Nude scanners revisited - again

There is a lot of discussion about the backscatter scanners (or as the media calls them: “nude scanners”) in Germany at the moment. Technically it’s in discussion for a long time. I wrote about it in 2005 after Bruce Schneier wrote about it. My thought at this moment was “Okay, they will need an aircraft blown out of the sky to force this into the public”. Personally i think the this is lobby at work at the moment. It’s a big business to implement backscatter at all airports in germany alone. Just think about the central security area in Hamburg.10 entries … ka-ching …. and Hamburg is a relatively small airport. At first: I have no problem with backscatter scanning. Technically the current metal detectors look through my clothing as well. So if a backscatter scanner makes no images and instead just make “boink” (as we all know, scientific progress goes “boink”) and then get a TSA massage, i’m fine with that. I’m not fine with high resolution nude photos of every one just want to fly, i’m not fine with spending millions for back scatter scanners, while the people at security can decide to flip burgers or searching people at almost the same wage, i’m not fine with dumbed down version of this scanners with software to protect the privacy as the bad-guys will find ways to use this dumbing-down to fool this device (i want just simple logic .. there is something else than your leather underpants or your latex bra under your clothing …. “boink” -> TSA massage). I’m not fine with with maximal invasive security counter measures, that just helps against past attacks, but not against future attacks. The same politicians that force us into this back scatter scannings will be the first ones that will cry when the “Bild Zeitung” will publish the length of their private parts. Who prevents someone who can flip burgers for the same wage to get bribed for not seeing a bomb in his or her shift or for writing down interesting information about prominent people. In former times we used well-paid public servant for this task to reduce this risk … but today. And at the end those back scatter scanning is somehow futile anyways: Drug dealers found out that it’s quite simple to hide drugs inside a person. Backscatter can’t detect it, as it stops at the first layer of the skin. So what’s the problem to substitute the cocaine with Semtex to create a not-so-intelligent bomb?