To Detect Bombs Efficiently and Cheaply, Try Using Wi-Fi

DooKey

DooKey

[H]F Junkie
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Researchers from Rutgers University have published a study that show Wi-Fi can be used to detect weapons and bombs. The study shows Wi-Fi was able to tell the difference between dangerous and non-dangerous items 99 percent of the time. It was also very effective in the detection of liquids and metals. This technology will eventually supplement X-ray and CT scanning at airports to further improve airline safety. I believe if it speeds up security checkpoints it needs to be deployed ASAP.

According to the researchers’ paper, most dangerous objects contain metals or liquids. Those materials interfere with Wi-Fi signals in a way that researchers can detect. And the baggage a person might use to contain a bomb, weapon, or explosive device is typically made of materials — paper or fiber, often — through which Wi-Fi signals pass easily.
 
Meh, X-ray machines are good enough, take my back to the days where they didn't rape you with ribbed gloves for your pleasure.
 
Montu said:
This technology will eventually supplement X-ray and CT scanning at airports to further improve airline safety
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maybe i have missed it, but the airports are already pretty safe. Its rare to hear of anyone being harmed at an airport...
 
I read the paper. It's not that great. It simply defines all metals or liquids and dangerous. The operating principal is basically a more sophisticated version of "metal and liquid block wi-fi more than other things, bigger metals and liquids block more than smaller ones".

The trouble is that their testing phase didn't test situations that had more than a single thing in the bag. Worse, introducing bags that they hadn't specifically trained their classifier for significantly degraded their test accuracy. And that's not even counting bags with realistic contents.

This is basically a glorified metal detector than can also detect liquids, but I suspect that it can't be refined to be useful in a real world environment.
 
I just had the displeasure of flying and the millimeter wave machine sucked. I still had to get the enhanced pat-down because my balls of steel set off the machine. So I'm going to just skip the silly machines from now on.
 
If this stays cheap and gets deployed, good thing. TSA can fail to detect bombs, guns, knives and crazy ground personnel for a few thousand dollars per airport instead of the millions per airport it takes now to not detect harmful stuff.
 
The Mad Atheist said:
Meh, X-ray machines are good enough, take my back to the days where they didn't rape you with ribbed gloves for your pleasure.
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I buy refundable tickets for this reason. You can just go through security, get what you need, get a refund.
 
jnemesh said:
Scanning for bombs using RF energy is a REALLY BAD idea...
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I was reading all the posts to see if someone else hit on this already. I think I'd be a hell of a lot happier doing the bomb hunting job if they just left it up to me and Fido.
 
Obi_Kwiet said:
I read the paper. It's not that great. It simply defines all metals or liquids and dangerous. The operating principal is basically a more sophisticated version of "metal and liquid block wi-fi more than other things, bigger metals and liquids block more than smaller ones".

The trouble is that their testing phase didn't test situations that had more than a single thing in the bag. Worse, introducing bags that they hadn't specifically trained their classifier for significantly degraded their test accuracy. And that's not even counting bags with realistic contents.

This is basically a glorified metal detector than can also detect liquids, but I suspect that it can't be refined to be useful in a real world environment.
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That was the same take on I took from it. It sounds like they overfit to their data and would fail on real world out-of-sample testing.
 
PaulP said:
If it's that poorly made, it will go off long before you get to the security checkpoint. We are surrounded by RF energy everywhere in our society.
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If it's that poorly made?

And if it's made that way intentionally? Because I know someone is going to use RF Energy to try and detect it?

It's insanely stupid to use any active radiated energy to try and detect a bomb because that energy can be used as a trigger.

You have to use a passive system, not an active one.
 
Bomb detection is a hateful job. When I was in the Army we had these wretched Vietnam-era mine detectors that couldn't find a small-block engine in a sandbox. They were good for finding rocks and not much else, if you actually needed to clear a mine field you got out the chopsticks.

I attended several of the Army's advanced demolition courses, and the first thing they taught us is that if you suspect a house is booby-trapped, blow the whole house up. If they tell you you can't blow the whole house up, try to find out if the building is actually booby-trapped, and if it is then blow it up anyway. If they tell you they need the house and that you need disarm all the traps, try to gauge how badly they really need the structure, place your stupidest person in charge, and then blow the whole house up, turn your radios off, and make sure you're busy with other things for a few days.

Every year the people from EOD would come around and pluck the smarter people out of our Combat Engineer Battalion and ask us if we wanted to transfer to EOD. And we would say, "No, you read my file, you know I'm not stupid." Sure, we were stupid enough to sign up for Combat Engineer, but fool me twice, shame on me.


