On Target in the Air with Cell Phones!

Fly the Friendly Skies but get off the phone before you check in!

In a previous post, we expressed a tongue-in-cheek concern about the Transportation Safety Administration, and promise more int he future. But here's the current "problem" I think the TSA has to deal with. Continental is the first U.S. Airline testing a system that allows people to get their boarding pass sent directly to their cell phones. The electronic boarding pass can be used instead of a paper boarding pass to get through airport security and to board planes, according to Paper Is Out, Cellphones Are In, in the New York Times!

Excellent! I love the disruption that the mobile web is causing . . . but I still have a few concerns.

1) What is the backup plan for those who don't have a cell phone?

Surely there are still a few poeple who don't and won't have cell phones. If this takes off, what will be the extra cost for them to use the old-school way? And what happens if I am on an important business call as I am getting on the plane? "Hang on Fred, I have to check in . . ."

2) How hard will it be to get the information re-sent to my mobile phone?

I know that I may be the only one this has ever happened to, but what exactly do I do if after I get the boarding pass my phone craps out? Say I'm not able to get it fixed in time, so I don't even have access to the number where the message was sent. Are we back to showing some form of ID and hoping there are still enouogh kiosks to get a printed ticket, or maybe I could borrow one of my fellow passengers' phones just until I check in . . .

3) How hard is it to spoof this?

Continental is the only airline offering the service at this point, and their boarding pass is an image of an encrypted bar code displayed on the phone’s screen, which can be scanned by gate agents and security personnel. It's reported to be a two-dimensional encrypted bar code, which is much tougher to copy than the one-dimensional bar code used by many airlines for boarding passes printed online, so T.S.A. is expected to embrace the technology. The two-dimensional version looks more like the snow on a television screen that has lost its signal.

I appreciate that the U.S. isn't the first to use this technology . . . Air Canada has been using electronic it since last September, and Japan Airlines, Scandinavian Airlines and Spanair are using it or something similar, as well.

But they aren't the countries with the big target painted around each of their major airports either, are they?

This sounds a whole lot like more of an administrative cost-cutting measure for the airlines (both in terms of supplies and employees) than it does a convenience for travelers.

What do you think?

THIS CANNOT BE REAL! TSA - DHS Site has been hacked!

THIS CANNOT BE REAL. There's no way that a bureaucracy-laden government agency gets it . . .

I happened across a New York Times Article that covered what they purported to be a blog that was sponsored by the Transportation Safety Administration. The article claimed that the site has links to independent bloggers and real news reports, including negative ones. Allegedly, the site even allows anonymous posters and publicly-viewable comments.

"A whole lot of our employees are really anxious to engage with the public," Mr. Hawley, the Director of the TSA was "quoted" as saying. The NYT writer reported that after the blog went up on Jan. 30, many reader responses were angry and sarcastic. But later, a greater sense of civil discussion set in.

Here's a look at the alleged blog, in case you are inclined to assist me with my quest to root out the real owner. It's called Evolution of Security, and claims "This blog is sponsored by the Transportation Security Administration to facilitate an ongoing dialogue on innovations in security, technology and the checkpoint screening process."

P-Lease . . . do they expect us to believe this nonsense? Having spent several years working in one government position or another, I can tell you that the last thing any government agency wants is to hear what their "customers" think about their "service." It's not like they need to make anyone happy. What would we do if we didn't lke the "service" we got from the TSA -- go to another airport in another country?

OK, just for the sake of argument, let's pretend that a government employee did ask permission to run with a public blog. The process for approval is so archaic with the government that you literally would rather try to get God and Congress to agree on something. Form after form, approved by no less than five levels of leadership, would have to be completed, reviewed, returned, and resubmitted. The Internet hasn't been around long enough for this to have received approval -- especially in an election year!

And then we're talking the likelihood of accuracy for those posting -- the "meet our bloggers" section shows that none have more than 5 years with the organization. R-i-g-h-t!!!

The URL appears to be spoofed to http://www.tsa.dhs.gov/blog/index.shtm, but I have friendly hackers who are checking into the validity of this. It is also possible that the DHS site itself has been hacked, but I think there would be a little more craziness posted . . . and wouldn't the media have covered this by now? Slashdot covered an incident like this at LAX TSA about a month ago. I wonder why they haven't done a follow-up! Others in the blogosphere have hit on this, but they appear to be buying into the cover-up.

As a taxpayer, I hope that our federal law enforcement agencies swoop down on the perpetrator of this fraudulent site. As a periodic flier, I would love to believe that the crappy attitudes we find so often on the other end of the x-ray machine might somehow change for the good. As someone who believes in the power of The Relationship Economy, I hope that the corporate world takes a serious look at the hurdles they will need to overcome and uses this as an challenge!

This can't be real . . . can it?

What do you think?