TSA Researches Avatars For Airport Security Checkpoints

Sounds just absolutely delightful! Now they'll have fat rude avatars with two-digit IQ's barking at us in multiple languages ...

InformationWeek: TSA Researches Avatars For Airport Security Checkpoints

More than 375 million air travelers have gone through Transportation Security Administration checkpoints so far this year. The agency is exploring a new way of handling such a crowd: helpful, multilingual avatars. ​

​

TSA, part of the Department of Homeland Security, has issued a request for information for a "hologram imaging, computer-generated imagery and video projection" system. The system would be used "to assist passengers in navigating through security checkpoints as efficiently as possible," according to the RFI, which was posted on FedBizOpps.gov earlier this month. ​

​

The agency is looking for information on technology able to "speak" in multiple languages, including English and Spanish. The system should capture the attention of travelers, be easy to understand, and "be courteous when communicating to the traveling public," according to the RFI.​

 

Wouldn't it be nice if TSA humans just learned how to treat people with dignity and respect before investigating fancy wizbang electronics that will not improve the travelers TSA experience ? I don't care how many avatars TSA has if some TSA screener is going to be putting his hands in my crotch.

 

Great. Why don't they just deploy an army of Robocops and be done with it.

 

That's actually a great idea, Sunny. Or did you not see the part in Robocop 3 when ED-209 was hacked in 2 minutes flat by a 10-year-old child with a laptop?

Of course, this being TSA, I'd wager the robocops would have 802.11b enabled and accept commands over unencrypted transmissions on port 80. So I'd say 20 seconds is a more accurate figure on how long it'd take to pwn them.

 

or Or OR!!!
Have the holograms do the gropes?!!!!

 

Why not dispense with the whole charde and kill TSA.

 

This avatar idea pretty effectively demonstrates that the TSA takes its inspiration from Hollywood rather than legitimate risk assessment and best practices in security protocols.

Unless, of course, they're seeing their own screeners as liabilities and are looking for ways to minimize usage of their own employees. Then, I guess, their avatar idea may be based in true risk assessment.

 

But will it have blue gloves?

 

That's exactly what would happen. Pwn to own.

 

You'd want to pwn this avatar?

​

​

I'd chew through my ethernet cable to get a way from it.​

 

Felicia Day says: "Do you want to date my avatar?"
The world, having that picture fresh in their minds, says: "Uh...no...no, that's okay. *shudder*"

 

okay I'm imagining a hologram groper, and the passenger is of the opposite gender, some slackjaw in the back struggles to to load the floppy disk in the back to boot up the correct gender hologram....

 

Reminds me of one of my favorite sayings: If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with (expletive deleted).

 

The average TSA employee is baffled by ounces-to-milliliters conversions...

 

Or totally confused that ounces and ounces are two different things.
That one makes their head splode!

 

If they can't handle fluid conversion of "one fluid ounce = 29.57 milliliters," then there's no hope at all of them understanding that volume and mass and weight are all different measures.

 

Yikes!!! Scaaaary.

She looks like one of the big bads on Dexter. But that mug shot (and it's got to be a mugshot) is kind of my point. What kind of avatar does the TSA show to the world? Do they have a bunch of scary-looking robocops, do they have pleasant-looking, and pleasant-sounding avatars, or do they have avatars of what they really look like -- that mug of the scary-looking TSA agent?

 

Three words: "By Your Command."

 

And me without a Viper.