Cargo Containers' Electronic Sensor Says 'Do Not Disturb'

NY Times ^ | January 20, 2005 | ANNE EISENBERG

[Righter-than-Rush]

Here in Seattle, dozens of cargo ships come in and out daily. Fully 1% of them are inspected prior to mounting onto a truck for delivery.

Security? Sure.

[Not A Snowbird]

Cargo beebers! How clever.

[Sybeck1]

Have Scotty make them out of transparent aluminum.

[Not A Snowbird]

The plan is to inspect the cargo before the ships even arrive in our ports. We're making good progress getting our folks in place overseas. Still work to be done, but it's getting better.

[GOP_1900AD]

And we will trust those closing the containers at the PRC end because..... ?

[March I up]

Who is "China International Marine Containers (Group) Co., Ltd."?

[George Smiley]

Solution is simple:

X-ray the c4ap out of every container unless they're marked "Do Not X-Ray".

Manually inspect every one of those.

[Terabitten]

What say you?

[petercooper]

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=RAE

[Junior]

The containers are steel and likely impervious to X-rays.

[neverdem]

FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.

[neverdem]

Thanks for the link.

[NurdlyPeon]

I'm surprised that we don't have smart containers already. A container that could identify itself at a distance (i.e. radio polling) would probably save millions of $$ just in cargo management costs alone. Throw in some security mechanisms, and the savings would no doubt grow into the billions.

[neverdem]

The containers are steel and likely impervious to X-rays.

You need lead for shielding.

[Lurker]

Steel is not impervious to X-Rays.

L

[John Will]

The terrorists will just build the walls with bullets.

[July 4th]

You can't make things too easy. There are a lot of longshoremen making $200k who don't want to lose their jobs entering numbers.

[Marine Inspector]

Sounds like a good idea that could work.

[George Smiley]

Think again.