Airport security failures justify CAPPS-II snoop system

Tue Apr 27 14:27:01 PDT 2004

<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/04/26/airport_security_failures/print.html>

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 Original URL:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/04/26/airport_security_failures/

Airport security failures justify CAPPS-II snoop system
By Thomas C Greene (thomas.greene at theregister.co.uk)
Published Monday 26th April 2004 20:21 GMT

Recent government reports on the failure of American airport screeners to
detect threat objects at security checkpoints may provide ammunition for
proponents of the controversial Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening
System (CAPPS II) database solution, which is currently stalled by myriad
snafus too numerous to mention.

Human error

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Inspector General and the
Congressional General Accounting Office (GAO) have both submitted reports
on the competence of airport passenger and baggage screeners, and found,
not surprisingly, that they are no more effective today than they were
before the security frenzy brought about by the 11 September atrocities.

In testimony before the House Aviation Subcommittee
(http://www.house.gov/transportation/aviation/04-22-04/04-22-04memo.html),
Inspector General for Homeland Security Clark Ervin and GAO Managing
Director Norman Rabkin said that the Transportation Security
Administration's (TSA's) well-paid screening personnel are no more
effective than the inexpensive rent-a-cops provided by private contractors.
A comparison between federal screeners and those participating in a pilot
program for private contractors called the PP5 Program.

According to Ervin, federal and private screeners "performed about the
same, which is to say, equally poorly." He added that "this result was not
unexpected, considering the degree of TSA involvement in hiring, deploying,
and training the [private sector] screeners."

It's believed that TSA's interference in the PP5 Program and its
bureaucratic inertia are important reasons why the private-sector screeners
failed to outdo their civil-service counterparts. Both reports are biased
against the TSA. They assume that TSA is a lost cause, although,
ironically, it had originally been touted as a much-needed fix for the
incompetence of private contractors, upon whom blame for the 9/11 atrocity
was conveniently fixed in the immediate aftermath.

It now appears that TSA is seen as the chief source of security
incompetence and failure. "TSA's tight controls over the pilot program
restricted flexibility and innovation that the contractors may have
implemented to perform at levels exceeding that of the federal workforce.
TSA needs to establish a more robust pilot program that allows greater
flexibility to test new innovations and approaches," Ervin said.

Defective detectives

Indeed, passenger screening is no better than it was 17 years ago. Covert
testing conducted in 1978 - back when screeners were reasonably polite and
quick and unobtrusive about their business - found that 13 per cent of
threat objects passed undetected. Today, in the wake of post-9/11 security
hysteria, and its attendant aggressive bullying of the public and
punishment-strip searching of anyone daring to pass a sarcastic comment,
the figure is 20 per cent.

TSA Administrator Admiral David Stone defended his outfit and took issue
with the reports. "Testing in the Nineties was in no way even comparable to
what we do," he said.

While it may be true that today's covert testing is more sophisticated,
detection equipment has also improved to make the screeners' jobs easier,
though he neglected to emphasize this fact. The red teams and the blue
teams have both got better tricks up their sleeves, so there's certainly
nothing unfair about the penetration tests, as Stone tried to imply. Still,
bad news for human screeners may well be good news for technology.

Database Hell

Stone showed little enthusiasm for the PP5 Program, but he is a big
proponent of CAPPS II, having touted it before the same House committee
back in March as a scheme promising to deliver "vital impact ... on
aviation security."

He has studied the vendor's PR boilerplate with great care. CAPPS II is a
"second-generation prescreening system [that] will be a centralized,
automated, threat-based, real time, risk assessment platform ... expected
to employ technology and data analysis techniques to conduct an
information-based identity authentication," he gushed.

The system is a product of aviation defense contractor Lockheed Martin
Corporation, promoted by US Transportation Secretary and former Lockheed
Martin Vice President Norman Mineta, Stone's boss.

At present, the grand "risk assessment platform" is mired in failure. What
little of it currently works has not been tested adequately because
carriers are withholding passenger data in fear of a public backlash on
privacy grounds.

The accuracy of the many databases that CAPPS II will scour for its
incriminating evidence has not yet been established. Procedures for
passengers to detect inaccurate data, and get inaccurate data and false
positives resolved, have not been implemented. Major privacy threats
inherent in the system, particularly those involving restrictions on
access, have not been addressed. The potential for malevolent identity
thieves to impersonate innocent travelers remains high.

False consciousness

This is all good, because CAPPS II is one of the worst possible solutions
to airport security. It won't prevent terrorists from flying; rather, it
will increase the probability of another successful attack using commercial
aircraft.

The reason is painfully obvious: a group can very conveniently use the
system to pre-screen its members and discover which of them have profiles
that result in extra scrutiny. Thus CAPPS II is a superb tool for
terrorists to use in assessing airport defenses. A group of unarmed
terrorists can board two or three flights in succession and observe how the
system reacts to them. If, after a few trial runs, they discover that
they're allowed to board unchallenged, they can assume that their profiles
do not trigger a warning. Armed with that information, they'll stand a good
chance of mounting a real attack.

CAPPS II is a disaster for two reasons: first, it will create a false sense
of security among airline staff and provide further excuses for screeners
to perform poorly; and second, it offers terrorists an excellent training
device that they can use to assemble a group of people who can get onto
airplanes without arousing suspicion. Ironically, the closer CAPPS II comes
to achieving its stated goals, the more effective it will become as a
terrorist tool.

So it is indeed good that its development is going poorly. The problem,
however, is that the recently publicized failures among human screeners
will provide rationale to rush it into service. CAPPS II may well find
itself on a fast track, pushed hard by those who would exploit the popular
misconception that computers and other high-tech gizmos can compensate for
human fallibility. .

Thomas C Greene is the author of Computer Security for the Home and Small
Office, a complete guide to system hardening, online anonymity, encryption,
and data hygiene for Windows and Linux, available at discount in the USA
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1590593162/), and in the UK
(http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1590593162/).

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Data on 10m Northwest fliers handed to NASA for testing
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