Posted on 10/27/2006 7:02:06 PM PDT by nocarrier
Oct. 27, 2006 — A 24-year-old computer security student working on his doctorate at Indiana University Bloomington has created a Web site that allows anyone with an Internet connection and a printer to create and print fake boarding passes for Northwest Airlines flights.
The passes look virtually identical to the ones printed from the airline's site, and are intended to get you past security — but not onto an airplane.
By entering your name and plugging in information about the flight — flight number, gate, seat number, departing city, destination, departure, and arrival times and class — the site generates a boarding pass the program's creator says will get you past security checkpoints, even without ID.
Christopher Soghoian, creator of "The Northwest Airlines Boarding Pass Generator," knew he would be opening up a can of worms by writing the program and creating the site, but says it's the only way to show people how deeply flawed airport and airline security are.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
Universal hacker-loser excuse.
Evidently that's the political version of sticking fingers in one's ears and repeatedly chanting "lalalalala".
ping.
actually Northwest should be either firing the person who wrote the code for them OR they should be getting a MASSIVE refund from the outsourced corporation.
He just wants to bring back the good old days of "Do you want to buy a cheap Rolex?" on the gates at O'Hare....
Why do you say that? Don't you think better him then them?
I myself am a computer science student and have had to opportunity to cross the line when it comes to exposing security exploits (nothing of this magnitude however). I make the effort to stay in the gray but if you choose to cross that line like Soghoian did, don't expect the university to cover your ass.
Well, then, make certain to fly out of Detroit on Tuesday or Thursday then.
Well, it's called NorthWorst for a reason...
If you take a look at the, uh, fine performance of Northwest Airlines, heh, well, they're lucky to be able to afford the paper to print the passes on in the first place. Things are pretty rough for Northwest.
"TSA assures that every individual introduced to the sterile environment beyond the checkpoint and their accessible property have been thoroughly checked and screened."
LOL This is the joke of the century! A female acquaintance of ours who travels all the time has a small plastic bottle of Visene and a small plastic bottle of hand cram in a pouch in her purse and she has been keeping her boarding pass stubs ever since the ruling that these things are not allowed. She thought she would send all the items to TSA when she has 100 stubs, to show them how many times her purse has been "screened" and how worthless the process is!
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
BTTT
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
I think Markey (D-Mass)'s reaction is pretty ridiculous. Congress's grasp of technology is so pathetic. Soghoian created a tool that EXPLOITS an existing loophole in the system, he didn't create the loophole. Thank Northwest's coders for that fine piece of work.
He really just wants to promote that "Dem's are tough on security too!" crock, but ends up looking like an idiot.
It definitely depends on the airport. I went through an airport the other day that was pushing people through so fast that I forgot to pull out my bag of liquid items... wasn't picked up.
But, two days later at a different airport, I accidentally left a bottle of liquid in my suitcase but remembered to pull out the bag and they caught the bottle of liquid.
Just great.
So how does one even get into the security line without showing a passport or photo ID drivers' license.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.