In Defense of Security Theater (Sorta)

I travel often, and until relatively recently I was doing over 100,000 miles a year. I've cut back a lot because my jobs have changed and I felt bad about my carbon footprint, but the bottom line is I've spent a lot of quality time with the TSA. And amidst all of the recent (often justified) blowback against their more-intrusive personal pat-downs, I thought I'd articulate a little bit of why overall, the security theater we go through at airports these days doesn't really bother me.

First, some important points:

• I'm not suggesting that taking off our shoes at x-rays, or having our testicles tapped, or not having more than 3 ounces of liquids actually keep us safe against any innovative new attacks.
• There are absolutely documented cases of a few of the many thousands of TSA agents out there abusing their stations, with infractions ranging from questionable to egregiously immoral.
• I'm not in favor of a police state, and strongly support civil disobedience and effective attempts to change overbearing security policies.
• TSA security policies are ridiculously over-focused on the last attempted attacks, instead of future ones.

With all that being said, I don't think our current system of security theater as practiced by the TSA is necessarily the wrong thing to do.

The Hand You're Dealt

The TSA lists their mission as "protect[ing] the Nation’s transportation systems to ensure freedom of movement for people and commerce." A mission like that is a bit like the mission of our financial regulatory agencies after the recent market meltdowns — some of it is about putting in place better preventive policies, but a lot of it is also about managing perceptions. Free movement of people essentially relies on the largest number of those people feeling safe to move.

And many people, frankly, are pretty stupid about air travel. They don't do it often, don't have a mental model of how air travel really works, aren't particularly educated about the security processes they have to participate in, and aren't logical in the way they respond to security measures.I don't say any of these things as criticisms, just as observations based on experience. More often than not, the person behind me or in front of me in the security line at an airport seems to be unsure of some part of the process, not just at the level of 'is it time to take our shoes off now?' but at the deeper sense of 'what is this process I'm taking part in?' And often, their behaviors are similarly uninformed. Sure, I've gotten annoyed at having to go through random secondary screening, but that's frankly only happened a tiny fraction of the time I travel. By contrast, every single time I get on a plane in the U.S., I see at least one person studiously watching me put my belongings on the conveyor belt, as if they're performing an act of heroism by personally observing me. Sure, I look a lot like Marwan al-Shehhi, but I'm not sure their memories are that good.

I don't point that out in order to (merely) begrudge them their prejudices, though. I point it out because the TSA has to serve those people, too. Most of us who control the conversation on social media or in the rarified air of traditional media are experienced flyers, who pride ourselves on the logical rigor of our analyses of TSA technique. But we're not the majority of flyers. And some large percentage of people who travel, in order to feel safe, have to see or feel an experience that addresses their fears about traveling, regardless of whether that experience is based in logic or rationality.

Enter The Theater

This is where the 'theater' aspect of security theater comes in. Any theatrical performance is designed to elicit a feeling in its audience, even though that's obviously a manufactured or even emotionally manipulative process. In the case of security theater, part of the TSA's mission is to elicit the feeling of safety from travelers. This is a good thing. As much as it pains those of us in the media establishment to say so, it is just as legitimate for the TSA to have 'make people feel safe' as a goal as it is to have 'make people actually be safe'.

In the particular case of invasive body-scanning technology, this obviously raises the question of what we mean by 'safe'. There's safe from people hiding secret explosives or weapons, and then there's safe from the prying eyes of government employees. The majority of travelers, who aren't always savvy or logical in their evaluations of such processes, and who only rarely have to face the indignities of the situation anyway, don't see governmental intrusiveness as being nearly as 'unsafe' as the other form of potential risk.

So, if you were in charge of the TSA, which audience of travelers would you piss off? I think the only reasonable choice you could make would probably look something like the current compromise, once you consider the different segments of the public you have to address, the level of training and experience of current field staff, and the variety of threats that are actually being attempted.

Keep in mind: If someone did get through with another shoe bomb, or someone successfully made a liquid explosive after that potential risk had been identified, or body-scanning technology was made available to stop certain types of attacks and the TSA knew about it but didn't use it, they'd be subject to far more criticism than they're getting today.

