Body Scanners and Privacy

Great Debates
61

Why is having to stand still for 30 seconds not worth hundreds of lives every ten years? This is like people who rush over the crosswalk 10 seconds before the light changes. Is 10 seconds really worth a minimally raised risk of death? That just seems silly. More importantly, by walking fast, I always end up getting where I’m going faster than the people who jaywalk. By packing light, I always end up through the airport and waiting at the gate before everyone else, by probably minus 15 minutes on average.

If speed is your goal, and it’s really that necessary, there are far more effective ways of achieving it than by trying to obstruct something that in all practical senses takes no time, saves lives (however few), and has no other downside than “oh noes, naked people.”

This isn’t an issue of privacy because no one really gives a fuck. I can go to the beach and see thousands of people showing just about as much skin as on these scans. I can get the internet and find billions of pictures of people performing hard core sexual acts. Your body isn’t interesting, nor is it marvelous. Your skin doesn’t turn people into axe murderers. It won’t save the world nor change it. Skin is skin, and fearing that it will be shown off is irrational, born out of thousands of years old religious teachings that are frankly stupid. When it comes to risking lives, protecting people from the sight of skin is stupid.

62

And when this system fails… what’s next? I’m not so sure this is going to save any lives. You’re trying to paint this as black and white, as if I’m saying I wouldn’t get naked to save a life. I sure would, but I don’t think it’s going to work. Even if this measure makes it 100% impossible for them to get on a plane (which it won’t), they’ll just go back to buses.

You know what will work though? If we stopped inflaming the conflict in the middle east. Stopped supporting Israel (I’m not an antisemite - I just hate zionists*). Make amends with the Arab people.

Listen… I’m an atheist and I still find it degrading. Not everyone is going to think like you. And I doubt it is born strictly from religious teachings. Pretty much every culture has people who find exposing themselves or having a loved one exposed to a complete stranger to be wrong regardless of religion.

It’s not based on religion, but based on human understanding. Humans understand that the human body is used for sexual arousal. Humans understand that they don’t want their mate arousing another person. Humans are empathetic and emotional creatures and so these beliefs we have in human culture come from learning. Religion morals are full of learned emotional responses. Look at the 10 commandment.

*You’re not entitled to the ‘holy land’ get over it and learn to share! There are Israeli people who have been able to make friends with Palestinians, so I have hope.

63

nilum, you need to calm down, and stop spreading that hoax. The picture you’ve linked to on bodyscannerporn.com isn’t a “fake picture.” It’s a perfectly real photograph of a naked woman, taken from a stock photography site and inverted to look like a scanner picture. It did not come from a scanner. It doesn’t look like an actual scanner picture. It’s not a voyeur picture. It’s a picture of a nude model.

It was a very nicely done hoax, and it’s spread all over the Internet to sites that don’t check their sources. Please don’t spread it to the SDMB.

Here a just a few of the many articles debunking the stuff you’re linking to (I’m spoiler tagging them because the pictures are NSFW):

[ul]
[li]HOAX: Airport Body Scanner Images Were Faked[/li][li]Gizmodo, Drudge Fooled by Fake ‘TSA Porn’[/li][li]It’s a trap![/li][li]Digital STRIP SEARCH – Inverted Airport Body Scanner Image[/li][/ul]

And here are thumbnails of the original German stock photos that the fake scanner pics were made from (again, spoiler tagged as NSFW):

http://matos.photoalto.com/bassesres/watermarks/PA246/PAA246000018.JPG
http://matos.photoalto.com/bassesres/watermarks/PA246/PAA246000023.JPG

Hint 1: Don’t believe anything you read on a site with the word “porn” in the URL.

I’d guess that “prisonplanet” probably isn’t the safest source for a primary citation, either.

Now that you’ve been shown that the article was a hoax, please stop referring to it.

He wasn’t proven wrong. You were.

Because, of course, it was made by inverting an actual photo, so when you invert it again, it looks like the original. Clever, no?

64

You know, there are women who, while being straight, do find the female form sexually arousing, right?

Plus, anytime two, or more, women are alone in a room, especially if one, or more, is even partially undressed, lesbianism is going to happen, since all women, no matter how straight, are secretly bi-curious* … at least, that’s what I’ve gathered, from all the porn I’ve watched.

