Fake Boarding Passes

[iago]

Congressman Edward Markey (D-Mass.) wants the federal government to
arrest security researcher Christopher Soghoian for creating the
Northwest Airline Boarding Pass Generator, a site which lets anyone
create a facsimile of a Northwest Airlines boarding pass. Soghoian
hoped to spur Congress to look closely at the nation's aviation
security policies, which he calls "security theater."

Instead, Markey, a member of the House Homeland Security committee,
wants the site shut down and Soghoian arrested.

"The Bush Administration must immediately act to investigate, apprehend
those responsible, shut down the website, and warn airlines and
aviation security officials to be on the look-out for fraudsters or
terrorists trying to use fake boarding passes in an attempt to cheat
their way through security and onto a plane," Markey said in a
statement. "There are enough loopholes at the backdoor of our passenger
airplanes from not scanning cargo for bombs; we should not tolerate any
new loopholes making it easier for terrorists to get into the front
door of a plane."

Soghoian, a Ph.D. student at Indiana University, says he has never used
one of the fake boarding passes, which are likely good enough to get
someone past airline security, but not good enough to get you on the
plane. He was waiting for clearance from lawyers at Indiana University
before attempting to do so.

More:
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2006/10/congressman_ed_.html


I really get tired of the "shoot the messenger" approach.  Sure, he probably shouldn't have made it public, but that's generally the best way to get a fast response.  It's still scary that it was even possible to do this in the first case...

[iago]

Well, he got screwed:

Christopher Soghoian today blogs that the FBI returned to his home last
night in his absence with a search warrant, and seized computers and
other belongings. The 24-year old computer science student is the
creator of a website that generated fake airline boarding passes to
illustrate a security flaw which has been documented on the 'net since
(at least) 2003.

More:
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/10/28/fbi_returns_to_fake_.html


So there's a problem that nobody is fixing.  He makes it more public in order to force the airline companies' hands.  I'm pretty sure he did nothing illegal.  They raid his house.  That's lame. 

They're probably going to charge him with treason, then hide the core problem, crossing their fingers that nobody else does the same thing. 

It's the same thing as releasing an exploit into the wild: you have to assume that the bad guys already have it. 

[Blaze]

Couldn't like... a major news company put this on TV and make the american government, and the airline look really bad?

[Super_X]

Couldn't like... a major news company put this on TV and make the american government, and the airline look really bad?

Yeah, but our media's not meant to inform people. It's meant to show us a sugar-coated view of the war.

That and Crime Scene Investigators.

[CrAz3D]

Couldn't like... a major news company put this on TV and make the american government, and the airline look really bad?

Yeah, but our media's not meant to inform people. It's meant to show us a sugar-coated view of the war.

I havent seen any good part about Iraq on TV yet...only heard about it from people I've met that've been there