An Indiana University student created a website people could use to print bogus Northwest Airlines boarding passes in order to point out a serious flaw in airport security. The government’s answer: close the loophole? No, bust the guy who pointed it out.
Student Exposes NWA Security Flaw
Nov 1 2006 — 2:00am
13 Reader Comments
8:07 am
Half of me says this another little college twerp playing “see what I can do.” And the world’s supposed to be impressed?
Aren’t PhD student supposed to be studying?
8:19 am
If “see what I can do” means “I can breach airport security” doesn’t it make sense that the airport security ought to be fixed, rather than busting the student?
9:01 am
Tom, I did this story Friday night. (video on the right). TSA swears up and down that it’s not a big deal. The bar code doesn’t work on the fake boarding pass, so all it gets you is back into the gate area. Many non-ticketed passengers can get there anyway, with a gate pass. I couldn’t get a straight answer as to why non-ticketed passengers are banned, other than it’s a traffic-flow issue. You don’t want double the traffic through the metal detectors.
BUT, there are major no-fly list concerns about this. It’d be fairly easy to use a fake boarding pass (with your real name) to get through security. Then use a real boarding pass (with a fake name) that you bought on-line to get on the plane, if you’re on the no-fly list. Don’t blame me for revealing this: blame the Senator from NY.
9:17 am
Jason, why do you hate America?
9:29 am
Once again, Jason is trying to help the terrorists.
10:26 am
Liberal media ):
10:26 am
Here’s the link to google cache of the generator, though it doesn’t work of course:
Google Cache of Boarding Pass Generator
11:37 am
It seems to me they should hire this student (a la Frank Abignale, Jr). Focus groups could actually help the DHS immensely. A smile or two on the faces of their security practitioners wouldn’t hurt, either.
11:52 am
You should have read my e-mail after I did that story. “We don’t need to know everything” was the general theme.
11:54 am
typical governmental response.
I feel sorry for our country and our security.
12:25 pm
security through obscurity is no security at all
12:48 pm
I am sure he was not the only one aware of this particular security flaw. Nevertheless, I’m putting my head in the sand! That’ll show those terrorists!
2:35 pm
there was an article in slate months and months and months ago about this exact problem. They’ve got it up on ‘recycled’ right now, but it’s not exactly anything new.