I’d start worrying, if I were you.

CMC fnord!
*I blame fluoridated water, myself.

65

You know, people could be planting cameras in toilets and dressing rooms. Indeed, this has happened. They might even post these pictures on the internet. Anything can be abused by a creep- if you want to be a perv there are much easier ways than getting a job with airport security looking at 20 second blue images of mostly unattractive people of your gender.

66

[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:63, topic:531486”]

nilum, you need to calm down, and stop spreading that hoax. The picture you’ve linked to on bodyscannerporn.com isn’t a “fake picture.” It’s a perfectly real photograph of a naked woman, taken from a stock photography site and inverted to look like a scanner picture. It did not come from a scanner. It doesn’t look like an actual scanner picture. It’s not a voyeur picture. It’s a picture of a nude model.

It was a very nicely done hoax, and it’s spread all over the Internet to sites that don’t check their sources. Please don’t spread it to the SDMB.

Here a just a few of the many articles debunking the stuff you’re linking to (I’m spoiler tagging them because the pictures are NSFW):

[ul]
[li]HOAX: Airport Body Scanner Images Were Faked[/li][li]Gizmodo, Drudge Fooled by Fake ‘TSA Porn’[/li][li]It’s a trap![/li][li]Digital STRIP SEARCH – Inverted Airport Body Scanner Image[/li][/ul]

And here are thumbnails of the original German stock photos that the fake scanner pics were made from (again, spoiler tagged as NSFW):

http://matos.photoalto.com/bassesres/watermarks/PA246/PAA246000018.JPG
http://matos.photoalto.com/bassesres/watermarks/PA246/PAA246000023.JPG

Hint 1: Don’t believe anything you read on a site with the word “porn” in the URL.

I’d guess that “prisonplanet” probably isn’t the safest source for a primary citation, either.

Now that you’ve been shown that the article was a hoax, please stop referring to it.

He wasn’t proven wrong. You were.

Because, of course, it was made by inverting an actual photo, so when you invert it again, it looks like the original. Clever, no?
[/QUOTE]

Okay, I’ll admit to being fooled by a hoax. But don’t accuse me of trying to spread some hoax because I didn’t know any better. I’m sure you didn’t either when it first came to light.

I was merely searching for photos from scanners, there are apparently none available yet to the public.

If it was just inverted, the original must be in a sepia tone which is not normal for photographs unless the original was darkened before the inversion to enhance the ‘glowing’ effect.

prisonplanet was just where I found one of the photos I had seen before. The original place I saw it was at apparently has already taken it down, but
http://www.bild.de/BILD/news/bild-english/world-news/2009/12/31/pregnancy-body-piercings-genitals/what-can-naked-scanners-really-see.html
was listed as the source apparently.

So I am going to assume that the picture of the old lady in the buff is real. That’s still pretty good detail, and although there are claims of censorship I doubt it works very well. And especially if the point is to find something concealed and hiding explosives near genitalia was involved in a recent attack you’re not going to blur that area.

And the main reason I was upset at your friend was the fact he was accusing me of saying something I didn’t.

As far as bodyscannerporn.com I never cited that as a reputable source, only showing that there is already a website trying to gain hits via that depraved search. And it’s not where I originally saw that image.

So as far as saying i linked some porn website as a way of citing proof an image was real that’s completely false.

–

Here is what happened.

I was concerned about something that had happened at my local airport, the introduction of body scanners.

I came here to ask what exactly was involved and how detailed it was and also voice some of my concerns.

Xtisme goes on to confirm what I had thought that the pictures are very detailed, leading me to believe that the pictures I found were real.

I then proceeded to post one of those images which happened to be at a clearly disreputable site. An image which I thought was real because I had seen it all over the web before, and based on xtisme’s response that they were indeed detailed, but instead am accused of posting a fake.

I was sure I had seen it at reputable sites before, but search results bring up nothing but prisonplanet… the picture is a bit different and shows that someone reversed the image. To me this showed someone attempting to color correct the image to show something like a body scan image could be turned into something resembling a photo.