Almost any institution, when faced with a situation where they'll get harshly criticized regardless of their choice, is going to choose the option that lets them accrue more power as an institution. That's true of government agencies, corporations, and any other organization that can make itself part of society. This situation simply will not ever change until such time as Americans are willing to accept that a certain level of risk of aircraft-based terror threats always exist, and Americans have consistently indicated they're not willing to live with air travel being a fraction as deadly as, say, traveling by car. It's especially unlikely to change as, at a broader level, we encourage corporations to define our policy. The TSA is a symptom of the fact Americans like to think they're going to live forever, and that they trust corporations more than their government regardless of the track record of either. Change those facts, and then maybe we can change the TSA.

A Really Crappy Job

I'll admit, part of my willingness to partially exonerate the TSA for the current levels of stupidity at airports is because it's a really, really tough job for an agency to have. While airport screeners are obviously trained, any large force of employees who deal with the public turing times of stress are going to be constantly making egregious mistakes. Hell, there's a complaint about a McDonald's worker probably every other minute, and they're not involved in examining people's bodies, just giving them french fries.

Some of the people at the agency are also trying really hard. If you look at the TSA blog, which was one of the earliest blogs launched by any federal agency, and still remains among its best, there's a concerted effort to engage the public in a smart way. When attention-seekers exaggerate their mistreatment at the hands of the TSA, they don't get engaged in a back-and-forth, they just post footage of the event in question. When TSA agents screw up, they don't publicly shame them, they just talk about what their standards are for employees. Obviously, the range and scope of current complaints have overwhelmed their social media staff of late, but part of me thinks they'll have either reasonable answers for many situations, or take accountability for the times when they were clearly wrong. I recently answered an Ask MetaFilter question about how to contact the TSA to object to current screening procedures, and was pretty surprised at the range of options available to a citizen who wants to contact the agency, as well as the likelihood of getting a thoughful response.

All of that being said, obviously I still have misgivings about the awful experience so many of us have at the airport. I'm especially affronted because I know many of the common forms of objection, including merely opting out of the body-scanning devices, would earn me far more of an inconvenience or delay at the airport than the other folks who are protesting, simply because of how I look.

But the worst excesses of the TSA are caused by our culture, and the agency is responding to our culture's values. If you want them to change their behavior, you'll have to engage with your neighbors and fellow citizens about their fears, and evolve the way we all respond to them. They may find that conversation to be far too invasive, and you'll have to decide what to do when they ask to opt-out.

Universal and Sony Music plan ‘instant pop’ to beat piracy

to beat piracy: "

Ten years after piracy first began to ravage the music industry, Britain’s two biggest record labels will finally try to play their part in stopping it, by making new singles available for sale on the day they first hit the airwaves.

Universal and Sony Music – home to Take That and Matt Cardle, respectively – hope the effort will encourage the impatient X Factor generation to buy songs they can listen to immediately rather than copying from radio broadcasts online.

Read More

Article from: TorrentFreak, Covering Torrent Sites and News since 2005. "

The Women of Twitter: Behind those sexy tweets

“The CADJPY is testing the rising trend line dating back to Nov. 2,” announced the blonde bombshell in a low-cut bikini top, discussing with seeming gravitas and authority technical levels for the value of the Canadian dollar against the Japanese yen. “Despite consumer prices and retails sales topping expectations.”

Her Twitter name, 15k, gave little hint to her identity, but there was something about her that made me more interested than usual in currency exchange rates.

So I clicked through to her account, and then to her Twitter page, hoping for exciting fever charts, perhaps of the British Pound against the U.S. Dollar.

Instead, I saw this rather disappointing picture:

Whoever he is, he looks nothing like the blonde. Even more disappointing, he seems to know nothing about exchange rates. He just wants my money.

The Web page I’ve landed on, PS-Capital.com, says it represents a “Singapore Arbitraged Hedge Fund.” This pilot seems polite -- notice the words “thank you” imprinted on the photograph. He doesn’t inspire confidence, but at least he’s honest in explaining that the fund is a startup “awaiting funding to establish a track record.” Then, he pleads for $1,000 to $10,000 payments via PayPal to help establish seed funding.

Not tempted by the offer, I scroll down further, and realize this page is a two-for-one sales pitch. The pilot is also an Internet marketing expert, it seems. For $50, he will sell me 500 Twitter followers.

“Let me further sweeten the deal for you. I am an expert on Twitter, self taught. I am also good enough on Wordpress, again self taught,” he writes. “I am not good enough to do fancy stuff but I can create an automated blog. What does an automated blog do? ... Basically it pulls in traffic, lots of it. And by plugging in a Clickbank Id, an Adsense Id it could automatically generate revenue which is ENDLESS. It may not be much initially but it would grow and small even as it is, it just goes on and on.'

