SKIRMISHER

It took the FBI days to track down Christopher Soghoian after he launched online his fake NWA boarding pass creator, which was supposedly a tongue-in-cheek demonstration of how easy it is to get a fake boarding pass.

Soghoian, a Ph.D. student at Indiana University, says he has never used one of the fake boarding passes, which are likely good enough to get someone through airport security into the “sanitized” area of the airport, but not good enough to get anyone on a plane. He was waiting for clearance from lawyers at Indiana University before attempting to test if the method worked to get through security.

Soghoian told Wired News Thursday he built the site to expose security holes, not to help terrorists.

“I want Congress to see how stupid the (Transportation Security Administration)’s watch lists are,” he said. “Now even the most technically incompetent user can click and generate a boarding pass. By doing this, I’m hoping (Congress) will see how silly the security rules are. I don’t want bad guys to board airplanes but I don’t think the system we have right now works and I think it is giving us a false sense of security.”

via WIRED

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