I am then accused of making a claim that body scanner porn existed which I never did and that the image I thought was real was a hoax. So I find the source and post it and conversation ends on that talking point, but I am still accused of things i didn’t say.

So I will admit to being wrong about the photo. but I am NOT trying to spread some hoax. Does everyone who gets mistaken information here spreading some hoax… or are you just paranoid?

I’m also not trying to spread some rumor that there already exists body scanner porn. I just think it will inevitably surface one day.

Now as far as what an actual scan looks like… I really don’t know. How old is the picture of the old grandma that’s also floating around. I’ll assume that one’s real.

The point is some of you have been saying the image looks like a distorted blob (suddenly xtisme changed his mind about the detail), but how many of you have seen one of these pictures besides the old photo of the old lady?

So please show me more proof that’s what the final image looks like.

67

Well, to paraphrase my previous posts, “Who cares?” I went through the whole *what if it was your daughter?!zomg!?! *thing in this post and discounted it.

nilum seems to care quite a lot, that’s for sure. And maybe paranoid people in general. But the amount of detail, or the (miniscule) potential for dissemination of an image, holds zero horror for me. It would still be an anonymous image, identical in that respect to porn already available. (Oh, come on, you don’t think those are their real names, do you?) Retouching that image can make it look more or less like me, or anybody else. The Photoshop Age allows us to seamlessly place almost anybody’s head on anybody else’s body. Again, so what? How am I harmed in any way by a pseudo-photograph that kinda, sorta, looks like me when nobody can know whether or not it actually is me?

The separate discussion about the need for this and other security theater is a different question. Me, I advocate the “personal challenge” system. We dispense with all the present nonsense. Instead we put all the passengers of a given flight into a closed room, and allow them to challenge each other. “Hey, let me see what’s in your handbag!” “OK, but then you’ve got to come over behind this curtain and drop your drawers.” “Hey, has anybody looked inside that guy’s briefcase yet?” Anybody that wants to leave can get a refund for their ticket, and go home. When the rest are sufficiently comfortable with each other, they can get on the plane.

Oh, I know, I know, then voyeurs would all be buying plane tickets left and right so they could challenge old women to take off their bras. :smiley: Seems like everything has a down side…

Hmmm… On second thought, that might be just the economic stimulus the airline industry needs!

68

But that’s exactly why you did spread the hoax: you didn’t know any better. That’s how most of these spread.

When I first saw the image, my “something is wonky” mental alarms went off, and I searched for information about it, finding out within 5 minutes that it was faked.

There are several available. Susan Hallowell (Director of the TSA Security Laboratory) went through it herself and released the images, talking about them on several reputable news sources. Images are available here and here. As far as I can tell, these are actual images, too.

If you play around a bit with the negative image and color manipulation options in Photoshop, you can see how it’s done.

A couple of the key things to look for: The scanners “see through” clothing and hair. If an image shows the hair, it’s a fake. They see shapes (yup, they can tell breast size and shape under the baggiest tops, and they can see how well-endowed men are, too), but not colors, so if the image has shaded nipples, it’s fake.

If you’re talking about the Hallowell pics, yes. If not, I’m not sure which ones you mean.

My friend? Who do you mean?

Again, I’m not clear on what you’re saying here. You did post a fake.

Paranoid? No. You were spreading a hoax, but now you know that it was a hoax, and you’re (hopefully) not going to spread it around any more. That’s a good thing.

69

[QUOTE=nilum]
“circumvent the software” Ever hear of a 3MP Camera Phone. That’s plenty of resolution for a good image.
[/QUOTE]

Yeah…but what has this got to do with the price of tea in outer Mongolia?? We aren’t talking about an digital camera (or even a digital camera phone), we are talking about a scanner. There is both software and a process that is used to protect the public from what you are going on about. You don’t seem to be following that too well.

Not really, especially in light of the fact that your biggest piece of ‘evidence’ turns out to have been a hoax (I tried to tell you it looked doctored, but you went off on a tangential rant about how that wasn’t so).

As I said early in the thread, the things can certainly get a high level of detail…no one is denying this. However, there is both software AND a process (SOP) in place to mitigate abuse. Is abuse still possible? Sure…though the pictures you get are not going to exactly be hi-res image comparable to those on any decent porn site.