P.S. EOD loooooves the movie "Hurt Locker", which apparently sucked all the life out of EOD recruitment. I've heard that the first thing the trainers tell the kids at EOD school is, "If you are in a war zone, and you find a concealed radial or ring-main cluster munition, do NOT pull on the fucking det cord."

P.P.S. When I was in Germany my unit was going to have a day of demolition training, so we were sent to get two cases of C4 out of one of the huge depot bunkers. And when we picked up the first crate we noticed that the underside was wet, and all of us metaphysically shit our pants trying to get out of that bunker, because C4 is not supposed to 'sweat', but if it does it can't be good. And a couple of hours later EOD comes by, and a guy in a Hulk suit with a toolbox wanders in to the bunker, and about 5 minutes later comes out and says, "Go ahead and get your C4, it's just wet." And we said, "We KNOW it's wet, why is it wet??" And he said, "The roof is leaking."

And then we found out the reason they wanted us to use that particular batch of C4 is because the roof was leaking, and the crates got wet. Such are the ways of the Army, thanks for letting us know.
 
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katanaD said:
maybe i have missed it, but the airports are already pretty safe. Its rare to hear of anyone being harmed at an airport...
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Yeah. And I can promise you it's not because of the stellar security measures.
 
The Mad Atheist said:
Meh, X-ray machines are good enough, take my back to the days where they didn't rape you with ribbed gloves for your pleasure.
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I'd like to avoid the useless public money funneling body scanners that use THz sources to fuck your DNA and create biometric body scans. They don't work on fat fucks anyway.
 
seanreisk said:
Bomb detection is a hateful job. When I was in the Army we had these wretched Vietnam-era mine detectors that couldn't find a small-block engine in a sandbox. They were good for finding rocks and not much else, if you actually needed to clear a mine field you got out the chopsticks.

I attended several of the Army's advanced demolition courses, and the first thing they taught us is that if you suspect a house is booby-trapped, blow the whole house up. If they tell you you can't blow the whole house up, try to find out if the building is actually booby-trapped, and if it is then blow it up anyway. If they tell you they need the house and that you need disarm all the traps, try to gauge how badly they really need the structure, place your stupidest person in charge, and then blow the whole house up, turn your radios off, and make sure you're busy with other things for a few days.

Every year the people from EOD would come around and pluck the smarter people out of our Combat Engineer Battalion and ask us if we wanted to transfer to EOD. And we would say, "No, you read my file, you know I'm not stupid." Sure, we were stupid enough to sign up for Combat Engineer, but fool me twice, shame on me.


P.S. EOD loooooves the movie "Hurt Locker", which apparently sucked all the life out of EOD recruitment. I've heard that the first thing the trainers tell the kids at EOD school is, "If you are in a war zone, and you find a concealed radial or ring-main cluster munition, do NOT pull on the fucking det cord."

P.P.S. When I was in Germany my unit was going to have a day of demolition training, so we were sent to get two cases of C4 out of one of the huge depot bunkers. And when we picked up the first crate we noticed that the underside was wet, and all of us metaphysically shit our pants trying to get out of that bunker, because C4 is not supposed to 'sweat', but if it does it can't be good. And a couple of hours later EOD comes by, and a guy in a Hulk suit with a toolbox wanders in to the bunker, and about 5 minutes later comes out and says, "Go ahead and get your C4, it's just wet." And we said, "We KNOW it's wet, why is it wet??" And he said, "The roof is leaking."

And then we found out the reason they wanted us to use that particular batch of C4 is because the roof was leaking, and the crates got wet. Such are the ways of the Army, thanks for letting us know.
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"Blow it in place" has always been the Mantra of EOD. used to hang out with some EOD types at Ft. Bliss years ago, and one of my buddies in my unit washed out of the coarse.

E-6 I knew was told some funny ass stories, like the LT who was being all helpful and decided to bring a couple of fired LAW rockets to the EOD detachment to turn in, instead of just flagging them and calling EOD. "Sorry Sir, we have to blow your car in place".
 
lcpiper said:
If it's that poorly made?

And if it's made that way intentionally? Because I know someone is going to use RF Energy to try and detect it?

It's insanely stupid to use any active radiated energy to try and detect a bomb because that energy can be used as a trigger.

You have to use a passive system, not an active one.
Click to expand...
We are bathed in WiFi signals everywhere we go, especially in public places like the airport. All they have to do is use WiFi signals that look just like all the rest, and the bomb won't know the difference. If it is too sensitive to such signals, it won't make it to the checkpoint before going off. If they are stupid enough to make scanners that use much higher power levels than normal, or us SSIDs like SCAN01, then you have a point. I'm just choosing to believe they aren't that stupid.
 
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