Welcome to the seedy world of Twitter marketing. Spammers and other web advertising click scams have made their way through every Internet technology, so it’s no surprise that they’ve taken over Twitter, too. Their methods are always the same -- steal clicks, sell ads against them, then try to upsell some other crazy service. Clicking through 15k’s original Canadian currency post -- instead of her profile -- yields a link to a page promising a rather precise return on a Facebook investment: “Here's How YOU Can Make $144,823.37 Using Facebook™!”

At least the author honors Facebook’s trademark. He or she does hijack your browser on that page, however, and won’t let visitors leave without quitting the application.

The spam scam plays out in a unique way on Twitter, however, as marketers are forced to get attention in 140 characters or less. Enter the “Women of Twitter.” The women likely have nothing to do with the ads, and their images may have been used without their knowledge. That’s a common and distasteful tactic. In a particularly egregious form of image theft, msnbc.com several years ago chronicled the story of a woman whose picture was stolen from a personal ad, then widely used as an ad for a pornography Web site.

So I decided to follow up on 10 Women of Twitter tweets to see where they took us. They are easy to find: Just do a search for any popular topic, like ‘iPad.” Many of them feign interest in financial news or other world events, but the accounts are simply set up to automatically pull in and post news headlines and to generate keyword hits based on newsworthy topics. The crazy tweets this generates is reminiscent of the “word salad,” spam that was in vogue a couple of years ago, when billions of emails were sent containing what seemed to be the world’s worst Haiku.

In each case, I attempted to directly contact the poster and conduct an interview but had no luck. I did get one rather ironic response, however.

In my Top 10 list, which consists of 15k and nine others, I'm using the pronoun “her” to describe each account because the picture is female. But I have no idea of the real gender of the account holder.

Twitter, of course, has publicly said it is trying to fight spam like this, but it did not respond to requests for comment for this story. You can see our ongoing list of the Women of Twitter here, but please don’t click on any of their profiles. You can also follow me.

“Toopweb” is pretty direct in her pose, and her message. The “try me” note posted on her picture has little to do with struggling British homeowners, but we clicked anyway. Her profile page goes nowhere, but she’s a prolific writer. She’s already posted 6,000 tweets -- sometimes, she posts several an hour -- and has pulled in 600 followers. Her current concern at our last visit? “Early childhood education schools LearnmoreMN Blog: How to rebuild the foundation of Minnesota’s education system.”

This Twitter user has a much more obvious business model. Her “real name” is “DVD Bluray,” and her profile links to a website that upsells movies. Mind you, she carries no merchandise -- all the links on that site are affiliate links for Amazon.com, where Naritiwas gets a cut for every sale. She has about 4,500 followers. Her Tweets are equally varied. Her most recent tweet on our visit? “Car accidents in Los Angeles County -- Expert Attorneys Wanted.”

I write a lot about personal finance issues, so it was natural for me to visit the account named “Budgetingtips4u.” I was disappointed, however, with the advice I got there. The first Tweet I read: “Alarm Clock Lamp Article: Alarm Clock Lamp Article It’s difficult to provide accurate Alarm Clock Lamp information.” If anything, alarm clocks in my life are far too accurate. The “real” name Budgetingtips4u gives is Kasy Alutman, but that gets me nowhere. It’s not hard to discern her real motivation, however: Her most recent tweet was “Traffic Building Tips When You Get Stuck | TRAFFIC BUILDING « Learn Traffic Building.”

I came closest to real contact when I reached out to Savvypromoter. She seems to be a real person engaged in real Internet marketing promotion -- at least judging by her YouTube videos, which promise watchers a work-at-home business that includes a “system that is going to change your life,” and enable early retirement. She says her name is Amanda Powlesland and that she’s originally from New Zealand. She describes herself as an “Entrepreneur, Internet Marketer, Counsellor, Philanthropist, International traveller, Nature lover, CarbonCopyPro Member.” Despite this, her tweets also seem like automated headlines. Here’s one: “China mobile subscriber total rises to 833.1 million in Nov (Reuters): Reuters - China Mobile….”

I followed her on Twitter, and sent her an e-mail at what seems to be her legitimate e-mail account, requesting an interview. I had hard-hitting questions in mind. Here’s the response I got:

“Thanks for trusting me! Do you want to know an easy 'paint by numbers' approach to earning an extra $3000 per month: ”

I wouldn’t trust her.

