DHS and TSA are midway through Far Blue Cell, a brainstorming session about terrorism counter-measures through 2018.
I focused on scenarios for removing all security checkpoints and delays from a customer perspective, effectively removing all TSA nuisance from airports.
Imagine checking in at a kiosk to get your boarding pass, and going though no security lines to board the plane. Bring anything you want with you, but know that the flight is under video surveillance, like retail stores today.
I assumed technologies that work in rudimentary form today and will benefit from Moore’s Law. (The only 12-year forecast that I felt confident about is the continuation of the 100-year abstraction of Moore’s Law, bringing a 256x computational advance by 2018).
So, I started with the assumption that computer-controlled flight would be possible. It’s a pretty safe assumption given what we already have today.
With no cockpit, everything changes. The potential for harm is greatly reduced if the plane cannot be navigated from within. No hijacking. No use of the plane as a weapon.
Bombs become the only threat, and a reduced one.
Personal weapons? A gun or knife-fight could do more damage in a restaurant, or many large group gatherings. Why bother with a plane where criminal activity will be recorded, and the only people harmed are on board?
As for bombs, passive sniffers in a free flowing airport gateway are more plausible than detecting improvised weapons than could be used against a pilot.
At the airport, a quick fingerprint biometric would be a natural way to get a boarding pass (as 12 million people have already done in Florida to get access to an amusement park). So even smuggled bombs would have more capture and downside risk for a terrorist cell than other targets.
Pie-in-sky ideas: hardening a UAV to bombs should be easier than current planes; smaller planes could lower risk; luggage could fly separately; biologic weapon sensors could trigger a flight path to quarantine, etc.
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