Boston Airport Replacing X-ray Body Scanners 119
OverTheGeicoE writes "Boston's Logan International Airport is in the process of replacing its X-ray body scanners with millimeter-wave ones. According to the article, nine of the new scanners have been installed already, and ultimately 27 of these scanners will replace the 17 X-ray backscatter scanners that were installed in March of 2010. The new devices are 'being installed come with software that replaces "passenger-specific images" — or nearly naked views of travelers — with generic outlines that highlight only anomalies such as belts, jewelry, wallets — or guns or bombs.' Perhaps this will help TSA workers avoid being part of a cancer cluster. Some speculate that TSA will ultimately eliminate all of its X-ray body scanners."
Re:Who makes them? (Score:5, Informative)
Here's the citations, I'm sure you left them out by accident...
Michael Chertoff, [gawker.com]George Soros [current.com]
Re:Interesting (Score:5, Informative)
Re:That's not the most important problem (Score:4, Informative)
In the US virtually all x-ray machines (including medical) are operated by un-certified radiologists. Radiologists interpret the images, they do not (typically) run the imaging devices. Radiographer or radiologic technologist (or just "tech" as they are typically called in the field) run the devices. Fortunately, the techs in medicine are typically well trained and certified. I'm not sure about the TSA team, but probably not so much. So your overall point is probably still accurate.
Re:Big whoop... (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah, but some of us have rectums capable of allowing objects to exit as well as enter. So it may be possible that a terrorist has this capability as well, along with, say, a few of his friends, who could then assemble the device outside their anal cavity.
Re:Except.... (Score:5, Informative)
Whoever marked this as flamebait should read this article [technologyreview.com] posted by numbius above. Worth study, it seems.