“KC Fong” is the name connected to this account, which holds the record in our group for most prolific. She’s sent 186,000 tweets. She also seems oddly interested in small-town New Jersey property crimes, despite her stated location of Las Vegas. Her profile page is about as subtle as her picture. It links to “lofu.offershop.us,” an amalgamation of online retailer clicks.

“Our Web site is a third party marketing website for companies such as Netflix, Cash4Gold, and many more,” the site says. You’ll notice that Toopweb, mentioned earlier, follows KC Fong suggesting a) She wants to learn from a master Tweeter or b) the accounts might be controlled by the same person or organization.

This not-the-girl-next-door account posts innocuous and varied headlines all day long. Some sports headlines (“Packers backup QB nearly knocks off Tom Brady!), some tech news (“Sonex electric completes first test flight”) and even world entertainment news (“Survivor: Nicaragua – Live Reunion Show!). On my first visit, she was tweeting about Yogi Bear, the movie. But the account is really a doorway to something more serious. She follows 730 other tweeters, most of which seem to be escort services. Her first five Twitter pals are “Lost Angeles Escorts,” “Detroit Escorts,” “Washington D.C. escorts,” “Calgary escorts,” and “Toronto escorts” -- she obviously has gone international. Notes left on those pages seem to suggest they serve as authentic classified ads for paid sex.

Acaiberrybible takes a very different tack than our other Women of Twitter. Her tweets are all on one topic, focused on weight loss and health benefits of certain foods. Like the others here, she both follows and is following about 2,400 accounts, suggesting quite a bit of account sharing going on. It also suggests the spammers know just how many followers they can accumulate before getting on the radar of Twitter’s spam fighters. This account holder says she’s in Los Angeles, and I’m sure you won’t be surprised to hear that her profile links to a Web page devoted to selling a “free” trial of acai berries. In an interesting mix of techniques, the page is also part of the “fakosphere,” complete with a blog and supposed random reader comments from people who lost weight after signing up. There’s even advertisements from Groupon, pulled in via one of those marketing affiliate arrangements.

LainaMedoza3200, whose names sounds more like a computer model than a clothing model, also takes a different strategy. She claims to be giving away from iPads! But interspersed with those aggressive offers, she produces some of the best poetry among the Women of Twitter.

'My good lord, I am so pleased to see you, he gushed, a soft eunuch’s smile on his powdered face,' reads one tweet. 'The weirwoods were beyond the Wall, yet he knew Sam meant what he said,' reads another.

A quick Internet search reveals the posts are pulled -- not from a news feed -- but from a fantasy novel called “A Game of Thrones” by George R. R. Martin. At least she’s literary. I hope Martin receives some royalties for this.

Finally, it should be obvious why I was attracted to “hotnewss.” I’m interested in any and all news scoops. Without apology, hotnewss -- who says her name is, ironically, Jane Rich -- links to random wire stories from around the world, like “Police arrest 12 men in counter-terrorism raids (Reuters).” And her profile links to a webpage that also throws together random headlines, Google News style, called wharfyouth.org, with the awkward label “Latest Update Headline News” -- but not before passing users through a page named MyGoogleTrends.info. The domain for that page is registered to someone listing the name “Bung Sa” in Singapore. No word if Bung Sa is starting a hedge fund.

Tweet

Game #3 - What is it?

"Here is the item for today.

Leave your guess in the comments and no links please.

No winners or losers. Have fun!

Update: Scott was right on with the first guess.

It is a flood light for taking movies or pictures. Remember all those old 8mm films that show people squinting as they wave at the camera or looking down while waving? Well, this is flood light that brought those beautiful family movies!

Photo has been edited to remove manufacturer information

Decoding the Expiration Date Wording

"Although this next bit of info isn't technically frugal, it may save you some money by wasting less.

The actual term 'Expiration Date' refers to the last date a food should be eaten or used. Last means last -- proceed at your own risk

'Sell by' date: This tells the store how long to display the product for sale. You should buy the product before the date expires. This is basically a guide for the retailer, so the store knows when to pull the item. This is not mandatory, so reach in back and get the freshest. The 'sell by' date is the last day the item is at its highest level of quality, but it will still be edible for some time after.

'Born on' date: This is the date of manufacture that has been resurrected recently to date beer and soda pop. These drinks can go bad after three months.

'Guaranteed fresh' date: This usually refers to bakery items. They will still be edible after the date, but will not be at peak freshness.

