Security

Cheese Takes the Biscuit

Bad security gadget mistook cheese for explosives

By Bogdan Popa, Security and Search Engines Editor

15th of August 2007, 14:37 GMT

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A 66-year-old woman has been held for questioning for about three hours in a US airport, after the chunk of cheese that she had in one of her bags had been mistaken for a bomb. It is a shame that with all the invested money and all the new technologies, security experts

still can't tell between a dairy product and C4.

The cheese was wrapped in a rather peculiar way (using an older method that consisted in a sort of clay encasing) but this is not an excuse to make a mockery out of all the modern screening technology. The good part is that security gadgets are not anywhere near their limits and many things can be improved (a good example being the so-called "Checkpoint of the Future", presented in San Francisco, some time ago).

eWeek informs that many new technologies such as millimeter waves (that do full body scans and have generated privacy fears) as well as backscatter x-rays (that produce images which sort of look like the naked person) have been tested in airports all around the US and they will soon be used in many more locations as well.

As experts state, tight airport security is one of the most efficient ways of fighting terrorism and no matter what terrorists might think of next, there will be a machine that, if used properly, will foil their plans.

Security measures all around the world have 'boomed' lately because of all the active terrorist threats. The toughest security to beat is usually found in key points such as airports, but recently a lot of flaws have been plaguing airport security. There was an outage in LAX a few days ago that severely disrupted border agents' service. And now, this "cheesy incident" causes chaos - it's a clear fact that security measures need a improvement.

TAGS:

security | cheese | bomb

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