed out is still very much alive and well. Just a little sad no?
Here is a link to his paper that he will be presenting this fall. “Insecure Flight: Broken Boarding Passes and Ineffective Terrorist Watch Lists”
[tags]Christopher Soghoian, Aiport Security, No Fly Lists, TSA, FBI[/tags]