'Use by' date: This is the last date recommended for the use of the product while at peak quality. The manufacturer of the product has determined this date.

'Pack' date: You will find this one on canned or packaged goods, as a rule, but it's tricky. In fact, it may be in code. You may find it best to call the manufacturer for how good it is.

Work At Home Places and Warnings

Today while I was at work, a woman came into to send 6 thousands dollars to a man in Nigeria for real estate she was going to buy. It seemed like a scam to me considering all the scams that come from Nigeria, but she seemed determined to invest her money in this property, site unseen anyway.

The sayings that are out there, like: 'If it seems to be to good to be true, if probably is' or 'Buyer beware' come to mind when I think of buying real estate site unseen or getting jobs that are sent via email.

The BBB.org has some good words of wisdom when it comes to specifically looking for jobs - some good info at the site.

# Employer e-mails are rife with grammatical and spelling errors -

Job postings with grammatical errors seem like a give away to me as spellchecker is a common tool online now.

# E-mails purporting to be from job posting Web sites claiming there’s a problem with a job hunter’s account-

Fraud websites phish for your information to gather data on you or even install malicious spyware on your computer.

# An employer asks for extensive personal information such as social security or bank account numbers -

This is a huge red flag to me, I would much rather give this information in person and only if I am sure the job is a guarantee; like setting up my w-2 forms

# An employer offers the opportunity to become rich without leaving home-

Even though there is the occasional good job out there can be worked from home, this to me falls under the 'too good to be true' idea.

# An employer asks for money upfront -

Via bbb.org: 'Aside from paying for a uniform, it is rarely advisable for an applicant to pay upfront fees or make a required purchase to get a job.'

# The salary and benefits offered seem too-good-to-be-true -

# The job requires the employee to wire money through Western Union or MoneyGram-

I think the final two items are the biggest red lights to me, if the job offer makes me scowl and say 'Hmmmm?' I am on guard.

However, there are some good jobs out there and Clark Howard and CNN both put together a few, with some overlapping.

CNN - Companies that will hire you to work at home. They list Alpine Access, Convergys, Extended Presence, Internet Girl Friday, LiveOps, Spheris, Staffcentrix, West At Home, Voicelog and VIPDesk

Clark Howard - Work from Home options are: alpineaccess, arise.com, convergysworkathome.com, elance.com, intellicare.com, liveops.com and msvas.com. There are others as well.

But I want to let you know that some of these jobs fall in the BBB.org's idea of a red flag in that they ask for money upfront and for background checks so I would do much more research on those websites if you are interested.

Will eBay reveal street artist Banksy’s secret identity?

Secret identities are pretty valuable. Street-artist Banksy knows that pretty well, having never revealed his (or her) own.

But not all things can stay secret in the age of the internet. An intrepid seller on eBay is offering the identity of the anonymous artist for a cool $1 million.

Banksy is the pseudonym for a British street artist known for painting traditionally satirical and black humor paintings on the walls of buildings across the world. The artwork relies on a stencil-like style and has become a bit of a cult phenomenon, even spurring the creators of the Simpsons to commission an opening couch gag from the eccentric artist.

But Banksy’s identity has never been revealed. Even when creating the couch gag episode, the Simpsons creators went through a series of representatives for the artist and never had direct contact with him (or her). That’s actually been part of the appeal of the enigmatic artist — that, and Banksy’s contempt for auctioneers that try to sell his art for profit.

The eBay seller, Jaybuysthings, claims he has confirmed Banksy’s identity by matching the price he sold his artwork for with some tax records. That’s a pretty crafty way to go about doing it, although the seller didn’t give any additional details about how he came by the tax information.

Regardless of the validity of the claim, it’s already attracted 38 bids and the price has gone all the way up to a cool $999,999.00. The auction started just last week and ends on Wednesday. The winner will receive a piece of paper that will have the name of Banksy on it — because eBay originally wouldn’t let Jaybuysthings sell something that wasn’t a physical object.

The seller has a 100 percent positive feedback rating, but then again, he only has 9 reviews in the past 12 months. Mad props to Jaybuysthings if the sale actually goes through without a hitch — that’s quite a way to generate a cool $1 million for some extra work.

To the rest of the Internet (especially those bidding on the identity) — seriously? The identity of Banksy is probably worth that much, but eBay doesn’t seem like the most productive way to go about discovering it.

At least Jaybuysthings is offering free shipping.

[Photo: Leeks]

Tags: internet detective, secret identity, street art

People: Banksy