Sure…it goes from something close to absolute zero to a few hundredths of a percentage point. Again, you don’t seem to really be tracking the argument here. Let me spell it out (again)…there is software that is in the system that further obscures the image. There is also a process in place to prevent security guards from capturing and using the images for their own use. In addition there is the threat of lawsuits, losing ones job and probably being blacklisted, etc etc. Could someone jump through all those hoops and still take a scanned picture of your wife the one time you fly through an air port that happens to have one of these things? Yeah…it could happen. It’s just astronomically unlikely TOO happen. Especially for a scanned image that is really pretty yawn inspiring, considering the state of the art in porn today. If someone is going to capture your wife’s naughty bits, they re much more likely to do it with a shoe camera or something along those lines, than an air port scanner.

It’s the one you focused on, and so it’s the one I commented on.

You didn’t actually read what I wrote, did you? sigh

I didn’t make anything up. As to making you look foolish, you did that all on your own by trotting out cites to satire web sites (as if they were real), and posting pictures that turn out to be a hoax…and then continuing blithely on as if you have a point. It’s not MY fault that your argument falls apart. If you had actually taken the time to read ALL of my posts in this thread you might have actually been able to follow along with my own views on this subject. Sadly, you didn’t do so.

But you are outraged over something that is unlikely in the extreme to ever happen to you! It’s like being outraged that President Obama is going to nuke Belgium next week. Yeah, IF it happened it would be outrageous (why not France, instead?)…but since it’s unlikely in the extreme why get worked up about it??

Chicks dig scars. But straw…straw is forever. Gentlemen (and ladies)…thank you all for sharing the field of Dope with me. BREAK!

Unlikely to happen, as the things cost a mint, and there will be real resistance (both from rational folks like me and, um, less than rational ones worrying about the wrong things). However, even if this turns out to be true, you can avoid it by the simple expedient of not flying.

It’s not a nude image…it’s a scanned image that vaguely resembles a person (or is a stick figure with some versions of the software). But let’s say there is some perv who really, REALLY wants to get an image of your wife and then post it up on his Myspace site. Here’s the thing. If you or anyone you know finds out about the image, it would be child’s play to catch the guy responsible. You know what day you flew, presumably. You know approximately what time you checked in and went through security. There are records of who was working the cameras at what time. And this leaves aside the fact that, at least in the air port security facilities I’ve been in (several btw), they have digital or analogue cameras with time stamps…so they will be able to tell EXACTLY who was on duty when your wife went through.

And this further leaves aside the fact that you are planning to surreptitiously snap an image of a scan using a cell phones camera…talk about wonky! Even with a mega-pixel camera a picture of this type is not going to be anything worth seeing.

I didn’t lie…and you did post a false image. I put no false words in your mouth. I did read what you wrote (which, conversely, you didn’t do with my own posts), and I pointed out the myriad flaws in your argument. You didn’t like it. C’est la vie.

You are lucky because in this forum calling someone ‘stupid’ is verboten, and you are lucky a wandering Mod didn’t happen to see it or you might have gotten a warning.

Uhuh. :stuck_out_tongue:

-XT

70

Word of advice, it’s better to keep the yap shut after being shut down on fact and analysis. This response is pretty sad posturing.

71

I for one don’t think the “oops, sorry, it’s a hoax! i didn’t know” self-revelation is all that convincing.

this is in the op’s own first post… “no hair gets picked up by the scanners of course so you can see every detail down there”
when i saw the posts that linked to these faked images, I just assumed that everyone knew that they were fake.

72

I don’t know for sure (can’t actually see you for visual clues) if you are doing sarcasm, but you make a point - the harm of scanning (privacy), vs the harm of being killed.

I am against casual or “unreasonable” search without probable cause. I’m a firm believer in privacy.

But I would be more against being blown to bits.

It’s a fact, there are people out there who just want to blow things up, and they prefer that a bunch of people die in the process. If some perv wants to stare at my picture, I’m still alive. I’d be annoyed and creeped out, but still alive. If some asshole blows me up, I’d be very “upset”.

73

I don’t know why, either. And I’m one of the people who is upset. I can’t explain it but I just don’t want anyone to see my penis or balls (pixelated or no) unless a TSA employee is offering to perform a blowjob (man or woman; I don’t care, just don’t bite). Call me what you want.

74

My main objection is that I don’t think these scanners will provide a significant increase in aviation safety; if anything, I think, it’d work to collapse the struggling airline industry. I think if you have to scan my body to be sure that the plane will not blow up, I don’t want to ride your plane: I’ll take the bus, thanks.

75

Help me understand this (and I’m not picking on you specifically). Now, I get the fact there are people who want to blow up planes (both foreigners and domestic) but do you genuinely fear that your next ride on the plane will be last due to a terrorist? Oftentimes, I think I’m the only American who is not spooked by the terrorist. I take solace in the fact that the U.S has never been conquered by a foreign enemy and, comparatively to other Western countries, attacks on the homeland have been mild and infrequent.

I think the Right to Privacy and our Constitution is greater than the threat of Yemenese or Tea Party terrorist. <shrug>

76

Talking to the part I underlined, actually no I’m not. If nothing else, the odds are heavily in my favor, and I’m not important enough to be specifically targeted either. The Constitution talks against unreasonable search and seizure, and I’m on board with that. We need to have a better understanding of just what is to be considered reasonable and unreasonable. It should be written into law and policy, if it hasn’t been already. And then, if we disagree with it, if it violates the Constitution or previous laws, we dump whatever congress critter or group of congress critters “did it”, and/or someone takes it to the Supreme Court. As for the Tea partygoers, they’re just idiots anyway.

77

Silly to you, maybe, but not to me. I trade seconds for risk of death all the time, and you do too. As an American, I have about a 1.5% chance of meeting my end in a violent car wreck. That is more than minimal: that is a very serious risk. But I hardly even think about it when I get in my car to drive to the grocery store. My chances of dying in a terrorist attack rank somewhere between my chances of falling off a cliff and my chances of being nibbled to death by penguins. So I am quite comfortable disregarding that risk for the sake of mere convenience.

Hey, speak for yourself! :smiley:

Like I said, this has nothing to do with the sight of skin. I don’t care one bit whether some anonymous person in a room somewhere can see me naked.

What I object to most strenuously is that this represents continued and increased subjection to authority and the further erosion of our presumption of privacy. That’s what isn’t worth saving a few hundred lives for, even if it could save any more lives than the hopeless and incompetent spectacle of security theater that we already have, which I doubt.

The other downside is that it costs lots of money, and as a taxpayer I object to spending my money on stupid stuff the benefits of which will not justify the expenditure.

78

Yes you did!

No. I did not suggest there were anymore photos or any leaked photos as all. I only said that it would happen eventually. I did post the information of the Bollywood actor who claimed it had happened to him, but I also linked a youtube video which i think most of us would agree proves it fake.

First it was one of the few images I could find. Had I knew it was fake I wouldn’t have used it. I had never made an claim that it was widely being done. You’re putting words in my mouth yet again.

Again, I wasn’t using it as evidence of their being some vast network of body scanner image trafficking already in existence.

Again you won’t let it go and continue to make it seem like I made some claim that there was some cavalcade of body scanner images on the net.

–

So was I wrong about the image? Yes.

Was I wrong about you putting words in my mouth? No.

Do I apologize for calling you ‘stupid?’ I’ll be the bigger man here and apologize.

I’m sorry for calling you stupid, but you should learn not to lie about people.

–

I didn’t know. I had seen those images floating around. I mentioned the ‘hair’ thing as a joke because she was shaven. I actually didn’t know if the hair was meant to be invisible or not.

Do many people who are trying to spread a rumor admit they were wrong in the same topic?

Again let me state it: the original image I linked was a hoax. I’m sorry for misleading anyone. It’s not a topic I researched very well, and that should be obvious considering I came here to get more information.

79

If it doesn’t have anything to do with skin, then what privacy is being invaded?

80

The act of conducting a search, even though it is electronic and not physical, is still a search. Most of the types of searches we are familiar with, require probable cause or at least a healthy suspicion - some justification. They generally need a warrant too. One of the troubling things about searching anyone arbitrarily, or searching everyone, is it makes us all suspects of something or other. You could make a little stretch and say it implies “presumed guilty until proven otherwise”.